Today was crunch time!!! Today was the day I've been waiting for since Sunday and if I couldn't get my visa for whatever reason then my trip would be severely affected! I'm also really looking forward to Sudan as well so if there was any reason why I couldn't enter, I would be gutted!
Unfortunately my day didn't start too well. After my routine breakfast which was good I went back to my hotel room to get my money and passport and £40 English was missing. I'm very good with money, I know exactly how much I have and where it is because I don't have much and I have even less places to put it. For this reason I am more sceptical about the safety of my hotel room then I am the likelihood of me spending it or losing it in the street.
£40 English is not that much but it was my visa or my boat ticket to Sudan or it could be 9 days of living easily. It's amazing how far you can stretch what is just half a tank of petrol in England! I had to try and cast it out of my mind and when I told Adel it seemed very hard for him to take aswell.
I turned my room upside down with help from Adel and it was nowhere, like I said, there's not many places to check! He seemed as gutted as I was and I didn't want to dwell on it so we just continued with the day. The visa is more important to me anyway.
I needed to pay for the visa with 50USD which I could get in the bank. It should be straight forward but it wasn't and if it wasn't for Adel I would still be complaining in the bank because for some reason I needed a Sudanese visa in my passport to show I was going there in order to get the dollars, but I needed to get the dollars to get a Sudanese visa!!!!! Classic chicken and egg situation I guess.
Anyway, I finally got the 50 dollars and we headed for the embassy. There were two other white guys from South Africa that had driven from the UK taking the same route as me waiting. I entered 3 rooms in total, picking up signatures and stamps from each different person then eventually I got my passport back with the little beauty stuck in there and expiring end of December!! The whole thing took about 30 minutes not including the 3 days prior but I was a very happy man as now my next stage of the journey is possible!!
The ferry ticket office doesn't open till Saturday so until then I have more waiting around. After yesterday's NCIS fest I'm tempted to pull my own investigations into the missing£400 Egyptian pounds. It's a shame for me and for Adel as he seems to be very apologetic and despite trusting all his workers, he has given me the master key to keep so I feel more safe for the remainder of my stay. I know there are other keys and I know you should trust no one. I'm more annoyed with myself that I have lasted 80 days and I'm always careful even in hotels with my money but you expect a level of security and today (or more specifically last night, when i was out getting dinner) unfortunately I didn't get it.
The day finished in the same way as the last two. A whole chicken and a movie. The reactions I'm getting from the shop keepers in the area close to my hotel is slowly changing and it seems so are the prices. I'm getting hassled a little less, handshakes from the shopkeepers and a few things are going down in price. I think they are getting used to the bearded man and his routine!
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