Archive for Mai 2009
Egypt, day 1
Posted on Mittwoch, Mai 27, 2009 at 5:27 PM by Reka
On the 27th of April we (my friends Iris and Walter and I) started out for Luxor via Munich and Cairo. Our first bit of culture shock came at the Cairo airport, where we had to change planes for Luxor. We landed and bought our visa in a cool, fairly modern building and went through passport control.
We then asked the way to our connecting flight. "Out the door, then down the right!" was the answer. So out and down the right we went, down a dirty sidewalk to another more decrepit building. We were greeted at the door by a gruff cry of "Tickets!!" from the policeman in charge of the x-ray machine and metal detector. He was not pleased to see the paper we had printed from the Internet, which didn't look like any "Tickets!!" he knew. "Tickets!! Tickets", he repeated. But we had nothing else, and he finally waved us through while throwing our paper on top of the x-ray machine. It took us a good ten minutes to convince him we needed that oh so insignificant paper to get on the next plane.
Next, we fought our way tooth and nail past various tourist groups whose guides helped them through the intricate steps of the quadrille needed to get tickets and baggage checked for their flight. Unfortunately, our guide was meeting us in Luxor, and we were on our own. After a near clash with a group of German women who didn't realize they were finished and it really was our turn at the counter, we finally got our tickets and got on the plane to Luxor.
We were glad to arrive in Luxor near midnight after being on the road since 9 a.m. When we saw the gleaming white taxis waiting to whisk us to our hotel, we thought we were home free. And when a smiling young man came asking if we needed a taxi and wheeled our bags to the nearest one, we could already see the soft beds waiting for us at the Nile Palace. Ha! We were surrounded in no time by a group of excited men, gesticulating wildly and yelling. The young man with our bags picked up mine and put it in the trunk of the waiting taxi, only to have it pulled out by one of the other men. This happened repeatedly until I got firm hold of it and we threatened to take another taxi. The arguing went on, the group having swelled to some fifteen yelling men, with the young man and me each holding my bag and refusing to let go. Soon I just had to stand back and laugh at the comedy unfolding before us. Things quieted down when another man showed up and quickly settled the situation. Our young man explained that his boss defended him against his friends. "Bah! Friends!" he said contemptuously. It smelled a bit of Egyptian mafia, but as long as we were on the way to our hotel, it didn't really matter. Twenty minutes and a few baksheesh later, those soft beds were finally reality.