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.
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