Safe in a Hotel near the Pyramids
Trip Start
Jun 19, 2007
1
2
Trip End
Jun 23, 2007
Giza,
Egypt
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Half of our crew had to get a 4:00am flight onward to Jordan for another show. One of our girls who was scheduled to leave on that flight had locked her passport in the safe provided in her hotel room, and as she went to retrieve it she discovered that the safe refused to open. Hotel maintainance staff eventually made their way to her room (Egyptian time is somewhat slower than in the rest of the world - we found this to be true on many occasions), and tried for about 15 minutes to pry it open with 2 ridiculously small screwdrivers.
Our boss is not the kind of man to stand around and watch under such time pressure. He arrived in the room informed of what was happening and saw that nothing could be done with 2 pathetically small screwdrivers. Fuming, he took the safe out of it's cupboard and ran with it to the pool area where the rest of us were chilling out completely unawares. The safe was hurled to the lawn more than several times before we started searching for a blunt instrument to force it open. Time was ticking. The hotel staff stood uselessly by, screwdrivers hanging limp in their hands.
The urgency of the situation spurred everyone into action and we had almost managed to break into the gardner's shed in search of the said blunt instrument when the hotel staff finally, indeed unenthusiastically, took control. They requested that we stop trying to break into the shed and carried the safe back into the hotel. We didn't trust them to be able to open it and and after a few minutes followed them into the hotel to locate the safe. The reception staff unconvincingly knew nothing about it, and after a vain search throughout the hotel's admin we were forced to wait with our fingers crossed. Fifteen minutes later they reappeared with our girl's passport in hand - they'd obviously realised that the value of the safe was cheaper than replacing a plane ticket to Jordan as well as compensation for the unavailablity of an artist at their next show, and had destroyed the safe to get at her passport. We were able to laugh about it afterwards. The Jordan crew made their flight with barely minutes to spare...
