El Andalous - Applying for a Visa

Sahl Hasheesh / El Andalous From the Plane

The beaches may be closed (Egypt is now up to approximately 40 deaths a day from coronavirus), but the visa office has opened. This is quite a relief as, once I have a visa, I’ll be able to buy a six month internet package again.

After I was refused a year’s visa last time (and if I’d have got that, I wouldn’t have had to bother with this now!), I was feeling a little apprehensive about this coming visit.

Safi kindly took me in her car. I’d read that the visa office was well organized and it seemed, from comments online on FaceBook (I use FaceBook as much for information gathering as anything else), that the queues were getting smaller.

We left early (for me), so we arrived at around 9.15am. It was difficult to work out what was going on. There were people queuing by the entry with tickets, people sitting around outside, and the queue wasn’t a British queue; it was a mass of people crowded by the entrance.

I asked someone how they got their ticket and he said to get it from the guy at the entrance.
After (with some stress), getting a form and a ticket, and completing the form (outside), there was then the question of how to enter the building. They weren’t calling out numbers and they were asking us not to queue. Everyone was asking who had which number so that they could tell if they had a chance of getting inside yet. Outside, it was very hot.

I’m still not sure how it worked, but we somehow realized they must be letting in those with numbers close to ours, so we ended up being allowed in. I had number 79 and was shocked when I got in to find that they were only currently serving number 27. There was a long wait to go!

Masks were compulsory and our hands were sanitized as we entered. Every other seat could be occupied. When I was there, most people did seem to be wearing their masks, although it seemed to be fewer as time went on.

It was cooler inside, but still hot. I arrived at around 9.15am and my number wasn’t called until around 1.15pm. At around 10am, they were refusing any additional people, so it’s just as well we arrived relatively early.

It turned out that this was the first day of a new system. They took fingerprints, a photo, and scanned your passport into the system. This was partly why it was taking so long. I applied for only 6 months, as I knew that was all I was entitled to, but in retrospect I wish I’d tried for one year, just in case.

They seem to be switching over to a card system, which has been trialed in Cairo over the last year. This is a good thing as it saves your passport from being crowded with stamps (I had to renew my passport early last time because all my pages were full). There’s a rumour that renewal is going to be brought online (I hope this is true!). And I believe, but am not sure, that the card visas allow you to go in and out of the country as you like, without you having to get a re-entry visa on top of the normal visa. So, I’m hoping this was short-term pain for long-term gain!

I got a stamp in my passport and was asked to return in a week to collect the visa. Let’s see!