Safe Travels - April 25

So, if you know our itinerary, you know that we're actually back home safe and sound. Since I wasn't able to post to the blog in real time, I am just going to continue to add blog posts to continue to recap our trip.

Egypt takes the tourist industry very seriously – as they should – it brings on a good deal of money into the country. They take a number of precautions to ensure the safety of travelers, some may be a bit much.

Every tourist site has a metal detector the pyramids at Giza, the various temples and even the Khan el Kahlili market when you enter from the main square. The Egyptian museum has two sets of metal detectors - although the purpose of the second one may primarily be to catch people sneaking in cameras, which are banned from the museum.

Another precaution they take to safeguard foreigners is the “Convoy”. As mentioned before we took the Public Bus from Aswan to Abu Simbel. When you set up a tour via microbus you need to leave at 4:00 am not only to get to the temple before the heat of the day, but because the convoy leaves then it only goes twice a day. The convoy is a police escorted convoy for the tourists. The logic behind it is that in the long stretch of desert there aren’t any police. So to keep foreigners safe from bandits they need the police to protect them. As Lonely Planet points out, now the bandits know exactly what time they can expect lot of tourists! But the Egyptian police (or is it the tourist police – really, they have this) feel it is safer.

I bet you are wondering what happens if you need to travel from Abu Simbel back to Aswan and you’ve missed the last Public Bus of the day… and inadvertently also missed the last convoy heading that direction. Well, my friends, do to our thorough research we have an answer for you.

Greg headed to the temple to check it out and on his way back was able to arrange a microbus to take us back to Aswan. As part of the negotiation Ramadan the policeman said that he would make the arrangements for us to travel. So they came to pick us up at the hotel. We said our goodbyes and loaded into the 14 passenger van that we had to ourselves. About 10 minutes down the road we arrived at the check point. "You're not part of a convoy!" they exclaimed. The driver explained that Ramadan the policeman had 'arranged everything.' "No, no, you must go to the tourist police and pay for someone to go with you." But when we left our hotel proprietor had warned us not to pay any more fees. Greg had Ramadan's phone number so they called him up. After a number of back and forths we headed back to the hotel in Abu Simbel. Ramadan the police man arrived and was talking and walkie-talkie-ing a great deal. While all of this was going on I found a dead ant and showed it to Gavin and Connor. Gavin decided to make the world's first ant sarcophagus! I passed the time by trying to photograph the Mama and Baby camel that came over from the neighbors.

In the end Ramadan talked one of his lackeys into riding to Aswan with us. We had our very own Watchy Watchy man! Watchy Watchy is what our friend Paige called the 'security" guys in the Dominican Republic that stand outside of every establishment with their semi-automatic weapon. This poor guy just sat there for 3 1/2 hours to Aswan and then turned around and sat for another 3 1/2 hours on the way back. So , do you feel safer with a guy in the front seat with a semi-automatic weapon? I'm not sure I did. I wanted to take some photos to document it, but we opted not to take any flash photos.