Bananas Don't Travel Well

DahabOur escape from Cairo was by bus to the Sinai resort town of Dahab. Not exactly the speediest getaway, the bus was four hours late for an altogether eleven hour journey. The air conditioning couldn’t quite keep up with the heat of the desert, making for a sweaty ride, and Chris was convinced we were being slowly poisoned by a faulty exhaust system. Nonetheless, we had the good fortune to meet Matt, an American on a five month trip through Africa, with whom we spent the next few days in Dahab.

dealing with vulturesI wish I could report that we just slipped easily back into our travelling shoes and breezed through Egypt, but I'm afraid our first week and a half was, um, a bit difficult. In retrospect, Egypt was perhaps not the best place to start. Nothing about it was really a surprise, but we overestimated our ability to deal with the heat, the touting, and the nickle-and-diming. But the experience has forced us to dust off our bargaining skills, take things slowly, and recall a few tricks.

The great pyramids of Giza

The journey from Lisbon to Cairo via Casablanca was supposed to be simple. At check-in we were cheerfully informed that the Casablanca to Cairo flight had been canceled, and would Sir like his bags checked right through to Cairo?

No thank you, just check the bags through to Casablanca please.

After landing in Casablanca we find that our Cairo flight is on schedule. Now, we are in the airport and our luggage is on the carousel in Morocco. It's a good thing that we didn't need visas to enter Morocco because we had to pass immigration to collect our bags and then customs and passport control to catch our flight. In all we maybe spent 20 minutes in Morocco.