Let’s Get the Hell Out of Cairo!

We knew that our journey from Turkey to Tanzania would be long, but we were not nearly expecting the madness awaiting us in the airport at Cairo, our stopover. First, the plane’s electronic readout was set to Turkish time (one hour ahead of Egyptian time), ant the plane had been at least an hour late in taking off, so we got to watch a clock for an hour and a half thinking that we would miss our connection. This would cause quite a problem, considering that someone would be waiting to pick us up in Dar es Salaam, where we were expecting to be transferred to a bus that would take us 8 hours to Moshi where someone else would be waiting to pick us up. Panicked, I asked one of the flight attendants for help, and he called ahead; when he returned, he said that they would hold the plane, but we waited another 20 minutes for a shuttle after we landed.

Starting to really panic, we sprinted off the shuttle into the terminal, where signs for our gate seemed to be posted in all four different directions! Around us, a giant group of people were screaming angrily at the Egypt Air ticket counter–it looked like a riot could break out at any moment, and Egypt is still supposed to be pretty unstable after the revolution last year–in fact, we had scratched Egypt from our itinerary because the protests and coup took place a week before we purchased airline tickets. Anyway, we finally got our bearings on our own (it’s not like we could tap someone on the shoulder and politely whisper, “Excuse me, I see that you are busy threatening this worker’s children, but which way is Gate G…”), and Sarah discovered our error in calculating time–we still had half an hour!

No sooner had we turned the corner into the right area, we encountered another angry crowd, this time at security. The machines were broken, and no less than 8 different people were standing around pushing the same broken button repeatedly and expecting different results. All of the passengers were screaming and pleading for them to do something, but the workers would reply in their own screams before returning to the same broken button. I found an airline agent and showed him that we were now 10 minutes from take-off time, and he moved us to the front of the crowd. Finally, they gave in and began checking some bags by hand while allowing others to pass freely.

Upon sprinting into the gate, we came face to face with several hundred people crowded into the waiting area, including another large group screaming mercilessly at the Egypt Air workers. Fists were waving, and anger was in the air! After all that panic, we learned that no planes were even taking off! The irate group had been waiting 6 hours. I heard rumors of a ground workers’ strike, but we never did hear what the deal was for sure. It looked like the scene could turn violent at any moment, but after about an hour, they began to move people. Needless to say, the moment we took off was a huge relief–neither of us thought we were getting out of Egypt that night!

After a blissfully uneventful flight, we were very glad to find that a man named Mohammed had waited the extra two hours for us at the Dar es Salaam airport. He drove us to the bus station, changed some money for us at the official rate, and helped us find our bus. Dar es Salaam is safe, but the bus station is really crowded and confusing, so it was a huge relief to have Mohammed’s help.

The bus ride took all day, although the seats were comfortable, and we were given soda and water along the way. We made a new friend, a cute little African girl who enjoyed making faces with us. After lunch, however, we hit yet another snag when we had to visit the local police station because someone had stolen a laptop. They found it on the bus after they had ordered us all off and were searching our bags, but it had been removed from its case and hidden. The suspect was a passenger on the bus, and so they did a full investigation and arrested him; all of this took another extra hour and a half, thus jeopardizing yet another meeting time for us in Moshi. Luckily, our agent Castro, stuck it out, and we were finally checked into our hotel a mere 25 hours after leaving Istanbul. I was utterly amazed that we had made every single connection and arrived with all of our bags to boot after all of those snags–it had been the most challenging travel of the trip so far.

After a refreshing shower, we talked business with Castro and immediately learned that there had been miscommunication about payment methods, and using Visa (our debit cards) was not really an option because of commission fees and time delays for his him in Tanzania. He helped us come up with a plan to pay our park fees with our card at the entrance; this was a large portion of the climb fees. He would also break up our payments separately for the climb and the safari, and we would pay in Tanzanian shillings instead of US dollars, which would eliminated the need to lose exchange rates. So, off we went that night to the ATM, where we withdrew over a million–yes a million–Tanzanian shillings before returning to the hotel. We would actually need to repeat this process the next day in order to get enough cash to pay for the climb. Finally, we ordered some dinner at the hotel, and an hour later, crawled into bed around 27 hours after beginning this part of the journey. Utterly exhausted, we were seriously thankful to be leaving civilization the following day. Before going to bed, I asked Sarah if she still wished that we hadn’t scratched Egypt from our plans, and I received a quick but decisive, “Hell No”!