At the first check point (starting from Bah after few km, from Siwa after 40 km) they will not let you go on withaut proper papers. OK you can go around the CP, but there are more along the road. Do you know where they are and where to go around? And even if you go around all of them, you ll be braking the law, and do you want to do it?

We never hired an agency, but issuing a permit the police (in fact army) give you someone to sit in a car - for free. They change at the CP s and they are not a pain in the ass. It s not worth to spend a week negotiating for alowness to go alone. Of course you may be happy and they alove you going alone at once. You never know it s Egypt....

This year we traveled Egypt 5 weeks and we managed to escape all konvois (from Asuan, Luxor, Abu S), we passed some CP without proper papers (but not Siwa Bah). But it happened a police wantet to sit in our car for next 100 km (Edfu - Marsa Alam). And it s not worth to fight with them for next couple of hours, as I said they are mostly OK.

You organise everything at the Tourist Police office, on the right just as you pass the first check point in Bahariya. They said we had to take a police man with and we only had to pay 300 pound for his return trip. We stayed at Ahmed's safari camp, the guy said he can organise one of his guides for 150 pounds since one of their vehicles had to go through a day later with tourists, so we ended up doing that.

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Jean Visser

http://ons4.reproroom.com

You see what a mess! If you ask me; you never have to pay for return trip of an officer....

But more important about Egypt:

1. What is your experience with permission for a car? Or carnet was stamped for one month after a big talking. First they wanted to stamp it for two weeks only, but in both cases with possibility to extend it in Cairo (Traffic police). We did it but it was worth nothing when we were leaving Egypt and so we left some more money in Egypt since our boat in Nuweiba was already leaving......

2. Someone mentioned Cassandra Vivian book. Yes it is a great book about history people, BUT were you able to find any of places she is writing about? Sometimes I thought she was never there.....

Interesting point about extending the carnet....

I entered Egypt in 05 and my carnet was only stamped for a month. I tried several times in Cairo to extend it, but with Egyptian bureacracy being what it is, this proved to be almost impossible. Possibly with a local fixer it might be easier?

I left Egypt six months later without my carnet stamp being extended. I played stupid at the border crossing at Nuweiba, and although I had to pay a bit extra to cover the additional five months, the hassle involved was significantly less that trying to extend the carnet stamp. It was also done legitimately with no baksheesh and I was provided with a customs receipt.

The moral of the story was that next time I wouldnt bother trying to officially extend the carnet stamp and instead just deal with the issue when you try to leave the country.

cheers

Like noted above, most rules can be worked around, however you never know when they suddenly start taking them seriously. At the time when we did the Siwa - Bahariya six months ago, we were also told we will have to take a policeman, however when we reached the check-point, apparently none of them felt like going along in a sandstorm, so the matter was dropped quietly. On the other hand, I have been driving about and renting cars merrily with my Hungarian license (yes, I know supposedly you need an international one), a couple of weeks ago I was flatly refused a car by the Avis office where I regularly hire, saying now this rule is strictly enforced. (Half an hour later at another agency cash talked... ).

They stamped ours for a month in Aswan, we later extended in Cairo at Customs (GPS: N30.12058 E31.39681), was bureaucratic, first they wanted us to back to Aswan to extend it. After talking to the manager we had to part about about EGP 1500 and all in all it took about 3 hours, I suppose it's not too bad. Turned out it was worth it, a British couple couldn't get past the border at Amsaad and had to go back (with an escort) to Cairo, it took them 5 days to get it sorted and back to the border, by this time their Libyan Travel Agency also charged them extra for the delay. In hindsight I am glad I got it sorted in Cairo. BTW when the papers started running out we were in Dahab, we went to Nuweiba and tried to extend there but they couldn't / wouldn't.[/quote]

We found most we were looking for, the directions are shaky at times, a lot are listed on Tracks4Africa though. The only thing I have against the book is that it's a bit too much information.

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Jean Visser

http://ons4.reproroom.com

I´d be really interested in this track log - we´ll be there from 07.04 till 15.04. Could please send it to me bjorn.vercauteren ATAT pure-sang . net and if possible any other tracks of Egypt ? Thank you very much .

Björn.

We entered Egypt a few days ago (10 April 2009) from Aqaba Jordan to Nuweiba. We were preparing ourselves for a 30 [day] entry permit for our 4x4 (with the option to extend in Cairo), but managed to get a 90 day entry permit for the vehicle. (We have a multi entry 6 month visa allowing you to stay in Egypt for 90 continues days). It cost the same as a 30 day entry permit

Costs were as follows (all in Egyption Pounds)
515 custom fee
550 insurance
100 temporary registration/number plate
10.50 for something else...
and we gave the toursit police guy 20 for his excellent help.

Cheers

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www.seeyouwhenwegetthere.com

finally I did the trip one week ago... no problems whatsoever.
First had to get a military permit. Just in front of the police station on your right hand side of the tourist office is a small office that arranges everything for you : 5 dollars en 10 EPounds / person + copies of passeport and drivers license. They look if there is another car doing the trajectory, if not you have to hire a guide / police. We got lucky there was another 4x4 doing with Egyptian guide. We asked for the papers in the morning and the same evening we had them... The first 2 checkpoints you do together, after that you do as you please, having your permit of course. The road is OK, we did some offroad to enjoy the sceneries... (and the remains of some crashed airplane) there is even a part of the road that looks like a first class highway - hope they won´t work to fast otherwise it will be no fun at all...

hi.

maybe u know it is possible to cross egypt border by diesel car?
i find in internet difference informations.

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GZ

No problem crossing the Egypt / Libyan border, I have done it recently with a diesel car, although the only crossing point is in the North at Saloom, & the beauracracy / formalities are a bit drawn out, there are posts on this forum about it, also check out chris scotts 'sahara overland'
Andy

We live in Cairo and off road a lot. The Siwa - Bahariya road is as Andrays describes. You may be lucky and get through in a 2 WD, but you would not have done on the day we did it.

We had to deviate considerably twice (several kilometres) from the track to get over the tongue of sand he describes. Driving a 2007 4.5 litre petrol Land Cruiser (Amazon in the UK) I got massively bogged down here in a dust bowl. We did more digging that day than I have cumulatively done on every other trip in Egypt.

I know someone else who got stuck on this route and needed third party assistance (summoned on a sat phone) to get out.

This is relatively easy off road driving but it is still the desert and not a benign environment.

On fuel, Siwa, Bahariya, Farafra and Dhakla all have filling stations. Kharga I don't know. Not all sell petrol. (Half way house on the Cairo - Bahariya road only has diesel, for example.)They are unlikely to have anything better than 90 octane and it may well be leaded. They occasionally run out of petrol, particularly around public holidays. I am told they never run out of diesel, but have not tested this theory.

Does anyone have GPS coordinates for the crashed plane?

Hi all
just did Siwa Bahariya road few weeks ago ( for maybe the 15Th time in the last 8 month) ,
about permits ,
it is so easy now to get it ,
5 USD for each person and 10 USD for the car and some few Egyptian pounds more
if you are foreigner depend on the officer mood ,he might ask you to take a military guide ,or you can be in a convoy with the rest of the cars which will drive in the same way ,usually you make permits like a day before you depart and then he will ask you to be in front of the military office around 7 to 7:30 am the day you will travel ,
if there is any local guides will do the trip he will put you in convoy with them ,or he will put an escort with you ,just to make sure you will have safe trip
you must pass through check point ,i dint think its a good idea at all to not do that (as its smuggling route and close to Libyan border ,just dint do it
the route is OK ,easy to do ,but there is 2 sand dunes areas can be really hard and lots of digging,( show respect to the desert )
these route known for locals as the tires and suspension eater ,very easy to tear Tyre or two there

the good news they are working really hard and fast on it and i think in a year or two will be easy 2 wheel drive road
to hire a 4x4 car from Siwa to Bahariya or vise verse is from 1000 to 1400 Egyptian pound (check the rate today is 5.6 per 1 USD
cheers