crossing from Sudan to Egypt

[5 Eyes]

I will be travelling from Cape Town to Cairo to Tel Aviv Next July.
I plan to cross into To Egypt from Sudan Via Wadi Haifa. I have heard there are a few ways to do this and that getting into Egypt is a lot of hassle.
Does anyone know the real story.
And will a Carnet I get from the Rep of Ireland work there or do I need something else

[noel di pietro]

Don't worry. Checking out of Sudan is easy. Getting into Egypt is not so difficult. I assume you will be by car or bike. Make sure the car papers or bike papers are in YOUR name and also the Carnet must be in YOUR name. Anything else will be asking for trouble on Egyptian side. You will arrive in Aswan and go to customs. They will stamp your pp and carnet and will have to pay something around $100,- for that. Then you will need to take a taxi to town (10km) to get a licence plate and insurance. You are not allowed to take your car. The whole process is time consuming but straight forward and not too difficult. It is best to hire a taxi for the whole day because it requires some driving up and down between port and city. It requires the following steps;
1; after customs go to the Traffic Police in city and apply for plate.
2; go back with police officer to port for car inspection
3; go back to Traffic Police to drop officer
4; go to insurrance company (police knows address) and get insurance which is cheap.
5; go back to Traffic Police and show insurance and they will issue plate.
6; go back to port and show plate and insurance to customs and you can go!

This will take a full day :-)

And about your Carnet from Ireland??? Why would that not be ok... everbody likes the Irish :-)

cheers and have fun

Noel

www.exploreafrica.web-log.nl

[5 Eyes]

Noel

of course everyone likes the Irish... but knowing my luck they might be having an off day

thanks a lot for the help its the first solid piece of advice I have got so far.
If you are ever this way you should come visit we like the Dutch too in fact we even have a Dutch girl living in our little town, she is from a town called Lisse ( not sure of the spelling)
when did you cross this border into Egypt

[5 Eyes]

oh yeah, I'll be travelling by Bike

[noel di pietro]

We crossed sometime half september 2006 or so. A small piece of advice is do not want to sort everthing out upfront. Take it as it comes.

The only thing you really need to sort out upfront is the Sudan visa. If you go as fast as you said, then you might apply for it in Pretoria, but they only issue 30 day visa's. I.e you have to enter Sudan within 30 days after receipt of visa. A SA friend of mine got for some reason a 3 months (date of expiry is 3 months, duration of stay is 1 month) visa in Pretoria but on enterring Sudan they refused him. They said that 3 months visa are not valid?? They send him back to Addis (2000km roundtrip). Enterring from the north a 3 months visa is no problem but the people in the south (Gallabat) can be a bit funny. If you have to apply somewhere else, DO NOT WAIT untill Addis but start in Darr es S. We applied in DeS and asked them to send the feedback to Nairobi. Upon arrival in Nairobi one month later they had received nothing! But after very politely pushing for 4 days they issued them to us. We met people who applied in Addis and had to wait 6 weeks and only got a 7 day transit visa!

Please note that i heard some sounds that they no longer issue Sudan visa to tourist at embassy in Nairobi . Maybe something for you the check out!

Cheers,

Noel
www.exploreafrica.web-log.nl

[5 Eyes]

Hi Noel

thanks for the reply.
I hadn't thought it was that difficult to get the Sudanese visa so thanks for pointing that out.
Is there no Point in getting one in the Embassy in London before we fly.
And If we go to Dar es do we go to the Sudanese embassy there or where

Do we need visas for anywhere else on the route

Thanks

Gary

[noel di pietro]

Hi Gary,

There is a Sudan Embassy in Dar which issues visa. Sometimes very fast, sometimes very slow.

For the other countries; i can't help you there. I don't know your route but also it is different for Irish then for Dutch. Your Foreign afairs Office will probably have the requirements for all different countries on their website. Otherwise check Lonely Planet.

Cheers and succes

Noel

[5 Eyes]

Thanks again noel.

By the way, I called the Sunanese Enbassy in London as there is none in Ireland. They are to say the least not very freindly
.
Anyway I'll get on to our foreign affairs office and see what happens

make sure and look us up if you're ever this way... we have a travellers community set up now

Gary

[Ekke]

Just a simple thanks (from a Dutch guy in Canada going to Sudan/Egypt). This website is great!


We are heading to South America this summer and plan to head up from South Africa to Europe in January of 2008. So hopefully this information won't be too out of date by the Spring of 2008!

[5 Eyes]

HI Ekke

Best of luck with your trip you never know where we might meet along the way and If you ever make your way to Ireland youre welcome to stop by

Gary

[rfjak]

Originally Posted by 5 Eyes

I will be travelling from Cape Town to Cairo to Tel Aviv Next July.
I plan to cross into To Egypt from Sudan Via Wadi Haifa. I have heard there are a few ways to do this and that getting into Egypt is a lot of hassle.
Does anyone know the real story.
And will a Carnet I get from the Rep of Ireland work there or do I need something else:helpsmilie:

Hi Gary,
have you found a way to get a carnet in Ireland ? I can't find any evidence to suggest that there is anyone issuing them here, so I suspect you will have to get it from UK or Germany. Have I missed something obvious ?

Regards,
Jak

[5 Eyes]

HI

actually no i havent and im driving to Slovakia right now so I wont be able to get to check it until next week.
But funny enough anyone I have asked so far does not know anything about it
I'll let you know

Gary

[5 Eyes]

HI

I have found out that you cant get a carnet issued from Ireland but you can get one easily enough from the RAC in the UK and they are very helpful