10 november 2008, Alexandria, shipping day

Got up at 07.00 and had breakfast at 08.00 and went walking to port no.10. It was not far away from our hotel. Our brooker arrived in time too on his Vespa. The drivers of the cars, except Terence, went into the customs area to do the final custom demands. Our brooker told us that it would take 2 hours...... Maria, Atske and me had about 33 cups of mint tea to obtain our places at the cab drivers café. Then it was 13.00 and we got SMS's from Heert-Jan that they were not finished yet. They had to cope with clerks, bosses, officers, higher clerks, higher bosses, higher ranked officers, etc. So we decided to go to the boulevard and went to the Grand Café, next to the Fishmarket where we had that fabulous dinner last night. We had a few snacks, fruit juice, beer and espresso's. Then we got a SMS that the custom works were finished. We met all together at the Cecil hotel. We met our brooker again, thanked and payed him. There we had lunch (again) and a glass of white wine. It was after 15.30 when we went to the very big Library of Alexandria. That is a new design library and lodges an exposition. I took a carriage and went to the other side of the bay, where the Qaitbay fort is located. First my carriage went to the Abu al-Abbas al-Mursi Mosque. My carriage went along the Ra's à-Tin Palace, which is the former King Farouk's palace. After that there was a big beach and many shipyards. There they only make beatifull wooden boats, that is fishing boats and pleasure boats. We went further through the Anfushi district with all the barber shops, café's, grocery shops, etc. Then along the boulevard with the Court and the Unknown Soldier Tomb back to the Cecil Hotel. The rest of our group had arrived too. We slept for a while and had dinner in a Greec fish restaurant. Poor quality. That is the food, not the company! We went to bed at 23.00 and got up at about 01.00 to get our mini-van to the airport. It was a small airport (ALY) near the centre of Alexandria. I forgot about my famous knife (in Africa the big, black security agent said: I think it is your knife, Sir) ( this was at the airport in the Okavango Delta) and the custom safety people discovered it in my hand luggage. I could put in my suitcase, which was just outside the wall. We took off with Olympic Airways to Athens. There we had to change to Air France and checked in again. Here we said goodbye to Louis and Veronique who took another flight to Paris. Now they discovered a knife in Victor's hand luggage, which was not discovered in Alexandria! He had to check in his hand luggage with his knife and came back to us through custom controle again. Then we boarded and went off to Paris. We flew over Italy's Appenine Mountains and the Alps, where we could see the skiing area in which our appartment is located in Switzerland.

9 november 2008, sunday, delivery of cars, departure

Got up at 06.45 and had breakfast at 07.45. We left for the shipping agent at 08.45. The agent was only a few streets away from our hotel. There we stayed for about 2 hours and we met our broker/brooker. This man should help us to get through customs. With him we went to the harbour and there Maria went together with him into some offices  to get copies, lots of copies and more copies, stamps, new forms to fill multiple (5), permits, more stamps from a high manager, more papers, etc. Many office men, who all have chefs, who have chefs too. And they all wanted to see our papers, passports, car papers etc. And their chefs too. Many layers, much time. And we waited, waited and waited.  At about 2.00 P.M. Terence was choosen to be interrogated by the secret service, our brooker told us he was in big problems and had to answer questions in one of the offices of a high manager of customes. First the asked his name and when Terence said English they answered no "your name" tell us your full name! It took about 1,5 hours and then Terence got the permission to leave in the afternoon and Victor got permission to drive Terence car into the container the next morning. The end of the afternoon Maria and Mr. Ahmed, our brooker, went too the last office and got the two days permit to drive the cars into the terrain of the Port of Alexandria gate numbre 10. Next morning we have to finish the rest because harbour traffic closed at 03.00 P.M. so we went back to the hotel. Terence had to get his plane tomorrow early morning from Cairo. We had a short rest and went for dinner together with Atske and Heert-Jan. We had dinner at the boulevard in the direction of the castle. The Fishmarket restaurant was at the sea shore and we had to choose our own fish, which was prepared for us. Delicious! Only 1000 LE for 5 persons for a 3 course dinner, including wine and beer. After dinner we walked along the seashore back to our hotel.

8 november 2008, saturday, Gizeh-Alexandria

We got up at 06.30 and enjoyed the fantastic view on the pyramids from our balcony. We had breakfast and left at 08.15. To get out of Gizeh was relative easy, because we were at the edge of the city where the road to Alexandria started. We had a refuel stop right away. After some km's we had to pay for the road. Nice motorway and after 100 km we arrived at the point where we had to turn left to the Al Athrun cloyster. We first came through a very busy little town, where the very little 3-wheeled cabs swarmed around us. Not underneath our big 4x4's happily. We arrived in Al Athrun and got a tour from an english speaking copt monk. Here we decided to split the group. One went directly to the hotel in Alexandria and we went with Louis and Veronique to El Alamein. We turned left to El Alamein and had to drive through the desert. It was long and flat with some bushes. In the first part where we turned left there was a lot of real estate development. At last we reached El Alamein where we turned left to the war graves. We passed the German one (a new build castle again like in Tubruq) and stopped for the Italian one. Beautiful design and flowers all around. After that visit we went east again in the direction of Alexandria. We found the War Museum after some time, because it is now surrounded by new buildings. This whole area is new build and it went on until we reached Alexandria. The war museum unfortunately had just closed at 15.00. The tourist poloice man forbidded us to take photo,s. So we went on to Alexanndria. All the roads we planned were in the good driving direction. It was a hecktic drive again with lots of cars, trucks, cabs and busses. But after a while we reached the sea and our Hotel: Cecil. I was glad the roadbook worked out fine. The group with our guide didn't find the hotel directly. We checked in and parked the car at a guarded parking in front of the hotel. We had the farewell dinner at 20.00. Everybody was very tired and we went to bed 22.30.

Gizeh to Alexandria 8 November 2008

Cairo restday

 

Cairo 7 November 2008

 

7 november 2008, Gizeh restday

Got up at 06.30. We had breakfast at 07.30, which was excellent. We left at 08.00 for our visit to the Egyptian Museum. Terence was picked up by a friend from Cairo at 10.00 from the hotel. We drove in a mini-van through the almost empty roads of Gizeh/Cairo, because it was friday, which is more or less a day off for the Egyptians. When we arrived at the museum we were not exactly on our own. Lots of school children, Russians and Japanese. It was an amazing museum which had on the first floor all kind of things throughout the history of Egypt. On the 2nd floor there was mainly an exposition of Tootanchamon. His grave must have been big to store all these artifacts or everything was piled up. Everything was so beautiful and detailed, you can not imagine. There were lots of golden artifacts, from which the mask of Tootanchamon is the most famous. Also 5 of his racing charriots to make war were there, of course golden ones. And lots of mummified animals and pets. His body was in 2 gold sarcophages, 3 stone ones and 4 wooden ones. Looked like tupperware. We also visited the mummies of several pharao's.

After the visit to the museum we Atske, Heert-Jan, maria, Victor and myself; Luis and Veronique visited the city on their own. walked to a restaurant on a boat in the river Nile: The Blue Nile. It had several different restaurants, amongstwhich was a Libanese. We took that one. It was delicious. We took different courses and chaired all the food. After our lunch we went to the old city a 15.00. We chartered 2 cabs for us and were brought to the Al Mu'eez street. That was right in the hart of the old city. We walked through the busy streets of that area. Lots of small streets with all kind of merchants. We bought some little boxes, which were decorated with the inner layer of a shell. Lot af negociating. Victor was busy negociating too. That went very well. We walked further accompanied by a man, who showed us all the interesting parts ans stores.We also bought some spices: saffrane and hibiscus. There were lots of spices in that store I knew from my study. At 17.00 we chartered again a cab, who brought us back to our hotel. That took a long drive. When we arrived here our rooms were indeed changed to the ones with pyramid view. And our luggage was there too! At 20.00 we had dinner in our hotel.