It was nearing 3:30am when we woke up in Terminal 2 at the Cairo Airport. We had used the past three hours to sleep in one of the lounges during the first half of our overnight layover, but we were told that each visit was limited to three hours because “this lounge is not a hotel.” Needless to say, our time there was up, so we headed over to Terminal 3 where we would be departing six hours later. By 4:00 am we had arrived at Terminal 3 via an airport bus that required us to pass through security before entering the next terminal. The place was dead. There was no one around except for two security guys at the x-ray machine. Chris and I dumped our bags on the conveyor belt and passed through. As always, we expected to have no issues as we had scanned them several times in the past 24 hours. The guy in charge was no dummy though. We were all alone… just the four of us. He saw us and requested to look through Chris’s bag. He began digging and halfway through the backpack, he looked up at us and quietly requested we give him and his friend some money or “baksheesh” as they say in arabic. Are you kidding me??? Chris responded nicely saying he didn’t have any money to give him. He continued digging and then took it a step further and requested to see Chris’s shoulder bag. He opened it and pulled everything out only to find Chris’s money belt. Go figure. The security guy swooped upon the money belt like a hawk, unzipping the main pouch to see about $25 US dollars. Chris quickly grabbed it, zipped it up and said “Sorry, I have no tip.” The guy persisted with his hands still over Chris’s unzipped, scattered bag. He requested money from Chris, then me, then back to Chris. I stood there in horror feeling extremely vulnerable by this corrupt official while Chris proceeded to decline his request nicely. Finally, the guy could see it would not be easy to convince us, so he zipped up Chris’s bag, and asked again. By now, Chris was already putting on his backpack. Chris gave him a firm no this time and we took off up the stairs. Phew! Luckily the guy seemed new at the whole corruption game as it could have ended much worse.