التأشيرات المصرية

For this winter, we left home on November 4th but stayed in Dubai for five nights. We arrived at the Cairo airport on November 10th meaning that our one-month visas were to run out this week. Today, we thought we'd go to renew them for the winter. We'd read some information on the process and were assured it was relatively simple in Luxor. You see, there are many older Europeans who winter here for its sun.

This morning we awoke at the usual time and had a relaxing breakfast. We headed to the ferryboat to cross the Nile at around 9:15 AM. The office for passports handles the visa extensions too. The office is down past the Ibertol on the road leading to the Sheraton. More precisely, it was across the street from the Sonesta St George Hotel and Steigenberger Nile Palace. We decided to walk the whole distance rather than getting a taxi on the East Bank. We found the crowds at 10:15 AM.

We entered and at Window #8, we handed them:

our passports

a passport-sized photo

photocopies of the passport info pages and the current visas.

We were given standard forms to complete. These asked for things such as our details, arrival in Egypt, and length of extension required. We were told to wait. The room was relatively new and nice. At the time there were only a few other foreigners. Most of the windows were reserved for Egyptians getting passports.

After more than a half an hour, a woman called us back to the window to request our contract for the villa rental. We had never really seen one but I was able to call our contact host, Mr. Mohammed. It seems that if one is going to stay just several additional months, one can just request another visa 'to see more things in Egypt'. Yet, as we'd be staying more than three months in one area, they needed proof that we weren't going to sleep in an alleyway, I guess.


Mohammed tried sending a photo of the document to my phone, but the woman really needed a paper copy. So, we arranged to go all the way back to the ferryboat and meet Mohammed who would have the photocopies in hand. We got off the west-bound ferry, grabbed the papers, and got on the ferry going back over. It was a lot of walking, so took a taxi this time for £10. It was nearly 12:15 by this time.

As we were to hand in the copies, we discovered my passport copy was of the wrong page. So, we made an extra copy of our contract and the correct page from my passport. It was easy as there was a photocopy place right next door, of course! When we went back in to provide those bits of paper, the assistant said we should come back in two hours. The timing was pretty convenient, actually, as it was time for lunch. We walked back near Omar's Supermarket where we'd visited only once. Jay is not generally a pizza person, but we had fine personal chicken pizzas for $US 2.50 each.


We got back to the office a bit early and there were mainly foreigners waiting at the same window. We paid a £23 fee. So the cost for all the extra months was less than $US 1.50 for each of us, at today's exchange rate. Those seven others received their copies and then we got ours.

We're set until departure in April 2016!