I’m not known for spontaneity. As an introvert if I don’t have set plans its too easy to forgo them. So when I travel I tend to overplan. I’m not insane. I don’t have exact step by step down to the minute plans. Instead I have knowledge and options. I’ll know of things to see and do, when they open, and what is nearby. Sort of like an al-la-carte menu.
So what would you do with one free day? One full of promise, but no set plans? This is what I pondered for my last day in Egypt. I would be in Cairo, after having spent 4-5 days already seeing the sites in the city. Should I leave it open to re-visit other sites? Maybe more time at the Pyramids or the Egyptian Museum? Or wait and see if one of your groupmates invited you on a different adventure? Or simply relax at the hotel after a grueling 2 week tour?
All sounded like good options. But something just continued to call to me. And that was the sea. I love snorkeling, and I had heard the best snorkeling was at the Red Sea near Sharm el Sheikh. Initially I had discounted the possibility of getting the chance to visit. I just didn’t have the time. But Egypt was my dream destination that was becoming real, and it seemed like anything was possible. Which is probably why I decided late in my planning to try for it anyway.
I did the research. There were multiple daily flights from Cairo to Sharm. I could easily get a early morning flight there, and then a late flight back. But how would I arrange a boat to snorkel? I ended up finding a day tour that would help arrange things. It would be a tight day. Pickup from my Giza hotel around 4:30AM. We’d take my things to a hotel near the airport (as it would be insane trying to get back to Giza just to pickup my things and then turn around back to go to the airport.) Flight would be at 7 arriving around 8:15. The tour company would take me to the marina and join a day cruise to Ras Mohamed reserve for snorkeling and later a sort of submarine ride over deeper reefs and wrecks. After lunch on the boat, we’d head back for a quick city tour and possibly some free time in Naama bay. I had to insist on an earlier flight around 7:15 back so I’d arrive around 8, with time to checkin at the new hotel, shower, pack and then head back to the airport at 12:15 AM to fly home.
Easy peasy right? The plan only requires everything to go well. Assume lax/quick security through all airports and no complications for transportation or the boat return time. I actually HATE tight timeframes like this. But I had travel insurance. If anything went wrong, I’d be fine.
Well, things went wrong.
A plane out of Sharm el Sheikh crashed when I was on a Nile cruise, and didn’t have access to internet. We had heard about it, but we were assured “It was a Russian plane. They don’t take care of them. They fall out of the sky all the time.” And “It was NOT shot down. Nothing in the Sinai can do that.” But, the night before I was to go on my tightly scheduled day trip…it was uncovered that it was a bomb, likely placed by employees at the airport.
This news caused the airport to go into chaos. Russia and the UK (and other countries) were emergency repatriating tourists back home. People were told they couldn’t take checked baggage as no one was sure they could trust security. Others were stranded, or holding out. Now I wasn’t worried about another attack, everything was being scrutinized, but my insane travel day assumed no hiccups and getting in/out of the airports FAST. That was obviously not going to happen. After doing more research, emailing with my family, and reading more news. I decided against going. Again, it wasn’t for fear of another attack, but fear that the chaos at the airport would leave me stranded somewhere. And that was a very real possibility. I learned Lufthansa was planning a strike
Again, it wasn’t for fear of another attack, but fear that the chaos at the airport would leave me stranded somewhere. And that was a very real possibility. To recap where I was trying to go in a less than 48 hour period:
Car from Giza to Cairo Airport Hotel. Airport Hotel to Cairo Airport. Cairo to Sharm flight. Boat, Submarine and city tour all in various places in Sharm. Flight from Sharm back to Cairo. Drive to hotel, shower, pack and drive back to airport. Flight from Cairo to Munich, then Munich to Frankfurt, then Frankfurt to Denver.
Another factor was that I learned Lufthansa was planning a strike handful of hours after I was going to depart from Germany. So I could really easily be stranded in Sharm, Cairo, Munich, or Frankfurt should anything go wrong. And the Lufthansa strike was believed (and did end up) to last a week. As much fun as it would be to extend my trip, not that way.
And so I attempted to cancel my trip, but the Egyptian guides, smelling blood in the water and a downturn in tourists from this latest attack, stood their ground. They insisted it would be okay. However, after my first day having a different tour show up over an hour late…I learned that tight timeframes are just impossible on “Egyptian Time”. So I slept in and instead spent the day wishing I had flown home. I did end up getting lunch with a groupmate and seeing the pyramids from the street. But I felt like I completely wasted that day. So many good ideas and plans, and it all fell aport.
Travel Missteps is an every-other week series on how sometimes part of the journey is making mistakes and getting lost.
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