Chase to Borg Al Arab

I now know what the passenger in a car chase in a James Bond movie feels like. A couple of weeks ago, our car zigzagged at more than 160 km/hr on a busy road towards the Burg-al-Arab airport in Alexandria. …. the car zigzagged, from the first lane to the last and then back to the first and so it went for a good half hour. No, we were not participating in a warm-up to the Grand Prix-my husband was booked on a flight to Dubai and he was going to miss the flight!

We had left Cairo early enough to be able to reach the airport on time; but we had not done our home-work. Alexandria has two airports-The El Nouzha airport, located around 7 km to the south-east of the city centre. Air Arabia, Bahrain Air, Egypt Air are some of the airlines that operate their flights out of this airport-(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Nouzha_Airport). On reaching the El Nozha airport, we realized that the Emirates Airline, on which my husband was booked, did not ply from El Nouzha! We did an about turn and rushed towards the Borg Al Arab airport, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borg_al_Arab_Airport), the second airport that serves Alexandria and which is 25 km from the city centre.

Our progress was hampered by the fact that there are no street signs indicating the direction to the Borg al Arab airport and a couple of times we took the wrong turn and had to stop and ask for directions. One need not come into the city, when traveling to the Borg al Arab; it is accessible from the Alexandria Desert Road. Apart from the Emirates, this airport also caters to Lufthansa and the Turkish airlines.

After much ado, when we finally reached the gates of the airport, our driver asked the man at the gate whether it was in fact the Borg Al Arab (there is no sign here in English indicating the name of the airport), we heard the man say “Insha’allah it is!” and we wondered whether our woes had just begun.