And we had foolishly considered that the trip was over, with the merest loose ends to tie up.
The desert had something further to throw at us, on our last little outing to El Saloum to say goodbye to the bikes and pick up the remainder of our gear. For it is dust-storming. The keyboard on my once sparklingly new laptop is caked in an unprecedented amount of the stuff, the screen had so much dust when I wiped it away with my finger the surplus started cascading downwards. I can see the buildings across the street but not much more than that, the sea, only a couple hundred metres away, is just a darkening of the all enveloping cloud. We've been attempting to get a taxi to go the last 10km or so to the border post, but taxis have appeared to stop running, hopefully just taking a lunch break (a store person hinted at that possibility, in Arabic, so it's a bit of a guess), rather than because of the storm, because that doesn't look like it's going away in a hurry.
Our plan regarding the bikes has changed again. Turns out bringing them back to Australia is not only not possible, it's also illegal. So not only would we have the expense of sending them back to Oz (bad), we then wouldn't be able to get them (worse) and we'd also be looking at a bit of a stint in the big house (much worse). Not a great outcome. Discovering this is entirely thanks to Matt who had the thought to explore the other end of the transaction as well as the Egyptian. So they're heading back to the UK. And yes, if you're wondering, it's perfectly legal. Not for the first time Aussie customs has come out looking rather severe. We managed to find after a lot of trying what appears to be a great company, Beta Cargo, who have been everything we've needed, except their annoying habit of requesting us to extend our Egypt visit every time there's a hiccup (they say, 'oh no, you'll have to change your flight to stay another week', and we'll say 'but what if we do this?' and they will reply 'oh, that would be ok'. We're not staying any longer). It seems that the wheels are basically in motion, we just need to get up to the border post.
This storm is starting to lose its novelty. Judging from the reactions of the locals, it seems to be particularly bad. Exasperatingly it just seems to be getting worse.
I've spent the last few days in Cairo. Matt had a pleasing boat trip on the Nile, and managed to see the really good spots, Karnak and the valley of the kings, but although there was another day of the tour, Matt decided this was purely filler, and 'pulled the pin', jumping on a train back to Cairo. Perhaps he felt bad about leaving me to do the logistics while he was supping martinis on the sundeck of an super-lux cruise boat. I tried to reassure him that his enjoying of the marvels of antiquity was the priority, but eventually he was no doubt falling prey, as I am, to the perils of a long, intense, trip. We're kind of over it. Really looking forward to getting back, Matt's eyes already see Lisa, it's increasingly hard to get his attention. I'm enthusing about sitting in my room by myself staring at the wall and wondering how it came to this. Seriously though, nothing better than a couple of aleskies, at 'The Local' perhaps.
Ok, Part B. I'm waiting by the baggage in Egyptian customs while Matthew has kindly gone off to resolve the bike issue. It's taking a long time because I suspect the border guards hope to be getting something out of it. It's not complicated but these guys love the complicated transaction, the more people involved the better. In the tradition of few things passing smoothly on the trip, the dust storm has knocked out the mobile network, a rather key piece to our plan as our shipping agent had planned to talk to the customs officials to smooth things over. Matthew is currently off with an official to find a phone that works. We get the gear and then get out of here. On a positive note, the storm seems to be abating.
Part C.
Well, I can't say I'm feeling that great. We think we might have a problem with the police. When we left the border post, we felt lucky to be free, but while sitting waiting for the bus we started to think that the long arm of the border guards might extend down to El Saloum, and indeed, it did. While sitting on the bus a policeman came on board, and asked about us, checked our tickets, checked that we were going to Cairo. He then left, claiming everything was ok. So far not too bad, but we had a 50 minute wait before the bus left that wasn't comfortable. The bus was pulling away and then stopped, and the policeman got on again. This time he was staying on. So now he's still here. We're getting across the desert, ever closer to Cairo, but he ominously warned that he wasn't going as far as Cairo. I really hope we get there.
No comments:
Post a Comment