Today is an Egyptian national holiday, Armed Forces Day, so the university
is off for a long weekend. We're heading to a resort on the Red Sea
along with much of the rest of the population of Cairo. Since flights were
impossible to book when we planned this trip in early September, we
hired a van to take six of us on the six hour trip. Well, it was supposed
to be six hours, but we had coolant problems. Two hours into the trip, we
stopped while the drivers replaced a leaking hose. Fortunately we had a lot
of drinking water which we could use to fill the radiator again. But a half
hour later, something blew and we lost all coolant. The drivers made valiant
attempts to stop the leak, and got some more water from passing trucks, but it
wouldn't hold. After two hours in the sun in the desert with only a closed
factory nearby, we realized the van
just wasn't going anywhere soon and flagged down a bus to ask for a ride.
It turned out to be a bus from Maadi with a group of Shell employees and
families on a company outing. They were going to the same town as us, and
gave us a lift. We even found we had a number of connections with some
mutual friends and folks at AUC. We finally arrived at Sharm El Sheikh
four hours later than expected to begin our holiday by the sea.
