Egypt: Flying Home (24 December 2020)

 The final morning in Egypt. I was up early to have a final breakfast, with the memories of Mohamed Ahmed's foul and falafel fresh in my mind, I head to Oldish to hopefully repeat the experience.

I take the 10 minute walk, dodging traffic and death at every junction. Oldish was open, one of the few Cairo breakfast places open before 9am. I order the Oldish Breakfast with omelette, foul, falafel, orange juice, bread, salad and a soft cheese concoction.

The service was the most Egyptian in my short time here, and typically the one time I had to be in a rush in order to catch my plane. After 40 minutes my omelette appeared - a world record for the cooking of an omelette surely. The breakfast was sustenance, over the flavour of Mohamed Ahmed's foul and falafel. 

After a quick scurry back to the hotel, and the 47th body scan and search in the 24 last 24 hours. I quickly pack and order an Uber for a bargain price of 130 EGP (£6.50) - unfortunately I had to forgo Hamdy's offer of 150EGP, even though it was probably the best taxi offer I would find.

My Uber driver extoled the virtues of Dahab and Sharm during the 30 minutes journey. Driving no handed and excitedly flicking through videos of his recent visits. I had to endure 3/4 minutes videos of my man dancing on the Sharm beaches whilst dodging Cairo motorway traffic. Sharm did look fun to be fair to him.

My driver dropped me at terminal 2, I walked in and immediately had a sinking feeling when the London flight was not shown on the departure boards. Had it been cancelled? Had the borders with the UK closed? I should probably have checked before leaving the hotel, but alas, it was just a case of being dropped at the wrong terminal. A five minute walk later and I was at terminal 3, going through the copious security and eventually dropping my bag via an erroneous journey through domestic travel security.

A handful of people were waiting for the London flight, the cleaners and airport staff easily outnumbering the outbound passengers. The same seven Christmas songs were on repeat adding to the dystopian charm of the empty airport.

I boarded the almost empty plane and set off back to the UK, not knowing what would greet me. Everyone I spoke to in the last few days commented about the reported Covid issues in the UK - back to the eye of the storm. Until next time.