As we add them, the other parts will be linked:
Part III: Temples
Part IV: Sailing Down the Nile
Part V: The Red Sea
Part VI: Jeff Climbs a Mountain
Fog. Мъгла (mugla) in Bulgarian. Sounds about right. Several of our fellow world travelers had their flights postponed or cancelled due to fog at the Sofia Airport. Thick, soupy, fog. But we held out hope that on Thursday morning when we had to leave, the fog would have evaporated. Our taxi ride to the airport at 6:00am was dark. And foggy. We kept hoping. No one was at the Pegasus Air counter, but there were travelers milling around looking a little lost. One of our co-workers on her way to Texas passed us with her ticket in hand. “Good luck!” we yelled after her. Finally, Jeff found a person to talk to and we discovered that our flight was, in fact, delayed. By 13 hours. Personally, I think that’s actually “cancelled,” but I’m sure Pegasus didn’t want to refund our money if a 13-hour delay ruined our travel plans (we still haven’t tried to get our money back). The problem with this 13-hour delay was that we had our flight from Istanbul to Cairo in 11 hours. This does not compute.
Not surprising that the flight was "delayed."
OK, take a deep breath. We were warned this might happen. What can we do? How will we get to Istanbul? If we miss the flight to Cairo we just miss the first day of the tour (and the Pyramids of GIZA!) – and we can visit the pyramids on another day. But this fog just isn’t letting up. Will we even be able to fly out tomorrow? Jeff suggests that we drive our car to Istanbul and find a place to park it there. I suggested several reason why this was a BAD idea: (1) no snow tires and the roads are slick, (2) the axle seems to be shaking loose again along with really bad shocks and slick roads, (3) мъгла, and lots of it – oh and slick roads, and (4) where could we possibly park it and not have to pay a fortune to make sure it doesn’t get towed away to who knows where in Turkey? H and P agreed with me and we convinced Jeff that Haide (our car, pronounced hi-day, “let’s go” in Bulgarian) needed to have its Christmas in Bulgaria. So, other options? What about renting a car? If we leave Sofia by 9am, we should be able to make it to the airport in Istanbul right on time to catch our flight to Cairo. It’s worth a shot! But it’s 7am and no one is at the car rental counters. Other flights maybe? Hmm, the internet is not working for us here and there are no people at the airline counters either. Grr. Tap the foot. Pace. Fume. Remark how travelling in the winter (and this always seems to be for the holidays) never works perfectly. One more deep breath.
Hey, there’s a guy at that car rental counter! Jeff asks him if we can rent a car. No, but you can do an airport transfer – rent a van and pay a driver to take us from Sofia Airport to Ataturk Airport. Ouch, that’s expensive. But we’ve already paid for the tour in Egypt, we don’t want to miss it. Do we have enough time? Yeah, we can make it. OK, we all agree it’s worth the money. Let’s do it.
Thanks, Choice Rent A Car for being there so early!
Waiting for our driver...
Enter Kiril, our driver who is also a professional musician. He is working this job to save money to buy a van for his group. Speaks wonderful English and has a great sense of humor. Poor thing had to turn right back around in Istanbul and go straight back to Sofia – nearly 20 hours of straight driving. We hope to attend one of his shows some time in the near future. Sadly, we were in such a hurry to catch our plane that we forgot to get a picture with him.
Even with the fog, the drive wasn’t too bad. The worst part was being stuck at the border for nearly 2 hours. Certain paperwork was needed from Kiril’s company, so he had to call them to have them fax the info. Then through some serious miscommunication, we were told we did NOT need the visa for Turkey by the first person we spoke to, but then as we tried to enter Turkey were told that we absolutely DID need the visa (we knew that, but stupidly assumed that the people working at the first place actually knew what they were talking about – we hadn’t gone to Turkey in a private vehicle before, so who knew?). We did get to sit in the thick, thick fog while we waited for Kiril to get through the red tape there. H got a little fed up and started yelling at one of the employees – she actually got us out of there I think.
The Border
Puppy in the Mist
Kiril and Hanna expressing frustration to the Border Guard
Phew! We made it just in time to be able to get some dinner before our flight to Cairo. We arrived around 10pm in Cairo and had our first experience with the insane traffic there. It’s funny how my opinion of the world’s worst traffic has changed: the first time I was in Europe (Glasgow), I feared for my life in the taxi. Then in Italy I thought those people on Vespa’s were taking their lives in their own hands. Then I got to Bulgaria and couldn’t believe how much the rules of the road are NOT followed here. Then Albania somehow topped that. But Cairo tops even that! A 3-lane road was used as a constantly morphing 5-lane road. Drives swerved wherever they wanted to go and missed other cars by inches. I guess with a population of nearly 20 million people (biggest city in Africa), it’s understandable that there are too many cars. Our driver from the airport to the hotel assured us he was a very safe driver after I shrieked a little when we nearly collided with the car next to us. I tried to believe him…
We made it! Now on to Cairo...
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