We woke up this morning anxious about whether we would be able to get everything done in time. We immediately got to work on the last minute packing and boat situating stuff. We are happy to report that when we were all ready to go, we still had a couple hours to kill, so we went to lunch at the hotel.

Our “limo” turned out to be a Mitsubishi compact sedan with a back seat so small that only a small child could squeeze back there with us. Apparently, the word “limo” means “chaufferred car” to the Egyptians. The car was decorated with gray fuzzy covers for the dashboard, steering wheel and stick shift, black and white seat covers, a few stuffed animals, stickers and other decorative paraphernalia. The driver didn’t speak much English.

We headed north along the coast. We knew Port Ghalib is isolated. It took 45 minutes to get to the nearest town. Beyond that, there were only 3 or 4 more towns between Ghalib and Cairo. In between the towns there are several small pockets of development here and there, some resorts, some commercial industry. But for the most part, it was mile after mile of endless desert. The scenery is much the same as Oman. Gently rolling mounds of dirt and sand, with just a few scrubby desert plants around. To our left were large mountains, looking as barren as the landscape directly around us. To our right, the dirt melds into beautiful, blue ocean that merges with the sky in the horizon. Like Oman, the roads are nice and well maintained.

The drive itself was something of an adventure. The car has an alarm that goes off every time the driver goes beyond the speed limit of 120 kilometers per hour. Our driver broke the speed limit the majority of the time, and seemed to be completely oblivious to the angry beeping the car was making. The beeping was driving us berserk. Despite the annoying beeping, we are thankful we had a local driving us. First of all, there aren’t many signs in English, so we would have easily gotten lost. Secondly, there were several military checkpoints, with gun men in towers with weapons trained on you, and more armed military on the ground. We were only stopped and questioned once, the rest of the times we were just waved through. We are sure we were waved through because our driver is a local. If we had been alone, we probably would have been stopped at every check point and harassed. Third, there were a number of speed bumps in the middle of the freeway. Our driver seemed to know where they all are and always slowed down for them. We would have had no clue the speed bumps were coming and would have hit them at full speed. Fourth, there is an interesting signal system in Egypt between drivers using headlights and turn signals. We didn’t catch it all, but we did comprehend that when you approach a car from behind, they will signal right if it is safe to pass, left if it is not. So, you have cars overtaking one another on blind curves and hills. It is terrifying. There were a few times we thought we were going to die in a blind passing situation involving inaccurate “safe” signals. When a particular driver does not signal, the cars around him use angry hand gestures.

We reached Cairo after only 6 hours, thanks to our driver thinking his sedan is a sports car. It was already dark. We could see almost a visible line of bright city lights up ahead. As we approached the line of lights, the 4 lane highway became an 8 lane freeway very similar to Southern California, including the high walls on the side of the road that keep you from being able to see the city you are passing through. It took another 45 minutes to get through town to the airport. We got off the freeway near the airport. The driver clearly didn’t know where to go, and was yelling at passing cars for directions, and stopped a couple times in the middle of the road to get directions. The other drivers on the road were just as crazy, doing things like making right turns from the left hand lane and driving on the lines instead of between them. After several requests for directions, (and we think, but are not sure, some driving in circles), we made it to the airport. The roads are odd and inconsistent, so we can’t blame the driver for getting lost. On the airport grounds, we drove in circles some more, this time around construction, until we were finally delivered safely to the terminal.

We got out of the car and the driver put our luggage on the curb. A local aggressively volunteered to take our bags inside for us. He moved our small, light bags about 10 feet from the curb to just inside the entrance to the airport. He held out his hand for a tip. Eric gave him a couple of Egyptian pounds (40 cents USD), which is considered a suitable tip in a country where the average person only makes $80 USD a month. He demanded more money. Eric pulled out his wallet and handed the guy USD$1.00. He demanded even more money, insisting on a USD$50 bill he saw in Eric’s wallet. Eric got mad and we walked away. We had been forewarned that no matter how much money you offer as a tip, the receiver always acts insulted and demands more. But nothing like that ever happened to us in Port Ghalib, so we had kind of forgotten the warnings and were caught a little off guard.

After walking into the terminal, it was clear why they are building. The terminal we were in is poorly laid out and kind of frustrating. There is a pre-gate security checkpoint you have to go through to get to the flight check in counters, and you are not allowed to go through until a couple hours before the flight. The pre-gate area was cold, dirty and full of mosquitos. The bathrooms were almost impossible to find. Eric asked a number of people, all of whom told him to go different places, none of which was the bathroom. He finally found a guy who led him to the bathroom, then demanded money for his efforts. The bathroom was disgusting. We were so happy when they finally let us into the terminal, where it was still confusing and cold, but cleaner and mosquito free.

We are happy to report that the flights and car rides home were uneventful. Overall the trip took us 37 hours from Port Ghalib to where we were staying in California. What is interesting about this number is it is almost exactly 1/100 of the time it took us to go from California to Egypt via Kosmos.