Atlas - our friends who have crossed into Egypt have recently confirmed they're struggling with diesel still (hours queueing). Sometimes there's issues with petrol too

Hope you don't get stuck!

Clare and Sam

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I have "Solar" .. if you need. Although I'm not quite on your route ... but your welcome anyway ...
Cheers :

Thanks.Will be going through in August so will follow this thread.

OK - just driven Aswan - Luxor - Western Desert - Cairo - Sharm el Sheikh - Tabat & here is our advice regarding diesel ("Solar").

Arrive with full tanks - it's very hard to get.

Fill up little & often - it's easier to get 30 liters than 130 litres.

In Aswan we found ourselves being ushered to the front of the queue with no fuss being made by the locals at all. So we (reluctantly & warily) went to the front & found ourselves being looked after very well... helped by the fact that we only wanted 20 litres of course. So our tactic there after that became:

- when you see people queuing for fuel you know there is a tanker just in or on it's way... here you will get fuel.
- approach from the other side of the road (not from the back of the queue) & gently go to the pumps, pretending to be clueless & ask "Mumkin Solar?" ("Any diesel?"
- every time (& I mean every time) we were given the thumbs up & were slotted nicely into the queue without any fuss being made by anyone. Again I must emphasise that we never put more than 40 litres in at any time. To do more would be pushing the kindness & generosity of those letting you in front of them.

Most times we were charged the going rate. A couple of times we paid about 120% - 150% of the true cost... for us worth it for getting to the front, especially when it starts at 10p a litre anyway!

Once the 'tip' I offered the pump guys after he filled us up was firmly given straight back to me. None actually demanded or expected one.

Never were we given a hard time, involved in any problems or stupidly overcharged.

I know some may think it's wrong to queue jump - fine, then sit in the queue. But I got the impression that most people had no problems with it & many quoted the importance of tourism to the Egyptian economy as being a justifiable reason. Your choice. If we had at any point felt that it was causing problems we would not have continued.

BTW - the easiest place for fuel was Aswan (on the road to Abu Simbel about 10km south of Aswan), in the Western Destert & Suez. The worst were Cairo & Sinai (esp Sharm el Sheikh which has 100s of tour busses waiting or fuel daily).

Good luck

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I was in Egypt on our trans-african trip last summer. We spent about a month in Aswan waiting for the ferry and attempting to get Sudanese visas. Being there for so long we befriended many folks and learned something interesting...

APPARENTLY there is a "law" that allows for tourists to bypass fuel lines. I don't know if it is a local law, national law, or whatever. My thoughts are that Egypt is tourist friendly with cheap visas, VERY lax rules regarding overstaying a visa, cheap and easy extensions, etc. This could be an extention of that.

We were told this by no less than 10 people and several times we would be with Egyptians in one of our cars (we were driving) and would go get fuel ahead of all others. Our friends said nothing and no one complained or batted an eye.

I'd love to know more about others' experiences with this.