2009 Egypt – Summer-Ends.de

Kategorie: 2009 Egypt

Report about a three day short trip to Egypt in January 2009 by plane from Berlin to Cairo. Within Cairo on foot by bus and subway to the Pyramids, Tahir Square and the Egyptian Museum. By train to Alexandria and by minibus to El Fayoum. At that time Mubarrak was still in office and was to be overthrown some years later in a bloody revolution in the context of the Arab spring. Immediately after our visit there was also a bomb attack in Cairo. There was a military presence everywhere. At all possible points there were MG nests. The Touri buses had armed guards. Nevertheless we never felt really insecure, except in this one corner in Alexandria, which was harmless.

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2009 Egypt – Day 1 – Cairo

Actually this trip had been planned differently, but R. jumped in to briefly explore Egypt. The flight to Cairo departed around 0100 from Berlin Tempelhof airport, where we had parked the car somewhere nearby. That was of course quite a stupid time for a flight to get somewhere. The flight lasted about 4 hours and went over Eastern Europe and then always along the Nile. Although it was dark, it looked quite interesting from above with all the lights and roads. The entry procedure consisted of some fee, the delivery of a photo and something that was attached to the perso. Outside we were picked up by someone and taken to the hotel. On the drive through the whole of Cairo one saw again and again entrenched guards on the streets and at the corners.

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2009 Egypt – Day 2 – Alexandria

At some point we decided to make a detour to Alexandria. The only option is the train, which is why we started early on our way to the station. Coming from Gizah we took the bus which brought us directly to the station. In the station there was a ticket counter and somehow we could make ourselves understandable and got two tickets for the next train to Alexandria. The train waited already at the track so that we could get on after a cigarette break immediately. Sometime the train departed and went forever through Cairo and the suburbs of Cairo along the Nile delta to the north to the coast.

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2009 Egypt – Day 3 – El Fayoum

We got up again pretty early to see something. Somehow we had the idea to drive to Al Fayum, but I don’t know if we decided to do it in the evening or spontaneously after leaving the hotel when we saw the minibuses at one corner. In retrospect it seems to me that we had done this quite spontaneously. Not far from our hotel in direction south was a big roundabout in which many such small buses stopped. At the roundabout there was of course also again such a MG contactor position.