Sudan to Egypt 24 Time for a beer

 A few minutes later, he was back with our friend the colonel in tow, who soon had us out of the dock and on our way into the city.

Not the most relaxed entry to Egypt that we could have had, but honestly, considering how long we’d been awake (not really counting an hour or two on the boat) and the amount of needless bureaucracy that we were encountering, I’m not surprised that we were both feeling irate with the whole process. Time for a beer.

(to be continued)

Sudan to Egypt 23 Pointless Delays

 Nope, still not going anywhere. What, you want to leave the port? How about instead you spend over an hour sitting in front of the locked exit gate? How does that sound?

As you can probably imagine, we weren’t too happy by this point at all of the pointless delays that we were encountering. I pestered a few police officers until we were able to find out what the hold up was – apparently, someone had lost their passport. So everyone else had to wait. Of course, that makes perfect sense. I complained at the only officer who’d been helpful so far, and he said to leave it with him.

(to be continued)

Sudan to Egypt 22 Confusion

 They kept asking if my visa from last time was my new one, no matter how many times I told them I needed to buy one. In the end, they stamped me in, and as they didn’t have any stickers, added a note to the stamp in Arabic that said to issue me the sticker and take payment in Cairo. 

Ruth had an e-visa, and we were pretty sure this must have been the first time anyone had come through this particularly checkpoint with one from the amount of confusion that that caused them. But, stamps obtained, we could finally head out into Aswan.

(to be continued)

Sudan to Egypt 2 And wait And wait

 No chance, of course. We went to the counter and were told to take a seat and wait. And wait. And wait. Eventually, the colonel from the boat turned up with the passports – for all that he’d said it’d be quicker, we could definitely have been done and out of there by the time he arrived. Still, though, once he did arrive he ordered the guys working there to process ours first, with all of the confusion that that involved.

(to be continued)

Sudan to Egypt 20 Secondary Check

 Eventually, though, we docked. We waited for the rush to pass, then made our way off the boat into the dock. We joined the massive queue heading for the security check, only to be pulled aside by one of the soldiers and escorted to the front again. 

There was a secondary check after the scanners where they were interested in any medication that people were bringing in to the country, and then we were done. Just need to quickly pick up the passport and we’d be on our way.

(to be continued)