29 April

29 April 2011

Verona Italy

24 April 2011

Well we have left Africa and arrived in Europe and we are already missing Africa!!  We left our hotel in Alexandria and went around to the hotel – Acropole - where Holga and Anja (German couple last seen in Addis Aberba)  were staying to drive to the port with a German / Australian couple, Thomas, Laura and Lenny who were also catching the ferry.  We arrived at the port at about 1pm and were met at the gate by the agents of the Vismar Line and escorted to the customs and immigration building.  We had a little wobble when we arrived at the gate and the agent asked for the police clearance certificate and we handed them the toll receipt for crossing the Nile, which looked the same!!  Ok we can’t read Arabic yet!  The other Dutch couple, Frank and Mariaan, were there and already waiting, we had last seen them at Aswan where they had been stuck for 10 days waiting for their car to arrived from Wadi Halfa. Our carnets, vehicle documentation and passports were collected and every now and then an official would come and ask a question but on the whole we were left alone in the sun and eventually we took our chairs and set up camp in the port.  Eventually at about 4pm we were called and we had to follow the policeman on a motor bike and everything had to be x-rayed.  So we all followed him to the ferry and when we got there they were just setting up a portable walk through xray scanner.  But the staff from the ferry waved us onto the ferry and we parked the bikes.  The difference was amazing, each bike had two or three Italians come and help tie them down and the boat was immaculate.

We unpacked our few things that we would need and headed up to reception.  The ferry was only completed  late last year and so is practically new.  At reception we were told we had cabin 608, we booked each person into a communal cabin as we had to have two tickets because of the bikes, but there were only 16 passengers on the ferry for the crossing and so once we realized that our cabin was and interior cabin we were back at reception and they moved us right to the front of the boat with a nice big porthole.  There were only 4 overland vehicles and about 15 -20 large container trailers, so the problems in middle east are affecting everyone.  Everything was ship shape, air conditioned cabin with en suite bathroom and the best shower that we had had in days!!  We had been warned that the food on board was very expensive and not great and in true overlander tradition  we had all brought food on board and most of us only ate one meal in the dinning room.   We set sail at 7pm and our last view of Africa was of Alexandria as the sun set.  Looking back on our travels through Africa it is really amazing that we had as little trouble with officials and traffic cops as we did, the only time that we received any type of fine was in Tanzania when we were stopped for ‘speeding’ and told that we had to pay a huge fine we eventually got it down to about R30 – more a bribe than a fine. We were stopped at hundreds of police road blocks and check points and never had any problems, the officials were mostly friendly and fascinated with the GPS and once they heard that we were from South Africa we were greeted with wonderful smiles and they all knew Bafana Bafana and Nelson Mandela!!  Being South African is now something to be proud of and we don’t have to be afraid of saying where we come from.

25-26 April

The ferry crossing was very uneventful with very little to do on board.  We managed to catch up on the news and heard that the border between Jordan and Syria is now closed until the unrest in Syria dies down.  We also watched two movies in the Pullman section of the ferry and slept and read a lot.

27 April

The ferry entered the Venice port at about 7am and it was fascinating to watch the small channels that this huge boat navigated through with the help of a tug.  Once we had docked, the bikes were quickly packed and we had to wait for permission from the customs and immigration official before we could disembark, this was the quickest and easiest border crossing that we have ever experienced.  Within 15 minutes all four overland vehicles and the two bikes were on their way.  We had about a 10km trip to the camping ground  - Fusina - and the traffic was unbelievable, it moved orderly, slowly and obeyed all the traffic rules – when we got to a red robot we had to stop, very different to what we had experienced for the last few months, only one car overtook us!!

Two of the overlander vehicles and ourselves booked into the camp site Fusina on the outskirts of Venice, basically just across the channel.  We were right on the water way and the water bus was less than a two minute walk from our camp.  Our GPS had lost all the Europe maps and Larry spent most of the day talking to Alan on skype and getting the maps restored, Larry eventually managed to get this sorted out at 11pm.  Thanks Alan!!