Leaving Greece
Getting out of Greece was pretty straightforward. We were shipping with Grimaldi and dealing with Minoan shipping as the agent. Our contact in Minoan was Xanthi Nannou (nannou@minoan.gr) and she was very helpful. The boat was due to sail on Wednesday 31st August so we called in at the Minoan office on Friday 26th to meet Xanthi and check everything was in order. The boat was due to sail at 11pm – midnight on Wednesday night which meant we could complete all the paperwork on the Wednesday. If it is a morning/afternoon sailing you need to get the car to the office and get all the paperwork done the day before. We turned up at the office at 9am Wednesday morning with carnet, vehicle registration, passport (vehicle owner only) and payment (cash only). Photocopies were made of the registration documents and passports.
We then completed the Bill of Lading to describe what was actually being shipped. Like most overlanders, we had a lot of kit in the back, a lot of which we could not take with us separately on a plane so it had to go with the car. Minoan/Grimaldi are not keen at all on any personal effects being left in the car and they are not put on the Bill of Lading, so anything left is your risk entirely. We added some additional security to lock off the loading area of the car and kept the keys ourselves. We only handed over the front door and ignition keys.
Nothing was done with the Carnet at this stage.
Payment was made – 765 euro for the actual shipping and 216 euro for processing which was made up of 80 euro ish for customs paperwork, 90 euro for Minoan fees (we assume this also paid for the fixer we had as he did not charge us anything) plus 24% tax on top of this. In all we paid 981 euro in Greece.
We drove to the port, gate G2 and met our fixer (associate of Mr Thouiopoulos Kostas 6944248197). Took the car through to the secure loading/waiting area, handed the keys over to port officials and went with our fixer to the customs office just down the road. We handed over the carnet and photocopies of passport and vehicle registration and waited. We paid no more money, I had to sign a few documents, all in Greek, and by midday we were out, all paperwork completed. First page of carnet had import and export slips removed (assume the import one was discarded and export on completed and kept by customs). The top slip that remains in the book was also completed showing the car as successfully exported from Greece. We also had a photocopy of the Bill of Lading – DO NOT LOSE THIS – as the original document stays with the car.
Entering Egypt
The boat was expected to arrive on Friday 2nd or Saturday 3rd Sept, either way we had to wait till Sunday 3rd as Friday and Saturday are holidays in Egypt. Xanthi had given us the contact of Dina Abdallah (import@smarina.com, 002034863647 or 002034856972) of Marina shipping – Minoan’s counterpart in Egypt. She didn’t reply to any emails so we headed to the office on Sunday morning. It is not easy to find. It is number 13 on Salah Salem Street. Very few of the buildings have numbers and if you see number 7 somewhere, do not assume numbers 5, 6, 8 or 9 are anywhere near. The office is on level 2 of a brown faced building which does have another Shipping company’s logo on it at high level. The building is on the south side of the street, between a Vodafone and LORDS shop. The first sign you’ll see is on the stairs at the first floor.
Ask to talk to Dina. She will take your Bill of Lading and passport of vehicle owner, disappear for a few minutes, then come back and ask you to pay the shipping release charge – 660 EP (cash only). There is a small side room to the office where you pay a man through a window. Get your invoice for payment.
The man in the window will give you some blue papers, hand these over to someone behind the desk/Dina if she is there. We were then given 2 x yellow pages and one note to customs, all in Arabic.
Dina then organised a fixer for us – Ahmed A. El Nahas (0122 323 6752). We met him and his yellow moped about 15 minutes later outside the office. Agreed a price of US$150 to get the car released the following day as it was now midday.
We followed Ahmed in a taxi to Gate 22 at the port. Our passports and all documents given to us by Marina shipping were handed to security officers at the port and handed back to us. Identity forms were handed over for both Sally and I, which were then handed over to a couple girls in the photocopying room along with 30 EP. All forms completed by the photocopying team and necessary copies taken of passports, forms and carnet. Ahmed will do all the talking – he knows exactly what he needs. I believe the 30LE also paid for entry to the port for Ahmed.
Our passports were handed back to security and it was indicated that they would stay there which concerned us slightly. We were told to go back to the hotel as only Ahmed could go through to the port and continue this part of the process and needed our passports to prove that we were in the country (you are supposed to be present for all parts of the process but I assume this rule has been relaxed slightly).
We headed back to the hotel and had a phone call from Ahmed a few hours later – we met him at the hotel and he handed back our passports, but kept hold of everything else – carnet and associated forms. We arranged to meet at 8am outside the hotel the next morning.
Day 2
Met Ahmed at 8am and jumped in a taxi with him and headed to the Automobile and Touring Club d’Egypt (look at the back page of your carnet) – towards the east end of Alexandria, on the coastal highway. Unfortunately, the man we wanted didn’t get there till 10am, so we had to wait.
An issue arose in this time regarding the front page of our carnet. A friend of Ahmed’s was at the office on similar business and raised an issue that our carnet did not have an official stamp on the front page. This had not been raised by the Greeks. Ahmed’s friend would not let the issue drop and so phone calls were made to our carnet issuer (CARS Europe) to try and get a copy of our front page with required stamp, faxed/emailed out to us. Note this all came from Ahmed’s mate who decided to take a leading role in our dealings at this point, and it turned out that the official person for approving carnets was not even at work that day, so we did not have the chance to speak to him. Either way, we were told we would have to return the next day when we could have a print out of the required stamped page with us, and the right people were present.
All was not lost as there was plenty more that could be done. We headed to Gate 10 of the port (Customs and vehicle storage) with Ahmed. Ahmed worked here for 55 years and everybody knows him. He seems to get preferential treatment at every desk and gets every signature he wants, albeit with a fair bit of shouting by those around him. Unfortunately, as everything was in Arabic and there were at least 8 signatures made on various papers, we lost track slightly of what was going on and blindly followed Ahmed around the office, presenting vehicle registration, carnet and passports where prompted. Most of the action centred around one document – a larger than A4 but not A3 folder, entirely in Arabic. We also got to see the car and had to do a very quick check with the officials, looking at chassis numbers and getting details about the engine size etc.
At the end of this day, Ahmed kept hold of all documents except out passports. We arranged to meet at 9am the next morning outside the hotel.
We managed to get the copy of our carnet front page printed off at the Cecil hotel reception, despite not staying there. They could only do black and white.
Day 3
Straight to the Automobile & Touring club. The right man was in today, so I went straight there with Ahmed’s mate who was also there for some reason. Carnet handed over and 500 EP paid for carnet processing. Receipt given. This guy did not seem to have any issue with the lack of stamp, and did not even notice it until Ahmeds mate highlighted it and handed over the photocopied front page (with stamp) that I had been trying to conceal for as long as possible. No actual filling out of the carnet done at this point, but were given 1 x green form and 1 x white form/letter – all in Arabic – which seemed to satisfy Ahmed’s mate and we were on our way.
We left the automobile club with Ahmed looking to the skies and thanking the Gods for getting us through. 20 EP was paid for Ahmeds mate for his ‘help’.
Back to gate 10 at the port for various people to scribble and sign the big document, and also further process the carnet. Import slip removed somewhere along the line, and a lot of writing done on the back of the export slip. Rest of Carnet filled out as required. I went with Ahmed to the storage office (5 mins away within the port boundary) to pay for 5 days storage – 800LE. We also had to pay 600LE for carnet clearance and all the signatures that Ahmed manage to squeeze out of people. The receipt we got back was for 525LE but I suspect someone got some extra pay that day.
Back to customs and we were given the keys for the car and told to follow Ahmed to the “traffic office” which was just around the corner. Here, we sorted insurance (300LE), 2no 6kg fire extinguishers (1100LE total), and vehicle registration & licensing (300LE). Within all that we had the eingeer check the chassis number and engine numbers (the actual numbers stamped on the chassis/engine so it is worth locating these and cleaning them off beforehand). A few forms for us to fill out but mainly it was all done in arabic by Ahmed with occasional explanations of what was going on. The engineer also fixed our new Egyptian license plates to the car straight over the English ones. Bring self drilling and tapping screws with you if your license plate screws are likely to be awkward, he will get pretty frustrated if so.
I was given what Ahmed called a license, which is a card very similar to a UK driving license, but this is mainly in Arabic and only had vehicle details on it, rather than anything to do the driver. I believe this is basically to prove that the car has been registered in Egypt and plates obtained correctly, rather than nicking the plates off a local car.
And then we were free to go and negotiate the mental Egyptian roads back to the hotel where we met Ahmed again for final payment.
Cost summary
Greek shipping 981 Euro
Egyptian clearance 660EP (66 Euro)
Carnet Approval 500EP (50 Euro)
Carnet processing 600LE (60 Euro)
Car storage for 5 days 800LE (80 Euro)
Insurance for 1 month 300LE (30 Euro)
2no 6kg extinguisher 1100LE (110 Euro)
Licensing and registration 300LE (30 Euro)
Taxis, tips and baksheesh 200LE (20 Euro) approx.
Fixer payment US$250 (222 Euro) This went up from US$150 for the extra day
Total cost approx. 1,649 Euro to get the vehicle out of Greece and into Egypt.
Note all payments need to be made in cash, and costs are shown initially in the currency they had to be paid in. Make sure you have all this cash with you at the start of the day as there are very few cash machines anywhere near the port. We had to have the fixer pay a few payments and paid him back as we ran out of cash and had not accounted for storage costs. On another note, do not assume you can get dollars in Egypt – you can’t unless you have an Egyptian bank account it seems. No exchanges have any dollars and we have gone to great lengths to get some. Bring dollars with you.
BrayTravels 