Oct 7th

Day 14

As I mentioned briefly on the opening page, our departure from Cairo was a bit harrowing.

When we arrived at the airport, the place was a madhouse. Not just the ordinary mayhem of people anxiously trying to navigate the maze of obstacles that make air travel such a delight: ticketing lines, luggage drop-offs, security checks, etc. No. There were mobs waving their arms and clamoring in Arabic, a cacophony of angry people whose volume only seemed to increase as we tried to make our way into the terminal. It can be pretty frightening, being surrounded by a mob of frustrated people pointing and hollering at you in a language you don’t understand.

To make matters worse, once inside, the vocal throng was forcibly parted, like the Red Sea, by security guards to allow us “foreigners” a clear path to the gates.

We learned later that a strike had been called the day before by domestic pilots, cancelling all domestic flights and stranding many Egyptians in Cairo and throughout Egypt. Fortunately for us, this internal crisis did not impact international flights. Our trip was uneventful from then on.