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Date:         Sat, 27 Jan 2001 16:09:36 +0200
Reply-To:     Stebbins <stebbins@AUCEGYPT.EDU>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Stebbins <stebbins@AUCEGYPT.EDU>
Organization: The American University in Cairo
Subject:      Cairo report:  Suez Trip
Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

The trip started out smoothly enough, my 18 year old son had arrived OK in Cairo after a 4 month backpacker trip through Europe (London to Athens) and was now officially enrolled in the American University here. As he knows no one here in Cairo, he deigned to accompany Pat and me on a trip to Pelusium . Pelusium is a major archeological site in the northern Sinai Peninsula. We first headed east to the Suez canal (a 2 hour trip from Cairo, one hour to get out of Cairo, 16 to 18 million people) and then one hour east across straight desert road to the canal.

Near the town of Suez, there is a tunnel under the canal and one sees nothing of the canal, it is very anti-climactic. We then headed immediately north while getting only glimpses of the canal. Just about where we were to hit the Mediterranean, we headed east to our destination. Two police checks later, our instructions suggested turning north “at a big sign”, which we did. This road took us up again towards the Med. Sea and across salt flats with no archeological site to be seen. Upon turning around, we decided that the 2 mud humps we had passed rising above the salt flats must be “it”. We drove across the salt flats as far as I dared to and parked the van. We were treated to a vast area, just a few meters above the salt flats. Only about 1 percent of the area has been excavated with the rest lying unexplored. I will spare you a historical description of Pelusium, suffice it to say it was! a major port city as the Nile use to have a major branch emptying in to the Med. Sea here. When the Nile shifted course, Pelusium died. For the curious, see http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/pelusium/ .

It had rained the day before and there about 15 native Bedouin folks walking around with eyes glued to the ground looking for anything of value. As we began walking around too, folks came up to us with Roman coins, glass ware, and oil lamps that they had uncovered that day. I might have bought a few, but my partner Pat is an archeologist and she was against contributing to the looting of the site.

After an interesting walk around, we headed back to Cairo. I stopped for gas and (as we all do) I did the “vanagon walk around” and saw green fluid under the van. RATS. I traced the source of the leak to the diversion block where the HOT cooling fluid is diverted either to the rear heater, the front heater or the front radiator. As some of you may recall, my van has been resurrected from a junk yard after a PPO’s engine box fire. The PO mechanic has put it all back together again with parts from this Audi and that Passat. I tell you that, as this part of the van is not stock (by any means). There is a hose coming of the diversion block that was leaking at the screw clamp. I tried to play with it and re clamp it and I thought I had it fixed. Off we went and just a few kilometers down the dirt road, my son says “There's smoke back here dad, really SMOKE!”. So I turned off the engine and coasted towards the police check that I could see just 100 meters ahead.

My “fix” had come undone and was now just spewing coolant out and causing all of the steam back there. This time I took the hose right off and looked at it, and the collar on to which it was clamped. The hose and clamp were OK, but the collar of the plastic diversion block was cracked. Well folks I don't carry a spare diversion block with me (I hope you do) and there was no VW dealer in sight (actually there was only the police check in sight) and Cairo was about 200 kms away. So I looked & puzzled, and puzzled & looked and finally I thought that maybe I could get enough purchase on the collar if I put the clamp right at the end of the hose. So I tried this and filled the cooling system up with water, that I obtained from the police check (yes, I then bled the system as well as I could). I started off driving with the engine cover off, so that my son could keep an eye on the hoses. He said “no problem” so on we drive. After about 20 or 30 kms of “no problem” I stopped to put the engine cover back on and we continued on our way.

As I said, tunneling under the Suez canal is not much fun, so we decided to take a ferry across north of toe town of Ismaillia. As we approached the canal, we could see LARGE ships seemingly floating along the desert sand, an interesting sight. There were about 50 trucks lined up at the ferry crossing and we almost turned back but we were waved up in front of the trucks. Seems the rule is 2 BIG trucks, 2 small trucks and 2 cars at a time. As we sat waiting, other ocean going container ships passed not more than 30 meters in front of us, HUGE. As we settled on the ferry, a pick-up truck with about 15 young teenage Bedouin girls/women in the back had parked in front of us. They were phenomenally curious about Pat, crowding around her open window looking, chatting giggling. My virile 18 year old son in the back was unsure of his bodily safety, but was grinning from ear to ear at the prospects of what could happen if order was not maintained!! :-)

Interestingly enough, the ferry boat (about 10 cars/trucks at a time) leaves the dock, then waits for a HUGE ship to pass, then darts across the canal in front of the next oncoming, ocean going, container ship!! Much fun for the 10 minute ride across!!!!

Well, I checked the cooling hoses again after another 20 kms, and all was OK, so we continued on to Cairo. Now, with all of the stopping (van trouble) and waiting for the ferry, it was now dark. We don't like driving in the dark as the Egyptian drivers are very environmentally conscious (that is as politely as I can say it) and they have a tendency to drive with NO head lights, often no lights at all. Also the road is used by donkey and horse carts and the “breakdown” lane can be any chosen lane. Adding to this, was the fact that we were now heading into Cairo on a road that we had not taken prior to this excursion.

All was OK till we hit Cairo and its 18 million people. Pat, being a cartophile had 3 city maps and 2 Egypt maps so we felt quite confident that we would be home quickly. Nevertheless, one minute we thought we knew where we were, the next we were hopelessly lost. Within the city itself, Pat found the compass to be the most useful directional aid as, if we kept going west in the city, we would eventually hit the Nile! We also asked directions with our “phrase book Arabic” and understood mimed directions more so than the accompanying verbal directions: “Watch the hands, not the mouth!” After an hour and a half, we made it home safely and “all's well that ends well”.

As a post script, having had to take off a coolant hose, I lost so much coolant and replaced it with just water, that I now had far too much water to coolant ratio. I asked around at the local shade tree mechanic (near my apartment) and he tried to convince me that Blue coolant was the same as Green coolant and that it mattered not about Phosphates (all this in his broken English and my broken Arabic). I had a hard time finding Green, Phosphates coolant, and they all want to sell me Blue coolant. I insisted on Green so he said he'd get me Green. Well folks, what he tried to sell me looked like “lime drink”, watery with pulp floating on the top! I ended up going to the VW dealer and I paid 230 (55USDs) Egyptian pounds for the real VW Orange coolant.

Also I can't find another coolant diversion block locally as no water-cooled vanagons have been imported to Egypt in any quantity (there are a few around but no stock of spare parts). So I called my PO mechanic in Halifax and the coolant diversion block, new reservoir cap and some oil filters are in the air as you read this. When the stuff gets here, I’ll have to figure out how to install it and flush the coolant, and add the VW coolant. Every trip is an adventure. Joys of vanagon ownership. Malcolm


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