Egyptian border

We took the bus from Jerusalem to Eliat.  It was good to get out of the rain, it seemed like the entire trip in israel was rainy and cold. Anyways, we neglected to get our egyptian visas on thursday and though the consular website stated we could get a visa at the border in taba we heard conflicted reports. So we go through customs and passport control will only give a 15 day visa for the Sinai. This really doesn't help you if you need to get to cairo for a flight to tanzania. So we had to find a fixer. Þhis came in the form of ali a tour guide who attached us to his roster of 700 russian tourists for 50usd. A normal visa costs 15, so we figured that was a pretty good deal. 2 hours later after a bunch of waiting and some shifty under the table dealing with the egyptians and elbowing old russian women out of the way in the passport control line we had authentic egyptian visas. I would expect the same level of sketchyness if I was trafficing small children across borders.
So after the passport control and the 5 hour bus ride through the desert we headed to the taba hilton for a couple of beers to figure out where to stay, how to get to cairo. The hilton was a rare treat, because that was where the 700 russians on the package tour were staying. Its 9pm we are in the lobby bar, there is an egyptian singer doing the 80's phil collins on kareoke. All the russians are dressed in these crazy spandex pansuits and they have had a couple of drinks so they are heading out to the dancefloor.It was a scene out of starwars.