S M F G · A Counter-Clockwise Trip Around The World

After two days of Sinai, it was time to go. I went to the minibus, early in the morning, and after the bus collected all its passengers from various cities, we finally arrived to Nuweiba, the port to Aqaba.

At this point you have to know more about the plan: I went all the way down to Egypt only for having an entry stamp in Jordan. Of course I would love to visit Egypt properly, but not this time. This time I was thinking about reaching India by land, through Iran and Pakistan!

And it is not a piece of cake — basically because obtaining an Iranian visa can take as long as 45 days, and because they just don’t like the fact that you are applying out of your country — so I switched to plan B: Syria and Lebanon, then fly Beirut–Delhi. Thus I had to have a clean passport and a decent story to tell to the Syrians at the border. Mine was: I flew from Italy to Sharm El Sheik with a group from Italy, all of us with the ID, because it was cheaper this way, then I left them and I entered Jordan from Aqaba on my passport. Well, so far so good: I was now in Egypt and after one and a half months in Israel my passport was still untouched.

I didn’t take into account the relations between Egypt and Jordan, though.

With the couple I met on the bus, from Madrid she and from Milan he, I was staring at the discomforting line for the immigration booths, when some Egyptian officer brought us directly to the beginning of the line, letting his fellows citizens waiting under the sun. We were — too fast, baby — very happy and my friends went right through the stamping point. But I showed up with my ID and the guy was having a bad time telling me «Bassbort, bassbort!» louder and louder — they do the same in Turkey: if someone doesn’t understand the language, they repeat the same sentence, louder!

I was brought to another officer, who supposedly spoke English, then another one, higher on grade (but Arabic-only), then the three we went back to the first one. No solution. Bare in mind that I was franticly waving the Egyptian visa that they gave me at the Taba border, unable to understand what was the problem. Then the young soldier Mustafa was asked to bring that weird Italian to the big boss. We walked out of the port to another office, and I repeated my story from the beginning — again.

I thought to have made it, eventually. The big boss said «no problem, no problem. But the Jordanians will not let you enter without an exit stamp from Egypt on your passport. No problem: we will give you an exit stamp and an entry stamp. No problem». So I thought «no problem». With my new friend Mustafa I returned to the port police booth, the officer spoke briefly with Mustafa then stamped my passport with the Nuweiba exit stamp, adding something in handwriting.

This post is filed under Africa, Asia, Egypt, Jordan and tagged Friends, Languages, Passport, Police, Transport, Visa.