Finally, the Pharos at Alexandria, to bring the trip full circle from the lighthouse at Agulhas.

From Alex to El Alamein, just over 100km, there are non-stopresort style housing developments, for Cairo’s elite and the armed forces. It boggles the mind how all these apartments and houses can be filled. It appears to be a housing boom, the bubble of which has burst just like Dubai. Oil money, for sure, but what a totally senseless investment, considering the need for schools and clinics throughout the country.

El Alamein is touching, one has no words. The German memorial is stark and has no soul. The Italian one is stylish and artistic, resplendent in the purest of white. The most poignant, however, is the Commenwealth graveyard with its individual crosses, and the South African section especially heartrending for us.

We decided to spend the night in the only hotel in the area, it was just too late to move on. Early Monday morning we dook the excellent and rather quiet desert road to Cairo, burnt up the kilometres, and two and a half hours later, we were on the Cairo ring road. After another hour of uncertainty about where to take the road to Suez, since T4A is flummoxed and our maps don’t have the minutest detail required, we carried on straight and felt rather pleased with ourselves.

Crossing the Suez tunnel was quick and cheap (R2,80), then a few hours to cross Sinai, and then the Taba border post. Less said, the better… we had to unpack absolutely everything, each ammo case, drawer and bag, open the roof tent, spread all our belongings on the tarmac. Nobody spoke English, but they were amazed and confused by our droewors, tin of Fisherman’s Friend sweets, firelighters and Gabrielskloof olive oil, sniffing everything and none the wiser. Then they confiscated the binoculars, GPS and Jannie’s panga. Jannie was fuming and he quite lost it. I had to tell him to hold his horses and let me get on with things, he was about to assault the idiots.

It was a further rigmarole to return the Egyptian licence, for which the umpteenth official demanded money. This chap wanted the royal sum of about R14. By that stage we honestly did not have any Egyptian money on us any more, and it was late in the day, and I was so angry that they had broken the clips of the ammo cases and tore the tent cover, so I told him to go fly a kite. He just shrugged and completed the paperwork, so it was obvious that he tried to get away with murder. After returning the number plates, we got the carnet stamped, then the passports. During all this time, not one other person trying to cross the border. Tells a story, doesn’t it.

Eventually they walked ahead of the Prado to the Israeli side, not having found anything with which we could be charged, and handed over the three offending items with glee, as if to say: see what a thorough job we did. We couldn’t be happier to get out of Egypt. Little did we know…