Egypt - February 2

We left at Hurghada at 7:30am and arrived in Cairo airport around 4:30pm. The extra 2-3 hours in the middle were taken up by a minor crisis. The bus (different one from yesterday's) broke down and had to be taken to a garage, and then we had to switch to another bus - something which would have taken a lot longer if we didn't find an empty bus at the lot where we waited for the replacement. Danny filled up the waiting period by telling us about the Cairo Geniza (had to finish the story on the bus).



The whole drive is along the Red Sea, towards the Suez canal - beautiful sea and a continuous stream of new touristic developments - tens of thousands of living units - all of which seemed empty.

Only after arriving at the airport did we hear from Danny that the embassy had forbidden us to go on this road, something which seems like an exaggerated reaction to a warning by the Israeli Foreign Ministry about dangers on this road (perhaps they thought we'll go through the town of Suez, in which there apparently were riots). Their suggestion was that we fly individually to Europe on various flights out of Hurghada - Danny refused. This is just one of the many decisions Danny and Rami had to take - they were responsible for the lives and well being of 30 people - a huge responsibility!

The airport was busy but not insane. The funny thing is that flights to Israel do not depart out of the new terminal from which the flights to Europe and North America depart. So we were in a terminal full of people on their way to Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Jordan... But everybody was calm and peaceful and despite a 3-hour delay we all felt calm and rather sad that this adventure is coming to its end (ok - also greatly relieved...). We had a few last conversations with our new friends and then the normal airport routine: security checks (the El-Al checker told us that it seems her Cairo apartment was looted - she had not been back there since being evacuated a few days earlier), check-in, a bus to the plane, boarding... And then we were back in Israel, dodged a few cameras and reporters, met Moshik and went home, exhausted but happy. We definitely plan to go back and wish this new phase in Egypt's long history is successful!