Day 4 - Thursday
8:00 : First sign of Aswan, Egypt.
9:00 : The boat arrives. We are stopping in the bay. Not sure what's going on.
10:00 : The doctors are on board. They are checking every passenger for H1N1 virus. There are about 300 people on the boat.
12:00 : The custom officers are on board. They are checking every passport. It is taking forever.
14:00 : They start letting the passengers out, one by one, after calling their name from a list.
If they don't find the person, the process stops. This is going to take the rest of the day.
14:15 : There are about 15 workers from the cleaning crew who want to get inside the boat.
They are arguing with the customs outside.
14:30 : The custom officer who is calling name is getting angry. He can't walk around the motorcycles.
14:45 : He orders us to take the motorcycle out. This is our chance. We grab our bags too.
15:00 : We get the first motorcycle out. The custom guys are pushing people back inside the boat.
15:15 : We get the second motorcycle out. The cleaning crew is pushing the custom officers back inside the boat which is then pushing passengers back against the bikes (and us).
15:30 : We are trying to get the third motorcycle out. The cleaning crew is rushing inside, the Sudanese are trying to get out the boat, the custom officers are yelling and we are holding the bike. All Hell breaks loose.
15:35 : Everyone is pushing each other. It's pure chaos. The cleaning guys are getting into a fight with the bikers.
15:40 : We finally got a third bike out. Someone stole Alex's wallet.
The captain will find it later - with no more money in it.
15:45 : The last bike is in a corner. We make a plan. We get the bike out.
The custom guys now want us to go back inside the boat as he hasn't reached our names yet on the list. No way.
We are not getting back in there. We argue and he finally let 4 of us go. The other ones have to go back to get their luggage. We won't see them again that day...
16:00 : We met Mr. Amman, the custom officer who is in charge of stamping our carnet. My carnet is technically not legal for Egypt. I really need to be friend with him or else I am in big trouble and my car will end up like this one we saw in the parking lot.
We also met Kamal, the taxi driver who will help us with the paperwork. So far so good. He let us out.
16:30 : We are officially in Egypt - but without my truck. It is on the barge that should arrive tomorrow.
Day 5 : Friday
9:00 : Friday is a weekend day in Egypt. Everything is close. We relaxed and checked out the town.
Day 6: Saturday
8:30 : Kamal arrived at our hotel to pick us up. We all crammed in his 1956 Peugeot Station Wagon.
There are 9 of us (Brian and his wife, Marc and I, the 4 bikers and the driver).
It's hot in there.
9:00 : We all go to the police station with Kamal. There are various fees and windows to get to. It is the big building in the background.
Eventually after spending about 50 pounds each we get a stack of papers all written in Arabic.
10:00 : Kamal needs to pick up Mr. Amman, the custom guy. He needs to get another taxi.
Even though there are hundreds of taxi in town, we have to wait for his friend to arrive.
Mr. Amman is not answering his phone. It seems like he is still sleeping.
Kamal seems like is high on something.
It's most likely the diesel fume from his car. We have to convince him to turn the engine off.
10:30 : Kamal's friend arrives. Half of us goes with him to the port while the other half is still waiting for Mr. Amman.
11:00 : We get to the port. We are waiting for Kamal and Mr. Amman to arrive.
11:30 : They arrive. We get into the custom.
We tried to see if our barge has arrived but no sign of it.
Marc and Diana go back to the hotel.
12:00 : Mr. Amman starts the paperwork for the bikers. He can't see very well. He puts his face about 2 inches away from the carnet. That's good news for me. He won't be able to see that my carnet is not valid.
13:00 : They are finished with the carnet for the 4 bikers. Apparently our cars will arrive at either 14:00 today or tomorrow. Inch'Allah. They can't do anything more for us as they need the car to be there to check the chassis number before proceeding further. Brian and I go back to the hotel.
18:00 : The bikers come back. They were not able to get their bikes today. Mr. Amman put an incorrect date somewhere so they had to go back to the customs to fix it. They are pissed.