Egypt: Free at last!

(This is Rich and I at the Djoser Pyramid.)

Holy hell. We made it. But we almost didn't. First off, our cab dropped us off at the wrong airport, which resulted in us having to take not one, not two, but THREE airport shuttles to get to the correct terminal (which makes perfect sense because the terminal was a whole mile away).

When we finally got to the check-in counter, our agent was already in the middle of a nervous breakdown. She took 20 min. just to type our names in the computer. Once she finally printed our tickets we made a mad dash to Immigration. As we were standing in line at Passport Control giving thanks to God for still being able to make the flight (and that may have been our critical error since after all, we were still in Allah's country), we got pulled out of line.

The agent wordlessly pulled us aside (mind you it's 2:00am and our flight boards in 30 minutes), took our passports and tickets, said, "Wait here, five minutes" and disappeared. After 15 minutes passed we began to worry. I walked over to the supervisor's office and began miming that our plane was about to leave. The supervisor dismissively waved his hand at me and said, "Wait five minutes." Another 15 minutes passed and then I really began to worry. At this point, Immigration was totally deserted so there was no one to ask for help (or notice if we were bagged and taken away). So again I asked the supervisor what the hell was going on (well, not in those words exactly since life in prison doesn't really suit me). Without even looking up the supervisor barked, "Wait five minutes".

Since our passports and visas had passed inspection a dozen times previously, we could not figure out why we were being detained. Did we look like drug smugglers? Visions of having to spread 'em while the inspectors snapped on rubber gloves flashed through my head (I wasn't too worried about false imprisonment since I donated $15 to Amnesty International in college and figured I could call in the favor if I had to). After another ten minutes passed we were both officially in panic mode- cold sweating, our stomachs in knots. We no longer cared about our stupid plane, now we were just hoping to make it out of the country...someday.

A few minutes later Rich was able to flag down a KLM (our airline) employee to ask if they could help us find out what was going on. There was a brief dialogue in rapid fire Arabic before the agent turned to us and said the equivalent of, "You're screwed." However, a few minutes later he was told that we could run to the gate and that Immigration would meet us there with our passports and tickets and hold the plane.

Now you may recall that since 9-11, in practically every airport around the world, you need to show your passport and ticket to someone approximately every ten feet. Being as our Arabic is limited to "No thank you," "I said no thank you," and "Goddamnit don't you know what NO thank you means?!!!!" this was a problem. We sprinted no more than thirty yards before we were asked by airport security for our tickets and passports. Since it's generally not a wise idea to push past someone carrying an M-16 we screeched to a halt and looked around frantically until we found another KLM employee and had them translate our situation to each security person.

By some miracle our passports and tickets arrived and we made our flight. We have NO idea what happenned (even the KLM employees were baffled) and quite frankly, we no longer care. I am just happy to be home!