Getting to Cairo

For holiday Kelly and I decided to go to Cairo, Egypt despite the residual revolutionary unrest and upcoming elections. The trip started when we confused our flight date; only realizing the day before that we were flying out on the Monday not the Tuesday after school ended. Whoops.

So we packed that night and the next morning headed off to the shuttle stop around 7:30 in the morning. We managed to get a deal on the bus because one of the other teachers used to date someone who knows one of the drivers. (That’s how things work) The bus drove for a few hours before we reached the Tanzanian/Kenyan border. At that point we had to get out, get passports stamped and pay for visas ect. and walk across the border. (for some reason you can’t cross the border in a vehicle; you must walk it) We then got back on the bus and finished our 5 hour drive to the airport in Nairobi.

The shuttle conveniently drops you off at the airport so we hung out until it was time for us to check in at around 6pm. We get to the ticket counter and all was going well, when the airport guy realizes that Kelly doesn’t have her yellow vaccination card. End of the world. We can’t leave Kenya until she runs across the street, up some stairs, and lets some lady stab her with a syringe full of vaccination.

So Kelly wanders off to end up bribing the vaccination lady to write her the card without giving her a shot. (I mean, she already had the shot just not the card so it was not really a health hazard.) While she did that I waited around and dealt with the issues that arose from booking our tickets with a credit card.

Finally we were able to get our tickets, get through security and board the plane. The flight from Nairobi to Addis was short and uneventful. I just read my kindle the whole way.

We ended up at the good part of the Addis airport. Thank god. Last time I flew through Addis it was the crappy part that had no food no chairs and toilets that were all clogged and lacking toilet seats. Rough dude. This time we went through the bit with three story plate glass windows, cushy chairs (ok that’s a lie, they might not have been cushy but at least there were chairs) shops and food.

We got on our flight to Cairo and I think it has the smallest amount leg room of any flight I’ve ever been on. It didn’t help that it lasted from 11pm to 2am. And I do not sleep on planes. I always end up dozing off and then waking up in a panic at every little bump and jar.

We got off in Cairo and went through the visa nonsense and then expected to meet the driver that Kelly’s friend Ryan said he’s send for us. We waited, and waited, and waited for 45 minutes or an hour and then gave up and go a taxi ourselves to his apartment. Although he said he knew where the place was, he had to stop on virtually every street corner as we got closer and scream out for directions. (We’ve come to find that’s pretty common here.) The taxi driver was a smidge insane; he talked the whole time about how each building we saw, was another of Mubarak’s palaces and then pointing out various places on the road where bad guys might be lurking to make him pull over, steal his money, and hold the car hostage for lots of money, because “it’s a nice car. very expensive.”

We got to Ryan’s apartment at 4 in the morning and Kelly banged on the door until someone opened it. (She scared the shit out of Ryan’s roommate in the process.) Turns out Ryan was under the impression that we were coming the next night….whoops all around. We then settled on the couches to get some very needed sleep.