How to get a Visa Extension in Cairo Egypt

You go to Mogamma building, at the Tahrir square.                     Sep. 2017

What to take:

• 1 copy of your passport
• 1 copy of Entry-Visa
• 1 passport picture 
• Money... I needed 570le  for a 6 months visa

Go early... at 8am, the queues are smaller.

go to the first floor, security, walk into the right hallway, keep on walking till the end, turn right to the next hallway, there's lots of people waiting. Somewhere in the middle of this hallway, opposite another hallway to the right, there is a desk, get here an application form and fill it in. Don't queue to get the form, just go aside and ask/take the form.

Go to window at the right handsite of window 13. There is no number or description.  Here you present your passport, picture and the copies. You can ask up to 3 months, if you need a 6 months visa or more, you need to get an extra signature first from the police in the corner opposite the office-window (men in white with stripes)

You receive the form back with the bill, you need to pay that at the bank office.
Go to the bank office, go back for that, halfway the hallway, there is another hallway to the left and a little bit further you will find the Bank office.  Pay the bill. Mine was 570le. Last year it used to be 50le

You get a papers with a stamp and a receipt.
Now go to window 13 and they will add information into a book and to your visa.  Be sure you know the address of the place where you live or show a business card from a hotel.
Beware that you need to get your visa extension in the region where you stay. If you stay in a rented flat it can get complicated, you need to prove that with bills from electricity etc... It's easiest to bring a business card from a hotel from downtown.

They will tell you to come back the next morning with your passport at 9am.
window 38

Next morning come back at 9am, give them your passport and they tell you you can come to collect at 1am at window 38

Then at 1am...  wait at the window together with the others, until your name is called. Can take a while. Don't push, no need to be in the front... just arrive at 9 and hopefully you have good karma.

enjoy the process 😀😀

Cairo is a car graveyard...

Cairo, Egypt, has a population of 10 million people and probably about the same number of cars or more. People drive new and old cars. There's almost no public parkings, so they park on the streets, wherever they can. New cars without a scratch or a bump are only seen in the shops. As soon as a car leaves the shop, it gets scratched, bumped. It's not a matter of "if", it's a matter of "when".

When a car stops driving, they park it on the street. And forget about it. Every street has those cars. Flat tires, sinking in the dust, plants growing under, next, on them... It's heaven for the lovers of oldtimers for sure!

But before they are sent to the graveyard, they drive it until it falls apart. There's no sign of any governmental yearly technical inspection. Everything is allowed. A typical sign you notice at night. You want to cross a street and vaguely you see a car approaching at high speed. It's dark and car has no lights. Fortunately you are aware that this can happen and you are prudent. You let the car pass, thinking he forgot to put on his lights. But when you see the car from the backside, there's lights! 

This happens all the time... at least 1 out of 20 drives at night without lights. It's scary.

Welcome to Egypt, formerly known as the land of the camels, today the land of the cars.

Enjoyable driving in Cairo, Egypt

I was visiting my friends in Cairo. I was in Cairo before, februari 2011. Back then, I thought Cairo had the worst traffic in the world. But I was not driving then... it was a perception from the passenger seat.
I found a hotel in downtown Cairo and my friend drove me from the airport to the hotel. Google Maps as a GPS did an excellent job.

Cairo is a big city! There's a metro, that works really well, but unlike London or Paris, it's a fairly small metro system... only 78km, while the city is much larger then Paris or London. So all other traffic happens by car.

The day I arrived, there was a football match. The Africa cup, Egypt vs. Burkina Faso. No need to tell you that the traffic was worse. Unfortunately we had to drive a few times from one part of the city to the center and back. Traffic was really bad. All that time I was observing my friend driving. It was clear that in this heavy traffic you had to go with the flow and take any opportunity to move on, else someone else would. So drive close to the car in front of you, don't give space. Most of the time there's no lanes, and roads that are ment for 2 cars become roads for 3 cars. Basically they fill in the space... More space, more cars next to each other. Give and take 10cm, so the mirrors do not touch. But this is only at very slow speed. traffic is saturated. Get to know the dimensions of your car!
When the traffic flows, there's more space and cars dance over the road. Left, right, everywhere. There seem no rules. You stay left or right or in the middle, as you like. They will pass you at the other side if they want. Most cars are driving at a moderate speed. Only few are fast and furious.

So we were stuck in the traffic for an hour, late in the afternoon. And it was a long day already... I arrived at 3am at night at the airport. No sleep... I noticed however, that my friend was soo tired and I asked: "shall I drive?" We stopped, changed seats and off I went.
At first I had to get used to the car. Automatic gear, I always drive manual gear in my country! Then the breaks, the dimension... But it took only a few minutes to adapt. I had time, traffic was sooo slow. My friend could relax, and strangely enough, I relaxed too, while driving.

My phone, with google maps, was laying down, near the gearbox and while driving, I glimpsed at it to find my way... It's not perfect, not as good as a car-gps but it helped me a lot.

The following days, whenever we went somewhere with the car, I was driving. And I enjoyed it. I discovered that when you relax into it, it is comfortable driving… just follow the flow and do what they do. Don't judge, everything is different, don't compare, see everything in wonder and laugh. It makes the driving a whole different experience. I would every brave soul that is a good driver encourage to do it. You may enjoy it as much as I do.

I have been driving in many big cities and countries… Coming from brussels, one of the worst traffic congested cities in the west, I drove in Mexico city, Bali, Palermo, London, Paris, to name a few…

So let's summarise, what did you see, how to make driving in Cairo, Egypt enjoyable:

• Get a Phone-holder to use your phone as GPS, I bought one to clip on the ventilator
• Get a USB-lighter plugin to charge your phone
• RELAX, dance on the street
• Humor and wonder. Don't compare, don't judge. SMILE.
• When you want to take a lane or a direction and you move from one lane to another, just move slowly into that direction and you will be able to push yourself through, they will allow you and they will accept that. It's normal behaviour.
• Many streets are one direction, sometimes they drive in the wrong direction. So did I. No problem. Just smile.
• Use whatever lane you like, DANCE.
• There's U-turns to go back all the time.
• There's very little traffic lights, when it flows, it flows...
• Bridges are helping you to go through the city quickly.
• Slowly drive over the speed bumps 
• To park, drive around in circles and be creative, there's always something. People will help you park for a few pounds.  
• Be aware that at night some cars are driving with out lights!!! 
• Egyptians do NOT know how to drive! I guess they buy a license and start driving.
• There's no rules, you can do anything, and they do! 
• Look in your right mirror ALL THE  TIME. Cars will pass you by from the right and cut you off. It's not their fault, it will always be yours. Adapt, don't fight it. 

So if you are an experienced driver, enjoy driving and drove in big cities, don't hesitate... It's fun!

5 days in Iceland during winter - Day 4...

if you are new... scroll down and read day 0 & 1 first...

In the morning, we opened the curtain and... we saw this:

indeed... while we arrived without snow... even not when we went to bed... there was snow now... and we wanted to find out how bad it was! But first breakfast. The landlady prepared a large table for us... mmm... then packing and... a BIG hug from the landlady... and of we were...

It was still snowing and, we were at the sea, so in the country it could be worse... thoughts enter your mind at such times... what if it was really bad? and we had to catch our flight tomorrow morning? but we get stuck here somewhere... thoughts... are they ever right? :-)

 it was not that bad... yet...
As you can see on the map below (yellow line), we had to cross the country only for a short distance. There was a lot of snow, but nothing to worry about, and quickly we reached the other side of the peninsula. There was a lot less snow here, still some wind and the snow, dancing on the road...

Our plan was this: we wanted to do what they call the golden triangle. Some well known touristic places in iceland (for a change) But we had to leave the west coast for this and head towards the country, east of reykjavik.

We had to drive for a few hours to get there... First destination would be Þingvellir...

I was driving... good asphalt road... Two lanes... more traffic then we were used to (one car each quarter of an hour), when suddenly... driving about 120km an hour - I know!! maximum speed is 90km/h, but it was a straith road, and I was alone, and cruise control is so easy... and...
I started to turn left, and right and left and right, I hit the dissable cruise control button immediately and was able to get control of the car, without spinning or rolling over... (Milow in mind) It started to rain and it was -4°... so I was suddenly driving on PURE ice... my speed went down... to about 70km/h... did I tell you today I love this car?

especially the tires with nails...
anyway... we survived... again... others had less luck, indeed we saw some accidents a little bit further in a small village.

As fast as the glazed frost arrived, it dissapeared... indeed, only few kilometers further we had a temperature of +4°. No more danger, and I could set my cruise control back on and take a nap ;-) just before lunch we arrived at Þingvellir.
It's a very important historic place for iceland... we didn't stay long...

we stopped at a touristcenter for lunch... we were the only one... and the lady told us, that this time of the year (winter), they did not provide lunch... haha, what was she doing there? Selling postcards? to tourists that weren't coming? lol
Some things you don't have to try to understand!

We would find something else... the usual hamburger at a fuel station... tasted better then the Quick, Macdo or even the Burgerking.
the landscape started to change a lot. Again there was a road closed and we had to make a deviation direction coast. I was not that bad, we saw lots of things...

Snow disspeared for a while...
And I was telling you about the houses yesterday, well this region looked like the holliday park for reyjavik... guess alls people in reykjavik have e holliday house in this region, close by the lake, and come here during summertime...

the houses and especially the roofs have all sorts of colors...

big ones and small ones...

this one was almost covered by ice.

the main attraction was a big (frozen) lake.

we stopped, as usual, several times to take pictures and look arround. In iceland, you simply stop... the road lays a bit higher, so you might need a 4X4 to get back onto the road... but since there so little traffic... it was never a problem to stop.

finally I even stopped to shoot the horses! Although, I must confess... I didn't get out of the car... :-)

We had a quick lunch at a fuel station and arrived at geysir. The second touristic point... For the first time we were among tourists!

the geysers are really impressive! every 10 minutes the geyser explodes...
starting with a blue shine, but quickly exploding in the air.

they are not my best pictures, I know... it's not easy to shoot a white geyser against a white sky... but you get the impression...

Our next destination was Gullfoss. Quite massive... Biggest waterfall of europe...
some pictures:

Time to go back... back were we started... we set for reykjavik first and then finish in the blue lagoon...
Though we had to drive at least 200km to get in reykjavik, we never got bored driving in iceland... I'll show you why:

We arrived, just in time in reykjavik and headed for the shops we saw the first night when we arrived. The day we arrived, we had diner and walked through the main shopping road and discovered some interesting designer shops... Things you simply don't see here...

Well the first one, wasn't really interesting... we went in... and out... quickly...
But the second one... was different... Geertje started to try dresses, and designer
was opening the shop herself and she asked me "where are you from?" "Belgium..." "Oh! where in belgium?" I was already surprised to get this question... "leuven!" "I lived in belgium for a year, in liege, looong time ago" she said... well to make a long story short, we got out of the store at 6.30 (closes at 6), and the price was higher then the rent of the car! But!!!! I got the promise I can use the dress and the necklace for a shoot... Who's voluteering? :-)

Plan for tonight was have a swim first in the blue lagoon and then come back, final diner, packing, to bed, to get up very early! at 5, we had to be at the airport at 6, plane departing 7.50.

So Blue lagoon first, about a 40km from reykjavik... Well I'll show you some pictures...

mmm... the blue lagoon is always wooooooow.... so relaxing... we stayed for an hour and then back to reykjavik, dinertime...
Well my dear friends... the adventure is almost finished, yes we got our flight and we had troubles coming home again with the train... (never again) but one thing is sure! WE ARE COMING BACK!!

5 days in Iceland during winter - Day 3...

if you are new... scroll down and read day 0 & 1 first...

we got up early in the morning, drove to a bakery and had breakfast there... mmm... I always like seeing bakeries in foreign countries... often quite different, and it was... we tried some things and it was quite good! The weather today wasn't as good as yesterday, the sky was white and there was a lot of wind... we had to drive quite a bit since we were heading direction djupavik in the north. See the green line on the map. It used to be a village, but since the fish factory closed in 1954, it became a ghost town... I saw some pics on Sigur Ros's movie... and I was sold... had to see it! Strangely enough, I was not able to find pics from djupavik during winter... I would find out why later...

 As mentioned, the weather was not too good, but still it was beautiful in a different way... the snow was blown by the wind over the road and was dancing, twirling, crossing over the asfalt. So beautiful... I'm afraid I wasn't able to capture this in a picture, since my pictures don't dance... in fact it looks really flat here, but believe me... it was not...



we had to cross some land first, quite high, and we were in the snow again... often there were parkings to put on snowchains... fortunately we didn't need that. I loved that car! I would love it even more later... soon to find out!
Funny were the signs for picnic... it's an international sign:



but here on iceland, haha, they don't have trees (almost) so that was sooo funny to see the tree with the table...

lots of snow later, then landscape changed again, snow dissapeared and we were approaching the sea again.



I think Iceland has the most churches/inhabitants in the world... every village has a church, and there are even churches without villages... or perhaps, 3 houses...



the houses are interesting too, all sorts, colors, I will show you more tomorrow...
but here are a couple of interesting samples in the north:





everything seems old here... as a photographer it's an interesting place! Obviously I stopped when ever needed. Things that got my attention were for example abandoned cars... First I looked inside if there wasn't any driver behind the steering wheel anymore and then I made some pictures...

well easy going, you must be thinking... but it was not... it was FREEZING cold! For my first car, I wasn't prepared...



but for the next ones... I was!! gloves, a sort of hat... yess!! Oh! it's a good idea to bring your ski clothes!!



still we passed along interesting landscapes... I'll try to show some through my eyes... using my zoooom...

horses are everywhere, in fact... soo many that I almost forgot to shoot some...

meanwhile the road was getting rougher... what first started as a two lane asphalt road, transformed soon to a single lane gravel path the further we went...







though this was still a place people lived... well even that was going to change...

 we were driving along the coast when we saw a seal laying down on a rock...
Too late... as soon as my car stopped and I grabbed my camera he jumped into the water... pity...

from then on we were seal hunting... no luck... only birds were showing themselves...

meanwhile we arrived closer and closer to our goal, the road wasn't much road anymore but there were still some traces from other cars that used this road... even that was going to change...

indeed about 30 km from our goal we were alone... Just a small path... covered with snow, to the left the mountain, the the right the sea...

I needed my hands on the steering wheel, so no more pictures for a while... only the story... At a certain moment we arrived at a very steep point, the snow was very thick, the sea was deep below us... small road, steep, snow... Geertje said: "Koen! you are not going down there? Aren't you?" well... I thought... of course I will! there was no way to turn, even if I wanted! it wasn't getting better, and at a certain moment, I made a decision. I knew it was still about 12-15km to arrive in djupavik and I was driving in 4X4 mode, at 10-20km an hour at this moment... so, it would take us at least 30m perhaps 1h to get there, and then walk around and shoot some pictures and come back, again a lot of time... and it was already 4pm!! It would soon get darker... so I decided to turn back and come back one day to visit djupavik (isn't that a good reason to come back to island?)
I turned the car and... after a little while, I had to conquer the steep road again, but now... I had to climb! I needed all the power the 4X4 could deliver, but slowly we succeeded... told you before... I love that car ;-) haha

driving back I wanted to take a shortcut, see on the map below in red... but after driving for a while in this direction, I wanted to turn left and cross the country to the westcoast, but... i was stopped... the road was "impassable"

so back

and back the way we came...
it was getting darker but I still halted for a picture...

we had a long way to drive, as you can see on the map... I was getting tired... and finally around 21h we arrived at Stykkisholmur... A cute fisherman's village... looking for a hotel... a place to sleep... something to eat...
driving through the village a few times, we suddenly discovered a B&B sign... and yes... there was light! We rang the door... an old lady opened the door... she was at least 120 years old :-) not kidding! :-) I spoke the famous words: "hello, we are looking for a bed for tonight..." she smiled and invited us with open arms inside and showed us her best bedroom :-) Wonderfull! She bearly spoke english, but she was a perfect host! She told us that we could use her living room to sit, her bathroom to use, anything... and there was an other guest too she said...
meanwhile it was about 22h and we were hungry, fortunately we spotted a restaurant, while we were driving through the village looking for a hotel, so went there... I guess it was the only open restaurant today, we were not alone... I had some lamb... if you like lamb.. you can't go wrong with that in iceland! and we went back to the B&B, the landlady welcomed us back and she made some tea for us with a sort of pancakes... a little bit later a guy entered the house too, it was the other guest... I started talking, and he told us he was american, and did research for a movie they were going to shoot later this year... guess he was the director... he said his name was george lucas or something... anyway... we had an interesting conversation... in fact, he told us he made the same trip we did... He said... that the people in iceland drive fast!... mmm... I must have passed him... ;-) He was lucky today, he didn't go to the north as we did but to the west and had a sunny day!! well, we were tired, said goodnight and went to bed... the following morning... mmm... I'll tell you tomorrow! sweet dreams!

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