Longest border crossing: Into Egypt at last

This morning, while having breakfast, Kamal arrived at the hotel. Last night we contacted a new broker (or fixer) since Kamal didn’t sound too interested in helping us today. He must have caught wind that we’ve found someone else, because today he was very eager to help. We first had to make four copies of our passports and a copy of our visas. Then we got a taxi and went to the port. Apparently the barge was 10 minutes away.

Big boys filling the taxi:

At the gate the guards wouldn’t let us into the port until Kamal arrived who said we should pay them 20 EP each. When we got to the docks we were met by the most beautiful sight.

Two Motomias:

And three Amaroks:

Unloading the Amaroks took some crafty ramp positioning since the dock is at an angle to the barge:

The Motomias were easy (with the help of Andre and a couple of barge-men of course) since they weigh only 110 kg each:

Kamal instructed us to pay the captain 10 EP baksheesh. With all the vehicles on terra firma, we visited Mr Hammam in his customs office. He was very friendly and Johan knew him from their trip to Cairo five years ago. He stamped the carnets one by one and filled out the necessary documentation. He was polite to ask each of us where in our passports we want his stamp. Afterwards Kamal told us to each pay Mr Hammam 550 EP. You don’t get a receipt for this! Then we needed to pay 50 EP baksheesh to another man we haven’t seen before and who didn’t do anything. I told Kamal we’ll pay him, but deduct the amount from his fee. He reduced the baksheesh to 20 EP.

While we were waiting for the customs stamp, Kamal went to fetch the traffic officer and the engineer. The former checked the vehicles’ papers and the latter traced the engine and VIN numbers on carbon paper. Thereafter they were off again to Aswan to get the Egyptian number plates. 150 EP for the bikes and 250 EP for the cars.

In the meantime the Voetspore team sorted a problem with one of the cars and cleaned the luggage compartments in the rear where a mouse or rat did his/her damage for the past couple of weeks. They set up an awning and made everyone coffee:

Tania updates her diary, sitting on her Motomia because she missed it so much:

When Kamal returned for the last time he brought our number plates and licences. We paid his fee of 50 USD for the two bikes:

The whole process only took four hours (if you ignore the five days we waited in Aswan). Not bad! It was great to be reunited with the Motomias again and we’ll be heading towards Luxor and into the Western Desert tomorrow.

We can’t wait! Ps. I won’t post a photo again, but we are now witnessing our eight (standard issue) wedding from our hotel room. 🙂