5/10/98: Travel day: Athens, Greece to Cairo, Egypt. A very long day because of a very delayed flight. But by the end of the day we set foot on the third continent of our trip!
5/10/23: We arrived just on time for our noon flight out of Athens, but the video monitor indicate that our flight had been cancelled. Thankfully the check-in clerks informed me that the flight had simply been delayed and would be consolidated with an 8pm flight later in the day. This was before the days of cell phones and we had no coins, so we had no way to call Nick, our host in Cairo. We decided to just roll with it, and we lay out on the lawn outside the terminal and read for several hours while waiting.
We Arrived safely in Cairo at around 10:30pm and called Nick with apologies. He grew up in the US but had been working in Cairo for a couple of years, so he knew the vagaries of travel and was gracious about the hiccup. The taxi was inexpensive and got us to our destination by midnight. Nick lived in a spacious 2-level flat in downtown Cairo with a flat-mate named Nile. No kidding. After chatting a bit, we headed to bed, very tired and glad to be in Egypt.
Photo of Athens Airport seats by David Rüsseler at Unsplash.