Dec 14 - Get our free breakfast and talk with a retired Canadian couple who spend much of their time on the road. Then dodge traffic all the way to the Go Bus station at Tahrir Square, north of the Egyptian Museum. Sit in some plastic chairs until a guy shows up and tells us they cost LE 5 to sit in. It is cheap enough that I pay. The minibus shows up at 10:15, and I am pleased to see that there are only five of us in it, meaning it won’t be like a sardine can. The driver seems to be tired and in a sour mood, so we stop for a really long coffee break in Heliopolis.
After this we pass by the expanse that is becoming New Cairo. This massive development, established by decree in 2000 and construction inaugurated by President Abdel Al-Sisi in 2016, is meant to move the administrative component of Cairo out into the desert, to alleviate what has become a polluted and congested mess along the Nile. From the looks of things, a lot of building complexes are complete, and I am told there are perhaps a few more years of construction ahead to make it ‘complete’. It remains to be seen how affordable all this brand new housing will be, hence how many people in Cairo actually have means to move there. Planned cities like this are always a risk, since you can’t just force people to want to go there. Fortunately, unlike Abuja in Nigeria or Yamoussoukro in Côte d’Ivoire, it isn’t out in some unattractively remote area of the country.
As you can imagine, completely constructing a capital city is expensive, and there has been much debate about the affordability of doing this. Egypt is not economically stable, and has borrowed billions of dollars to enact this plan. It is thought that soon Egypt will require a $15 billion bailout from the IMF to fend of the various creditors funding the venture. How long it would take for New Cairo to pay for itself though general improved economic performance and sale/rent of properties is unknown. There have been protests about the new city, as well as other sources of discontent, which is probably why I see so many armored vehicles parked around the downtown area.
The Suez Canal tunnel is quite an experience now. First, I had to walk Odette around a building where the whole bus gets x-rayed. Then, we all get out and put our bags on a table for inspection. The soldier searching them, probably 19 years old, just feels around in them for two seconds and gives me a humored look, as if to say ‘yeah, I know this is bullshit’. Only then do we go under the canal and pop out in the Sinai Peninsula.
We stop yet again for an extended coffee break, and as we stand around the minivan, an Egyptian woman in stays seated and lights a cigarette, filling our transport with smoke. I talk to an older Dutch/French/Spanish woman, traveling by herself, who cites no nationality, just calling herself ‘international’. Like many such people I’ve met before, she just takes in whatever is happening, not really so concerned about what lies ahead on the road.
I am sure we are going all the way around the peninsula and through Sharm-el-Sheikh, because this has always been the ‘secure’ road. To my surprise, we turn east to the road that cuts across it, past St. Catherine’s Monastery. It is a welcome change of scenery to get into the heart of the bare rocky mountains of the Sinai.
It gets dark while we are still in the mountains. Driving in Sinai in the dark is not the greatest, as everyone wants to play the game of flashing their high beams when you are close to passing them. It makes for an exhausting trip. The young Egyptian man in the bus, who is going to Dahab to serve out the rest of his mandatory military service year, says he also does not like to be out on the road at night here. We reach the silent and dark Go Bus station in Dahab at about 19:00, a total trip time of nine hours.
Walk the gear into town and find our hotel. It has a pool but it is very cold, sadly. Organize a trip to a nearby snorkeling beach for tomorrow and eat some low-quality shawarma sandwiches. To my relief, Dahab is a quiet, low-intensity town, lacking completely the massive high rise hotels now infesting Sharm-el-Sheikh and my long-favorite dive spot, Na’ama Bay.
Egypt