Egyptian Carnet
 

Hi,

I have a South African registered land Rover which I acquired a carnet for - but not one for Egypt as setting up the 200% deposit was too hard/expensive (Didn't want to move that amount of money to S.A. from U.K. for such a long period)

My carnet looks like any other but on the back cover there is a section marked "Not valid in" and of course Egypt is stamped there along with America/Asia & Middle East/Oceania/Europe/Syria/Iran/Iraq.

I am of course planning on going to Egypt. My questions are these;

Is there any point in just removing the stamp from the back cover or will it be checked by other means?

I have read on several places on the web that Egypt now has another system in place to leave a deposit on the border and claim it back on leaving - has anyone actually done this? If so what is the payment/repayment mechanism? Many of the references to it seem to quote wikipedia which itself states, "citation needed"

I don't mind paying the quoted E2000 deposit as long as I get it back!

Good luck with trying to get anything back from an Egyptian border crossing mate, you should be able to get the money back for the deposit on your number plates but they just make it impossible, so think deeply before parting with any cash.
At the Libya border they are known to let you enter the country without a carnet, but then you have to park up the vehicle and arrange for the carnet to cover you.

Gaz

Why not get another carnet from South African AA for Egypt only? I know it costs money for the carnet itself, but at least you can send it back and get your money back as soon as you leave Egypt...

When I was leaving Egypt through Nuweiba in May 2007, I happened across a Swiss chap in a Kenyan registered Peugeot 504. He had been working on some sort of VSO-like medical project in Kenya and had decided to drive back to Switzerland at the end. He'd crossed Sudan and had been stopped at the Egyptian border because - wait for it - his Kenyan Carnet didn't cover Egypt. After a few days in bureaucratic limbo, he eventually managed to negotiate with Egyptian Customs that if he was able to get a letter of no objection from the Kenyan AA, they would let him in.

A quick hunt on the internet turned up the logo and address of the Kenyan AA. He then constructed a fake letter of no objection from the Kenyan AA, complete with their letterhead, and emailed it to his girlfriend, who was luckily still in Kenya. She printed it out and faxed it to the Egyptians at the Sudan border, who could see that it came from a Kenyan number. It worked!