4. Just a little bit stranded … with Egypt’s kindest taxi driver!

Dad, it’s ends ok - horribly expensively but ok - in the end!

Once we’d packed up and had breakfast, our transfers back to Hurghada arrived to return us to the land. It was a four hour drive on the little bus, the air conditioning on which was more circulating air directly from the desert that we were driving though at around 38+° than any cooling so it was somewhat sweltering. We were dropped back to the ‘base’ and from there had our own onward steps organised. For us, that was a pre-booked taxi to out next hotel in a town called El Gouna half an hour up the coast. The transfer was there waiting for us and on we went, all terribly smoothly….

On arrival to our next wheelchair accessible hotel, I helped Liz up the flight of 15 steps while the boys carried her wheelchair up to the reception. There, we found they wanted to charge us almost double for the already expensive room we’d booked and that there were further steps down to the rooms and around the place … ‘but we’ll help you’ … this is what they mean by agreeing that they are accessible in Egypt! They will offer to pick up and carry the wheelchair complete with its passenger up and down the flights of stairs. Unsurprisingly, Liz is absolutely against this; the risk and potential for if it’s goes wrong is extraordinary. After a fair amount of argument and refusal on my part to pay the newly extortionate charge (almost £700 for 4 nights!), the agreement we came to was a free of charge cancellation.

So I sat on the floor (it was cool tiles there!) of the lovely air con lobby, making full use of their free Internet to find an alternate hotel. A small apartment nearby found, booked and paid for and a request to call a taxi …

The taxi man arrived but was unsure of where the apartment was and much discussion between many people resulted in no idea where we needed to go, how to get there or anything more than a very vague map offered by the booking site. We used the ‘contact the property’ service and directly called the owner, who kept saying ‘one minute, I’m driving, I’ll call back’ and hanging up. This continued for a while with the taxi driver also calling and speaking with him in Arabic to try and get directions until I insisted on immediate help and no more hang ups as at this point we were on the side of the road in boiling temperatures and running out of any patience. After half an hour, we got a shouted ‘it’s cancelled, you can’t stay’ end of call, despite the non-refundable payment made via the booking site. So still with nowhere to stay and now a £300 payment made, we were stranded. At this point, the loveliest taxi man in all of Egypt said he’d try and help and started contacting hotels or apartment owners to find somewhere - the increased level of challenge being that it needed to be at least vaguely wheelchair accessible.

While I was on the phone to the booking site to explain and try and get the previous payment refunded and find alternate accommodation, the taxi man did the same. He then came up with a nearby private apartment complete with pictures and reviews that he could take us to. We ended up agreeing as we were out of options. It’s definitely within on all of the ‘how to stay safe in a foreign country’ guidance … agree to get in a car with stranger and go with them to see a place he says you can stay! The taxi was once again loaded up and we headed off with the stranger taxi man to view the apartment….I jumped out to view with him while Liz remained in the car. Once we’d climbed the two flights of very narrow stairs, we decided against it. A further apartment was offered - so we drove and viewed, by now, nowhere near civilisation or shops or restaurants and expensive so would have been very difficult to get any supplies do anything other than sit for 3 days in a little room without anything we needed - at a hugely expensive cost.

Still on and off the phone sorting out the previous cancellation, I was also using the loveliest taxi man in Egypt’s internet hotspot to search alternative accommodation. The taxi driver continued calling various options I found to check on availability of rooms on ground floor etc without success. I was then looking at accommodation back in Hurghada and found a possible …. More phone calls and messages from the host of that one and full explanation of where to go and how to get in and someone there to meet us and off we headed. This time, it worked … people met us, there was a choice of two lifts and we finally got to an apartment we can stay at. It’s 6 floors up, an apartment with 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms and balcony overlooking the sea with shops and restaurants nearby and decent air con…

If it weren’t for the 2 taxi journeys to El Gouna and back, massive (but utterly deserved) tip for the nicest taxi in all of Egypt, what I expect to be a phone bill of around £100 (£2.34 a minute for calls in Egypt!) and the various payments and refunds and slightly higher cost for the place we’ve ended up with, 5 hours in hotels, taxi and trying to find somewhere to stay before we finally arrived, it would all be fine!

We’re here now, had a lovely dinner overlooking the sea and watching the chaos on the roads. As the sun set, the street lights flickered on - the roughly 50% that are working did at least and mostly they literally flickered. The cars cruised by as the dying rays of the sun reflected off their paint work - the dents and spray jobs make this particularly effective and is just as well there is some reflective aspects to the cars because the majority of them either don’t have working headlights or opt not to use them even if they do. A wedding party noisily announced its presence as the jubilant guests and joyfully happy couple shared their love and celebration with the town - by driving two or three cars / scooters abreast, weaving across both sides of the road, honking their horns and flashing their lights. The happy couple at the centre in a convertible with the roof down - also weaving around the road. Presumably very few marriages here end in divorce given the strict Muslim rules although I wonder how many die in car wrecks before the marriage is even consummated!

We watched all of this discussed the crazy road rules and driving practices and how in the UK, this would be hastily ended by the police …just as a police car cruised by, also with its headlights off and down the middle of the road.

Evening entertainment over, we crashed into our beds for a long and welcome sleep yesterday and followed it with a very relaxing day of refreshments, food and relaxing (while trying to stay cool!) today!

Tomorrow is our trip to the pyramids… 3am pick up followed by a 6 hour drive to Cairo … what could possibly go wrong …..!!!