Dec 18 - Taxi picks us up at 8:00 for the 45-minute drive to Nuweiba. The drive goes along a canyon that parallels the coast, but lined by stark, bare mountains. At this hour of the day the light is great for photos, but there is no time to get out and take them. Go through the expected hassles at checkpoints. For some reason, the driver decides to tell them we are Russians, even though I told him initially where we were from. I figure it doesn’t matter anyway. The erosion in this region is rapid, the valley floor wide and completely flat. In some spots, higher alluvial terraces have been sharply eroded down, leaving the odd sight of bits of horizonal sediments remaining suspended on the steep hillsides.
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Into the port city of Nuweiba. I recognize the AB Maritime ticket office from some online photos, so ask the driver to stop there so I can get the tickets. He seems confused, thinking we should go directly to the port building. But I have researched this detail and know that if we go to the port, they will send us back here anyway.
Sit in an office and buy the tickets, they are LE 1750 or about US $70 each, cash only. Kind of steep for a three-hour ride. Back in the taxi and unload at the port facility building, a vast complex that is completely new from the last time I took this journey. The police are all over us at the front gate, with a detailed examination of passports and tickets. There is no line to get in, so maybe they are bored. The first security check is a real winner. After the x-ray, they get all interested in the coins I have left over from countries visited prior to Egypt. At first, I think they are just looking to confiscate Egyptian coins, but it become clear, after ten minutes, that they are unsure how to categorize the coins from various countries that they can’t read. I can only speculate on why they care, and my guess is that they’ve been told to target ‘antique coins’ and really don’t know have any idea what those types of coins look like. Nothing else in the baggage seems to matter. After a long phone call, and much dithering with his cell phone camera, the inspector scoops them all up and gives them back.
We make the long walk to the vast terminal, which appears vacant and dark. A lot of ‘go here’ and ‘wait here’, which seems excessive considering we are the only people there besides the policeman escorting us. Fill out some short immigration forms and are directed to another vast room, where there is a long line of people waiting at the immigration desk. To my embarrassment, we are waved to the front to process our passports first. Then on to the waiting lounge, yet another huge room with less than 50 people sitting around. Maybe there are are 100 when again we are waved to get up and march out to the bus, a three minute ride to the ferry itself.
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