Saturday (4-April-2009) evening we take a 5 hour bus from Tel Aviv to Eilat, arriving around 11pm (70 nis each). We spent the night as well as the next day in Eilat. While there we met up with Brandon and his mom, conveniently they were staying maybe 200m down the street at the Hilton which was an insanely beautiful hotel. We spent a little time on the beach which had a beautiful view of the surrounding mountains. Normally my posts wouldn't include stuff like this, but it was so noticeable that I have to. The girls/women in Eilat were absolutely breathtaking. I have never seen so many attractive women in one place. Wow.
A picture of me and brandon since i didn't actually meet any of the beautiful women
The most exciting part of this trip was our plans to go to Egypt Sunday (5-april-09) night. Unfortunately though, it was impossible to find a bus schedule to Egypt in Israel. After much searching, I found a guy at a tourist agency who had spoken to the Egyptian embassy recently. He told us there are daily busses at 1030am and 430pm every day (the time of the conversation was 230pm). We decided finish up at the beach and try to make the 430 bus. We ended up hurrying and taking a cab to the Egyptian border. We cross the border on foot, going through lots checks (money transfer, Israeli exit tax of 90nis, visa checks, passport checks. BUT we made it across without much hassle. We then grab a cab to go the 1km because the bus was supposed to leave in 10 minutes and we didn't want to risk missing the bus by walking the short distance too slowly. After getting to the bus station we find out that Egypt is 1 hour behind Israel and we thus have more than enough time to make it to the bus.
Walking to the Israeli/Egyptian Boarder
We made it through the border crossing!!!
While looking into the bus we are bombarded by a guy who wanted us to take his “small bus” which was basically a four row van. We bargained down from 300 LE to 250 LE for the three of us combined. The bus was going to be 195LE for all three, so it wasn't that much more for what we thought was going to be a quicker and more comfortable ride. I'm not saying that these thoughts were wrong, but they were wrong. First, our driver began by driving around for an hour trying to pick up other fares and get some gas of course. We then finally get on our way and start to enjoy a beautiful and terrifying ride.
Our chariot.
Inside the chariot (still enjoying the relaxing part of the ride)
During the ride we are flying down the bumpy road, just the three of us and the driver for a while. The speed of the ride was only a taste as to what the rest of the ride was going to be like. At one point sam and pavel were sleeping, we round a corner and all the sudden, in front of the car, were a herd of camels (approximately 8 of em). I scream with laughter because camels in the road is so stereotypically hilarious. Sam and Pavel looked more startled as the car swerved around our roadblocks at what must have been in excess of 100kph.
I couldn't get my camera around in time for the camel roadblocks, so this is just one of the nice views from the beginning of the ride. after the first hour all we saw was dessert.
During the rest of the ride we just were cruising along. It was going so well that sam commented “this is great especially since it's just the three of us. Approximately 5 minutes later, we pull over to the side of the road and pick up no less than 10 Egyptian guys so we're all packed in there. They were very nice and offered us each some cigarettes before lighting up themselves. So for a majority of the rest of the 4 hours left we were sharing our minibus with an assortment of Egyptians who just so happened to be chain smokers (we later found out that a vast majority of males in Egypt smoke cigarettes.
We eventually get to Cairo and are dropped off at the minibus station. At this point it's about 11 at night and we have no idea where we are in relation to our hostel, which we actually didn't even have booked for that night. We find a cab and get completely ripped off to take us to our hostel. We were told that he knew where it was, but he ended up dropping us off in the general area. So now it's after 11 at night and we're wandering around trying to find our hostel at first, and then just any place at all. We do end up wandering into a hostel after about 20 minutes of looking. It looked nice and clean and was very cheap, so we stayed there. Besides the lack of hot water that first night, I have no complaints. That was until sometime in the middle of the night, Big Fat Pavel decides to break his bed. The wooden slats that his mattress is laying on start falling out one by one with a CRASH each time. Sam and I wake up with what sounds like pavel throwing wood around the room, but apparently he was just trying to fix his bed. Sam and I decided to help, by just going back to sleep. Pavel eventually just put his mattress on the floor and went to sleep (luckily a wooden floor is not much different from a bed with wooden slats).
the left bed is what was left of Pavel's "sleepwalking"
many more posts on Egypt to come. What a crazy and awesome journey but I'm happy to be back in Israel.
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