Eilat, Israel (March 28-29)

Eilat

We left Dahab excited to see the rest of Egypt. A minivan was leaving just after lunch and would arrive in Cairo in the early evening. At the first border check, we were enlightened to the fact that there was a division between the Sinai and the rest of Egypt, everyones passports were checked. It seems that Egypt has allowed the southern area of the Sinai easy access for the Israelis and others to enter with a 15 day visa. To actually enter the rest of Eypyt one has to acquire a full Visa with pictures and authorization from an Egyptian Embassy.

To our surprise we did not possess the correct visa as well as our Visa was one day over the expiry date, so were not allowed into the rest of Egypt. Luckily at this point the passport checkpoint was only a few km from the border of Israel to Eilat so the driver kindly, although not happily, scooted us over there. Once at the border we attempted to enter without a Visa but the authorities were not prepared to do so.

So we marched back to Israel for one night. Somehow this did not annoy us to much as we all loved Israel and it did mean we could have a final bagel and cream cheese breakfast and maybe some good swarma and homous.

By 1pm the next day, because the Embassy was not busy in any way, we had the Visas and were heading back to Egypt.

Driving through the Sinai Desert with a madman

Another mini bus ride through the Sinai Desert with the maddest driver we have ever experienced, he prefered to drive at lightning speeds in the oncoming traffic lane until a vehicle approached to which he would swerve back to the correct lane, landed us in Cairo at mindnight that night.

Liana