The Ordeal at Customs…

"You will wait outside until you are summoned... !! And stop asking so many questions...!!" Khalid and Sam cool their heels outside Aswan Port

If you ever want your patience tested, then dealing with the Port Authorities at Aswan, will do very nicely…

Kamal collected us at our respective hotels at 8.30am and first drove us out to the port to begin the lengthy process of getting our vehicles cleared through Customs… For the next 8 hours, we would be shunted from pillar to post, shouted at, threatened and made to understand that if we did not grovel enough; our vehicles would stay in the port for as long as the Customs officials deemed it “necessary”…

The Port of Aswan lies about 15 kms out of town, and we would the make the journey back and forth four times before the day was out…

On our arrival at the gates to the port, Kamal told us to wait outside, while he drove through with the Customs guy, who we had collected in town prior to leaving for the Port. We sat on a hard concrete bench for half an hour before we were admitted through the gates… We had to pay an entrance fee of EP 8.00

(R 12.00) for the pleasure of a ten minute walk down to the concrete jetty, where we finally laid eyes on our vehicles… The barge they were on was being pushed closer, so that we could drive our respective vehicle off it and up the ramp to the customs offices…

A tugboat pushed the barge loaded with our vehicles up to the wharf...

"Dude...!! Where have you been...? These two guys don't speak "bike", and the one is Japanese, for Pete's sake...!!" Happy to see you too, Big Fella...

Our customs man was as blind as a bat, and held our Carnets’ up to his nose in order to read them… This took about half an hour, after which a small form was filled in and we were told to pay EP 525.00 (R710.00) at a nondescript office down the hall… This done, it was back to Bat-man to have another form filled in… Then we had to drive back to town to collect a Traffic Official. He had to be taken back to the Port, to verify the chassis and engine numbers of the vehicles…

He sometimes got even closer to what he was reading, his nose almost touching the paper...

Back to town again to have yet another form filled in at the traffic station to verify that the chassis numbers were correct, drop off the officer, and ride back to the port with the form… Bat-man then took this form and began filling in more forms… This took another hour or so, and at the end of it, we discovered that I was now the proud owner of a fully kitted Landrover, and Khalid and his family would have to travel the remainder of their journey on a BMW motorcycle…!! Yes…our dear, blind, friend had filled the forms out incorrectly, and had to begin again… When Khalid politely asked him what the problem was, the official began ranting and raving, banging the desk with his fist and telling Khalid that you should sit down and keep quiet… This got Khalid rather “frosted”, and for the remainder of the day, he hardly said a word…

Photocopying out on the street...

Once his little mistake had been corrected, we had to drive back to town to pay for our 3^rd Party insurance, EP 158.00 (R 220.00) for the bike and a whopping EP 510.00 (R 680.00) for each car! Then it was across the road to buy a cardboard folder and make more photocopies of the Carnet. This cost about R10.00… The photocopy shop was basically located on the pavement, as are many other business enterprises in this neck of the wood… The machines are pushed out onto the sidewalk, and business is conducted from there…

By this time, we had stopped asking what the money was for whenever Kamal asked for more… We knew that officials were being given “gifts” to speed up the process… Bribes are a way of life here, and money changes hands all the time without any form of receipt…

“OK… Now you give me EP5 each…” Kamal said…

“What’s this for..?” I asked…

“Never mind…!! Do you want your number plates today or tomorrow…?” Kamal answered…

“Er… Today would be nice…”

“Then give me the Five pounds…!”

And this is how it went… Every time he opened his mouth, we automatically reached for our wallets…

We eventually stopped asking any further questions, as we sat down on a wooden bench, sucking on a Coke while Kamal went from office to office, handing in bits of paper and collecting others… The he drove out to another place in town, because the official who had to sign some papers to release the number plates had taken the day off… Naturally there was no one else in the entire department who could sign these precious, confidential and highly secretive pieces of paper….!! Finally, late in the afternoon, he pronounced himself ready to drive us back to the port to collect our vehicles…

“But first we must go to another traffic station to fill in a form…”

Sam and I looked at each other, and mumbled words that rhymed with “duck”, before walking out to the car… Another hot ride out to the port, another form to fill in, then another photocopy of this particular form, and back to Bat-man to check it all out again… Another form was pushed across the desk to us, every word on it written in Arabic…

“Sign this form…!!” we were commanded…

I wanted it translated fully before I put pen to paper, and refused to sign until Khalid had read it, and explained that it was all above board… This got Kamal in a tizz…

“Don’t you trust us…?” he asked hotly…

“You bet your sweet life I don’t trust any of you buggers…!” I said… (Said this to myself, of course…otherwise I’d still be in Aswan…!!)

Sam asked another question about some other forms, and Bat-man let rip at him, spittle flying from the corners of his mouth…

“I know my job!! This the way we do it in Egypt!! This is not your country!!” he shouted at the top of his voice… He ended his tirade with a sneer, and said,

“Now I search your cars!! You unpack everything!!”

Sam gave Khalid and I an apologetic look, and together we trooped out to where we were parked…

Outside, near to where we had parked our vehicles, stood a South African registered Toyota Land Cruiser… It’s tyres were flat, and the once white car was now covered in a thick layer of dust… Apparently the owner did not have the correct documentation, had put up an argument that had got up the noses of the Customs officials, and the end result was that his vehicle was impounded… Kamal told us the car had been there for a few months, and doubted whether the owner would ever see it again…

Sam unpacked a few of his bags, until Bat-man was satisfied that he had subdued us all with his authority, then made Khalid open the doors of his Landrover and took a quick look inside… He never bothered with the Big Fella…

Back to the offices for another stamp, and last but not least, we had to sign a “Confession”… This piece of paper had us shaking with laughter, which we had to try very hard to disguise, considering that we were so close to getting out of the port…

I have a confession to make... I am desperate to see an Egyptian in a "costumes"...

And FINALLY,  we were told we could go… But first, before we could exit the gates of the Port, the police had to inspect the cars themselves… We did not dare ask why two separate inspections had to take place, but Kamal said that a small “fee” of EP 20.00 each, would speed up the process… By now our wallets were a lot lighter than when we had set out earlier that morning, and we were all fuming at the constant bribes we had to pay to get our vehicles released…

The culture of “baksheesh” is so ingrained in the government departments of this country, that absolutely nothing can take place without money changing hands first… It is far and away the most corrupt country that I have experienced so far on this journey, and I was fast getting to the point where all I wanted was to be out on the road, heading for the next border… Why it should take such a long time to clear into Egypt remains a mystery… At all the other borders we had crossed, Customs took barely half an hour, and in some, only 5 minutes…

The Big Fella goes deep undercover... He is now known as Aswan 17...

Without a fixer to do all the running around, bribing, translating and ensuring that the correct process was followed, it would have taken us two or three days to clear the vehicles ourselves. The language barrier is probably the biggest obstacle you have to face here. To make sure you use a fixer, officials will not give you the correct information, or pretend they do not speak English, knowing that when you are forced to get local help, they will receive a cut from the fixer…

So your hands are basically tied, unless of course, you have plenty of  time on your hands, and enjoy the heat and environs of the Port of Aswan… Sam later made the comment that “when Incompetence and Stupidity are mixed together, the result can be a catastrophe”, and we had experienced both today, but luckily avoided a “catastrophe”…

It is incomprehensible that the various departments that are involved in clearing vehicles, are not all housed at the port. The constant driving back and forth to town, eats up your cash, and keeps the taxi industry flourishing… It becomes almost impossible to calculate how much it costs to get your bike out of Sudan and released into Egypt, but in the end I figured it was in the region of about R2000.00, excluding the cost of transport from Wadi Halfa…

Kamal wanted $20.00 for his effort, but I paid him $15.00 and a few Sudanese pounds that I still had in my wallet… Khalid and Sam had to fork out $40.00 each for their cars…

The Big Fella was riding on fumes as we got back to town… I had ridden over 450 kms on the tank I filled in Dongola, and the four spare litres I put in just short of Wadi Halfa… I found a service station not far from the hotel and put in 22.35 litres of fuel…and paid the huge sum of R46.80 for it!!

Finally, a pleasant surprise to end the day!! Petrol costs just R2,00 a litre for regular, and that’s all this station sold… The highest octane available is “92”, and costs R2.50 a litre, taking my running costs down to just R0.15 cents a kilometre… I got a sudden itch to find a long stretch of open desert road, and give the throttle a BIG twist… At these prices, I could afford to…!!

After 8 hours of dealing with petty officialdom, we were free to ride again, and we immediately made plans to get the hell out of Aswan…

©GBWT 2010