We left Cairo this morning at 6:15 am and were crammed into a tourist bus on some of the scariest streets I've ever seen. Once we made it out to the desert it was beautiful - exactly as I had always imagined. We crossed the Suez Canal, saw many camels and donkeys, and were bitten by a million mosquitoes at our pit stops.
Our first checkpoint proved to be what we feared most - interrogation. We were asked for our passports and then questioned (sometimes quite aggressively, especially towards some of the Palestinians in our group) about our occupations. Sandra eloquently said (to be translated by Nabil) that she worked in an office for people who drink too much - she is the secretary. After the guards closed the door the van broke out in a laughing fit that lasted for the rest of the trip whenever the quote was mentioned. Our passports were then taken from us and taken to some important looking man, held for about 10 minutes, and then returned. Suddenly, we had a police escort! We were hysterically laughing - did they realize who they were escorting? Turns out these police will stick with us everytime we leave the hotel, saying they are here for our protection but telling us "not to forget" them (ie - tip please). But what else can I expect them to do when they are feeding their family on 60 Canadian dollars per month?
We decided to stay in the hotel for the day, as it was a long journey and we were all quite tired. The strategizing has begun as to who still needs to be contacted to ensure our entrance, and how exactly we're going to get the police to take us to the Rafah border.
For dinner, we went to a beautiful traditional Egyptian restaurant and met with a group from France that is also attempting to cross the border. Luckily Kathy can speak very fluent French so we often had translations from Arabic to English to French. They will not be traveling with us to the border tomorrow but we will remain in contact to try to assist them as much as possible.
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