Around Africa: Part One

In which I landed on the third continent

When I clicked this souvenir from one of my friend's desk, with the hope of posting from here to there photo, little did I knew that I would post the photo this year! This country was completely unplanned. Year 2023 was about to complete and my plans had been getting cancelled repeatedly just like Year 2022. I was left with the option of Visa on Arrival countries, but those were in Asia and I was looking for stepping onto the third continent, having done with 10 countries in Europe and 2 countries in Asia. Oceania was on mind after Europe got cancelled and not willing for Asia. But there was not enough time for visa thing, so cancelled. The Women Special Egypt Tour was actually on 5th Dec, 2023 with only 5 seats booked so far. So there were chances of it getting cancelled as it happens with the tours with very less booking. I had backup options in mind: Bhutan, Thailand, Indonesia, etc. What backup? Here Egypt was also under my backup list. I got a call from Ashwini Urkude from the Vasai Office that the tour is postponed to 12th Dec and will be clubbed with the Best of Egypt Group tour, which means that its confirmed tour. Now group tour can consist of families, couples, group of friends, solo travellers, young at heart citizens and not just ladies. Finally I booked the Women Special Egypt Tour of 12th Dec, 2023 much reluctantly to my travel style of multi-countries. Just for the sake that I will land in third continent, Africa. The E-visa process was so easy, only the scanned copy of passport was to be submitted. And I got the E-visa mail within a week. Other things like hotel reservations, flight bookings, etc was taken care of by Veena World. I purchased the Egyptian Pounds, foreign currency was a must. 

We got a WhatsApp message from our Tour Manager Mahendra Wadkar. It elaborated on the Reporting Time and Place on 11th Dec, Airlines and baggage details, Foreign Currency, etc. Tour Details of Day 1 were also included in the message. The surprising part of the message was about woollens and vegetarian food. I confirmed again on the pre-departure call with Mahendra. Since veg options are limited, I had to rush to DMart for the last minute dry snacks. I thought a desert country would have harsh sun and here we had to carry woollens. One duffel trolley bag and one handbag was my luggage. I always pack as much luggage as I can pick up on my own. Now where to fit this extra food and woollens! Well the packing style varies from person to person. The most important thing to be packed was the PASSPORT. I gave one set of passport and VISA copies, flight details, hotel details and itinerary to Mummy. So in this way I got ready for the next 9 days, make new friends, get to know more about the places I would visit, capture memories in my camera and my eyes and have loads of fun.

Departure from CSMIA (Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport, Mumbai): 12.12.2023

My passport was checked and I entered the Gate 2. I queued up for the boarding pass of Egyptian Airways. I collected the boarding pass and checked in my luggage. Here I met Mahendra, Rama Subramanian and Sudakshina Hazra. I proceeded for the Security Check and then the Immigration Counter. 

The Christmas theme was applied on the airport. I had dinner at 1am in McD. Then I reached the Gate No 78, traversing through the arrows and escalators. I met Aboli Mhetras, Tanuja Ramnani (my roommate on tour) and Uma Telang. Then we heard the story of Jayashree Prabhu of reaching the airport almost on the closure of baggage check-in time. So far these were the seven women travellers who booked the Women Special. It was already 3am and the flight was supposed to take off at 2:50am. The flight journey is the most sleep-deprived part of travel. Now I was too sleepy to keep a track of time. I had already messaged home. The boarding started and we queued up as per zone indicated on our pass. 

We were welcomed by the Egyptian crew. We were flying to Cairo, the capital of Egypt. The Egyptair MS 969 seats were divided as AC | DEFG | HK. My seat was 35D, aisle seat, which I hate. We got our headphones and security instructions were displayed on the screens. The screen displayed the map with distance and time statistics and the travel route. 

As the plane took off, I assumed to see the million lights view of Aamchi Mumbai and bid goodbye to India. Everyone dozed off just to wake up abruptly by the crew for the meal. The meal was served at 4:30am: spinach paneer sabzi, rice, bun and cheese butter sachet, salad, tetra pack orange juice and curd I guess (not sure what it was). 

I had only the salad, kept the juice in bag and again dozed off. It was still night in the sky since we travelled 3:30 hours back of the IST time. Finally the plane landed at the airport terminal at 5:45am local time. Now on the time mentioned would be local time of Egypt. We received a slice of cake. We got off from the plane in 15°C cold dark, since the sun still had an hour to show up on this Arab land. We boarded the bus to the arrivals, assembled at a location and Mahendra gave the further instructions. We filled in an Entry Form and queued up at the Immigration Counter to get our passports stamped. It was super easy, no questions asked finally. The last two Immigration experiences, they doubted as if I have runaway from home. Same was the case at Mumbai Airport during those departures. I guess a few stamped pages on passport do help. We proceeded towards the luggage belt. We picked our belongings, freshened up, some bought the local Orange simcard and walked towards the arrival gate. 

Egyptologist Mohammed Shakeer welcomed us with flowers. There was a security guard alongwith the coach captain. We boarded the bus, luggage was loaded and started our journey in Cairo! We halted for breakfast at 8am at the Red Elephant restaurant and actually got a taste of what to expect in food. Spices is only what Indians use in food! 

Filling our stomach with much needed food, we drove to another city, more on it in next post. Cairo is the second city on our Egypt Explorer Journey. On the drive, Mahendra briefed on the rules of Egypt. Few of those were: not to keep personal water bottle on table, else it would be chargeable; people may ask for money if you ask them to click your photo; there are also chances of the person running away with your phone; beware of pick pocketers; bargain your way before doing purchase, etc. Last what I remember before dozing off on this road journey was that it seemed like driving through roads in the desert and of course we got a glimpse of the top of one pyramid.

Read next: Around Africa: Part Two