“Catch the 8.00 train”,said the guy who sold us the ferry ticket. “Get to the ferry terminal before 11.00.” When does the ferry leave? “In the afternoon.” he replies, waving goodbye. We duly follow his instructions. We joined a massive scrum of people at the port entrance at about 9.00 am. These people do not travel light either. Many of them are carrying goods either for family or for sale (one lady had cartons full of kitchen blenders).
The boarding process is a vaguely controlled stampede of people and portered boxes as, with queuing an alien process, hoards of people rush the only X-ray machine and proceed to dump everything they have onto it as quickly as possible. The poor fellow doing the X-ray checking often had to scan boxes stacked two high and three wide at a time rather than the traditional one bag at a time. A policeman occasionally felt compelled to jump on the front of the conveyor to block loading and give X-ray checker a breather.
Next, the metal detector. At most of the tourist sites in Egypt there are metal detectors but the police – as the detector pings away – just keep waving visitors through. As we entered the Unfinished Obelisk, in Aswan, the policeman waved us through (with the detector buzzing away in the background) and cracked a joke by asking Paul if he had a bomb. “It's in the bag,” says Paul (by this time we were well aware that the metal detectors were ignored). The policeman laughs, gives him a handshake and waves him on. Unusually, at the port, we actually had a body search. They take security seriously here.
After getting numerous stamps and paying a 2 Egyptian pound (US$0.30) departure tax we're on the boat by 11.00 am. We wait. At 7.00 pm the ferry departs. 17 hours later, and after a difficult and hot night sleeping on benches (and a bit of floor) we arrive at Wadi Halfa, Sudan. And it is baking hot.
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire