We are in Cairo!

Sunday, Oct. 31 — We landed in Amman Jordan on Sunday around 12:30 pm local time (it was a 11 1/2 hour flight over 7 time zones.). We bid Dave and Mickey farewell and then tried to get an earlier flight into Cairo. No luck.  But the Royal Jordanian Airline gave us a complementary room and dinner at the airport hotel and picked us up around 9PM for our flight to Cairo. 

We landed shortly after midnight, showed our passports and Covid test about 4 times before exiting the airport.  The Wilderness Travel guide was there to greet us and got us to Mena House Hotel around 2AM and it took us a bit to get to bed by 3AM Monday morning.

Let’s Try This Again

Sat. Oct 30 — Saturday morning, bright and early, we all walked over to the airport and got a PCR Covid test at a cost of $225 each..  The results were back in an hour and they printed out and stamped the results so we feel we are ready to go to Egypt and Jordan.  We even scoped out the route to the International Termainal so we know how long it takes to get there.

Four hours before our flight is to leave at 8:20 pm we are in line to get our new tickets.  Dave and Mickey are flying to Jordan for their pre-trip tour while we will be connecting on to Egypt for our pre-trip tour of Alexandria.  Dave and Mickey breeze through and get their tickets, John and I, on the other hand, cannot get on our plane because Egypt requires a RT-PCR test and nothing else will work!  I’m crying, John is frustrated and the gate agent just keeps repeating that we have to have the RT-PCR.  Finally, she points us to a private lab that can do the test quickly.  When John calls them they tell us they can send a car to pick us up, get the test and return us to the airport all in time for us to catch our flight. All for $160 each plus a $50 car ride.  

We much relief and 40 minutes to spare we are finally ready to fly to Egypt.  Our next hurdle is on Sunday.

Off to See My “Mummy”

Friday Oct. 29 — Not a good start to this trip. We were supposed to catch a United flight out of Columbia to Chicago, then Chicago to Amman Jordan with a connection to Cairo Egypt.

We arrived at the Columbia airport 1 1/2 hours early only to learn that our flight had been canceled due to mechanical problems.  Mickey and David, who we will be traveling with this trip, had already started trying to get a seat on an American flight that would leave at 5:30. Unfortunately that flight would not get to Chicago in time to catch our flight to Amman.  But we booked it anyway and then worked to get another flight on Saturday to Amman.  That messed with our connection to Cairo.

John was able to get us a room at the Hilton across from the airport terminal at O’Hara, so we are spending the night in Chicago.  That also means our Covid PCR test that is good for 72 hours will not work now so we will have to get another test.