Jonah Mancini

This is the second blog in a series chronicling the events that transpired to 5 students while touring and soul searching in Egypt.

We had all made it safe and sound to the beach/party town of Eilat, found at the southern most tip of Israel on the gulf of Aqaba where one can cross into Jordan or Egypt. At this point in our travels (still being day one) we piled off the bus, used the facilities and began looking for a place to eat. Now we knew that for the next 10 days we would not be able to have food that we were accustomed to, that is anything remotely close to American or Israeli food, so we all made the decision to have one last good meal. We located a hamburger stand (which is far inferior to any American hamburger joint, but for Israel is was pretty good) and we sat down an ordered. After receiving our food and marveling at/experimenting with this red, jelly-like substance that the shop keeper tried to pass off as ketchup, we ate our burgers and moved to the next item on our literary.

We needed to convert some money to the Egyptian pounds and then CROSS THE BORDER! Luckly, as we walked down the street we encountered a bank. Well we didn’t really encounter the bank as much as we encountered the money changers who were “working” in front of the bank. These two guys were private business men who were offering better conversion rates than one would find in the bank. (Sketchy?!) Well, welcome to Israel so we made our conversions there with the guys on the street (of course after a little bartering and verifying what the exchange rates were - luckily I had looked up the conversion rates before we left Jerusalem) After we were all a few shekels poorer and a few Egyptian Pounds (EP) richer we garbed a cab and headed to the border.

All full of excitement and hope we arrived at the border crossing where we played in the water free of any worries and ready to officially start our big adventure. Little did we know just how adventurous it was going to be. After bringing every one up out of the water and making sure we all had all of our belongings we walked up to the border crossing building, which sat right on the coast, and we began the process. We paid our exist taxes to the State of Israel, walked through the duty free shop, exited the Israeli border complex, crossed into Egypt and into the Egyptian boarder complex where everything became complex.

After a handful of questions by the boarder Officers, it was brought to our attention that we were minus 5 VISAs for entry in to Egypt proper. I had gathered information before we came saying that we could get VISAs at the border. This was true, but only for the Sinai Peninsula. If one wished to enter into the Egypt Nile Vally, which we did, there was a need to purchase a VISA to the mainland Egypt from the Egyptian Embassy in Israel, a process of 2 or 3 days as we found out from our boarder friends. This was to say the least COMPLEX. Luckily (providentially?), Eilat housed an Egyptian Embassy and was set to close in about 45 min. So we all ran back through the Egyptian complex, the duty free store, the Israeli complex and flagged down a couple of cabs while we franticly begged and pleaded with the Egyptian Embassy to stay open till we arrived and see if they would processes our VISAs in a fraction of the time it should normally take. Well, much to our surprise they said they would stay open for us (thank the LORD) and see what they could do about the VISAs as soon as we would get there.

It really does amaze me how people can be so helpful at times, even if they are complete strangers. That is something to be said about the middle eastern hospitality which the Arabs are masters at. Bending over backwards to help strangers in a strange place. All this to say, in about and hour and a half and for a very small fee we all had VISAs and were heading back to the boarder. Someone say they wanted an adventure? Whoever said that life’s a journey not a destination clearly tried crossing into Egypt from Israel and could see that there lay a long road ahead of them, and our road was just beginning.