I'm typing this up while waiting at Pierre Trudeau International Airport in Montreal for a flight to London's Heathrow where I hope to catch a flight to Cairo International Airport. TVA Washington Bureau Chief Richard Latendresse and I hope to get into Egypt to cover the remarkable series of events there.
Of course, there are already lots of Canadian and international journalists already in Cairo, Alexandria, Suez and other Egyptian cities doing tremendous work covering this remarkable revolution. Some of these journalists have done this work at great peril to their own safety.
Richard and I, like every other journalist in the country, are keen to be, above all, witnesses for what appears to be shaping up as a period of historically unique change not only for Egypt but for the region.
The first challenge, though, is getting there. We are hearing a variety of different reports about the ability of airlines to get someone into Cairo. The latest reports from Cairo indicate that there are a whole mess of people trying to get out. And even if we can get there, we will want to get there well before the current curfew of 1600 begins. Right now, our itinerary has us arriving shortly after 1600 and, if that happens, our sources tell us we'll end up stuck at Cairo International — a 40-minute cab ride in normal circumstances from epicentre of the demonstrations downtown — until 0800 the next day!
UPDATE: We arrived in London only to find that our Sunday morning flight from here to Cairo was indeed cancelled. Because of “civil unrest”, the agent politely informed us. We have been re-booked to fly out to Cairo departing from London at 0730 GMT Monday morning.
And then, assuming Richard and I do get downtown, our big challenge will be finding a way to transmit words, pictures, and video back to Canada. As you probably know by now, the Egyptian government has essentially shut down most Internet and wireless telephone service. My hotel tells me the landline phones are working. That's great. But we've come such a long way in computer assisted communications that I no longer have a dial-up modem I can use – and spent a chunk of the day searching unsuccessfully for one. We do have a satellite phone so we can transmit data that way — but it's clunky, expensive, and won't be “always on”.
Just about to board now in Montreal. Back online in the middle of the night from London.
Good luck and stay safe.