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February 14th 2007

Published: March 3rd 2007

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140207A-Mountain church, Cairo, Egypt

Ate breakfast at our hotel, then met up with Ola again for a day tour of Cairo. We drove through the city of the dead, which really is a city with buildings where people are buried. From the street, some of the buildings look like they could be single storey homes & other than a few street people, you wouldn´t know the residents were all dead.

Next we drove through the ´rubbish´ city, whose inhabitants collect, sort & recycle all of Cairos rubbish. The area is predominantly Christian as the Muslims deem it a dirty profession, which essentially it is. It´s really strange to see people of all ages sorting through piles of rubbish, especially because they all live in the floors above the sorting rooms. Ola advised us not to open the windows & fortunately the smell mustn´t have been to strong early in the day, because it didn´t penetrate the air vents into the car. Interestingly the rate of disease isn´t overly high in this area. The people are educated better on hygiene these days & many are even taking out health insurance to get better access to treatment if they do become ill.

Visited an unusual

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Mountain church decoration, Cairo, Egypt

church cut from the side of a mountain, then proceeded onto the Citadel, which has a big old Mosque containing the remains of Mohammed Ali - no, not the boxer. we ate lunch as a group then farewelled Sam & Ola & headed off in various directions of Khan al Khalili market to find some bargains. I was looking for a silver ring & dad a picture on papyrus, but neither of us had any luck. Most of the stuff there was typical ´Made in China´souvenir crap, which was disappointing. Dad & I ventured into the local part of the market, but seemed to get hassled more there than in the tourist section. There was really only everyday stuff there like clothes, CD´s & shoes anyway, so we headed back toward the meeting point & had a coffee.

We returned to the hotel early, tired out from our busy morning & chilled out in front of the television for a while. Soon enough, it was time to meet & head off to the Giza Pyramids Sound & Light show. Fortunately the driver was punctual today & we arrived with plenty of time to spare. Decided to go for a

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Mary & Jesus carving at Mountain church, Cairo, Egypt

drink at the Hard Rock Cafe across the road, but it turned out to only be an outlet for their merchandise - ripped off!

The show itself was a little cheesy, but quite informative regarding the history of the Giza Pyramids & the three Kings entombed there. The Sphinx narrated the story, which was hilarious & I nicknamed him ´Sphinxy´. We drove back to the hotel with a purple fluro light on inside the taxi; it felt much like being in a disco. I actually thought it made us look quite ridiculous until I saw other taxis doing the same thing. It reminded me of the lights they install in public toilets back home so junkies can´t find a vein to shoot up, but I´m sure thats probably not the reason they´re installed in taxis in Cairo...

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