I am glad I did. Most border crossings on my African journey have been memorable, and this one was especially so.
The journey began as most minibus journeys in Africa begin. I approached a bus, ascertained its destination (or so I thought), secured a spot, and sat around waiting for the bus to fill up. I arrived at 1pm and was told we'd leave at 2:00. By 4:00, the bus was 3 feet taller thanks to a mass of luggage strapped to the roof, and we were off. The journey ended around 9:00 the next morning ... to my surprise, in Alexandria!
I won't narrate the whole ride -- just bits and pieces and a few storylines.
One plotline involves hours of conversation between me and 8 men who could collectively speak less than 40 words of English (and I know fewer than 40 Arabic words). The conversation was surprisingly rich, interesting, and satisfying. We talked about religion, food, soccer, marriage, the differences between Libya and Egypt, life in America, and many other things. Another plotline involves pit stops. We stopped repeatedly for gas, food, tea, bathroom breaks, three times for prayer, once to change money, once for a flat tire, and several other times for purposes I never understood. A third plotline is the tremendous generosity of my new friends. Well before we reached the Libya-Egypt border, I had been given two dinners, five apples, a Pepsi, two glasses of Coke, some pear juice, a cup of coffee, and about 4 cups of tea. Over the course of the trip, I had a chance to bond a bit with everyone, and I was sad to see them go.
Now, for a few highlights.
Highlight Number 1: One final time, I got to experience that moment of panic when I awaken from a shallow, bumpy sleep to see that it's pitch black and everyone other than the driver is sound asleep as the minibus races down an empty highway. As is my practice, as soon as I woke up, I tapped the driver on the shoulder to ask if he was ok, I offered him a caffeinated beverage, and I found somebody to give him a cigarette. Our driver was a pro, and wide awake. As dead-of-night awakenings on a minibus go, this one was a cakewalk..
Highlight Number 2: Late evening, still in Libya. We pull into a gas station and fill up with 35 liters for less than 6 bucks. Although nobody else seemed concerned, I was terrified. When we pulled into the station, two of my companions were smoking cigarettes. A third lit up shortly after we began filling up. This was enough to raise my blood pressure, but I really began to worry when a man not ten feet from us topped off his old jalopy. As his gas tank filled up, the man kept pressing the pump's handle, and the petrol repeatedly reached the top of the tank and spilled down the side of the car, splashing into the air and onto his clothes. The gas-station scene from Zoolander raced through my head, but we emerged unscathed.
Highlight Number 3: Libya-Egypt border, the Libyan side. Leaving Libya overland was surreal. In the 10 or 20 kilometers leading up to the border, we passed through at least 5 checkpoints. Each time, the driver gathered our passports into a pile and handed them over. Each time, the officer spent a long time thumbing through my passport, asked the driver (but never me) some questions about me, and then let us pass.
As we approached the border itself, the man next to me, named Said, closed his eyes and began to pray in a low voice. Everyone else was silent. This continued for a good 5 minutes. We finally arrived at the border post, piling out of the car and standing in a pack near a handful of booths. Our driver ran at full speed from booth to booth, apparently trying to expedite our exit from the country. Other groups of hopeful border-crossers mingled about.
What struck me as we waited in the cold night was that all the travelers had an air of subservience. They stood a little bit straighter, talked a little bit more quietly, and ran like the wind when their names were called. I received an exit stamp within 10 minutes, but some of my companions ran into some trouble. I watched with great interest as they spoke urgently and in hushed tones to one another, but I didn't see how the story played out because the driver sized up the situation and told me to walk on toward Egypt.
As I walked along, a young man with slicked-back wavy dark hair approached me from out of nowhere and demanded my passport. He wore a black leather jacket and a classy patterned scarf, and had an earphone in his ear -- it looked like it was connected to his cell phone. I hesitated, and he demanded the passport again, this time more forcefully. I handed it over and he walked away to make a phone call. Soon, I was surrounded by a total of nine men -- some in military fatigues, some in plainclothes. I was escorted to a small building and watched as a man copied my visa and passport information longhand. I got my passport back was told I could proceed. One strange thing about that experience was that I wasn't certain which country those guys worked for; I already had my Libyan exit stamp, and the Egyptian facility was a ways further down the road.
Eventually, all my companions arrived -- whatever trouble there was had been resolved -- and we were off to the fun part.
Highlight Number 4: Libya-Egypt border, the Egypt side. By this point, our driver was frenzied and dead-set on hurrying us along. He grabbed my arm and we went from window to window, filling out forms along the way, to secure my $15 entry visa and passport stamp. I visited six windows in all, and at each one my driver cut in the queue or we were overtaken by someone who cut in front of us.
When my other companions made it through, the adventure began. We drove our overloaded minibus to the Unloading Zone. All around us, similar minibuses and cars were being furiously unloaded; blankets, fruit, refrigerators, wheelbarrows, chairs, boxes, bags, and baskets were piled everywhere -- but only for a second. They were immediately wheeled or dragged into a big building, the Inspection Station.
We stripped our minibus clean in a flash; the smallest among us, an Egyptian in his 50s, stood on top of the bus and tossed our luggage down. After admiring our mountain of possessions for a quick moment, everyone grabbed as much as he could carry and went inside.
When I got within 15 feet of the door, I was immediately pushed, yelled at, bumped, elbowed, and otherwise jostled, and the process did not end until I emerged from the other end of the Inspection Station. Everyone seemed to be operating at twice normal speed. The initial bottleneck was created by a double door, which had a conveyor belt with a metal detector on the the other side. Everything that came off the cars passed along that belt. The mob surged towards it; people within 5 feet of it seemed content to toss their belongings at it. They then raced through a metal detector meant for people and began clawing and fighting to get their possessions back. Meanwhile, inspectors wrote the names of each person's possessions on scraps of paper and handed them out.
On the other side of the detectors, in the main hall of the Inspection Station, the chaos continued. Some people searched for lost possessions or yelled for their companions, but most people dashed -- as though the building was on fire -- with everything they owned across the interior of the Station to the exit. A single exhausted agent was tasked with collecting everyone's list of possessions. I can't imagine that he turned many people back; if he tried, it might be like a stampede at a soccer match. I somehow never got my scrap of paper, but my US passport and a look of panic sufficed, and he waved me through with a bunch of Said's blankets and clothing. (Apparently his prayers were answered.) I exited that building behind a man in his 60s who was pushing a big metal box with two rusty wheels stacked on top.
I walked out into Egypt and into a thick fog. My companions gradually assembled, the driver arrived, and we repacked the van in record time. A pack of wild dogs ran about nearby, snarling and barking and drifting in and out of sight. Here's the scene.
Our minibus wasn't packed quite this high, but it wasn't far off. In this next shot, the Inspection Station looms in the background.
In a flash, we were back in the car. After a couple more stops, we made the high-speed burn across western Egypt, and arrived safe and sound (and exhausted) in Alexandria well after sunrise.
I reached down below my seat to tidy up a bit and gather my trash. By the time I finished, only the driver and two of the passengers remained. I'm sad I didn't have a chance to thank my friends for their kindness and companionship on a worthy final voyage.
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