On The Road Again - African Style!

Stepping out into the cool night air we headed for the local buses and found ourselves emersed in another culture once again. Despite a few pre-conceptions, the bus full of Egyptian men proved themselves to be freindly, honest and helpful. One gave change without ripping us off and another went out of his way to help us find our hotel in this maze of a city. The conversation inevitably turned to football and which English players they knew. Beckham, Gerrard and surprisingly Peter Crouch came up. Followed, as always, by a mime roughly translated to tall and gangly. Eventually we found our accomodation and we were officially on the road again.

The people of Cairo have proved to be very friendly and welcoming towards us which always makes for a nicer time. The traffic, as expected, is crazy but apparently there are very few road accidents. I'm not sure I believe this as I had a few near misses myself and of course, horn beeping is a must for drivers when being held up for over a second. Our first day we took to the streets, feeling great to be travelling in such an interesting and bustling place. We headed off towards the famous Egyptian musuem, catching our first glimpse of the Nile along the way. The Egyptian museum is well worth a visit with many fascinating things to have a good look at including an enormous quantity of treasures removed from the tomb of Tutankhamun. We spent a few hours exploring before heading off in search of food. We discovered the Egyptian speciality of Kushari, which we have found to have several spellings. A mix of rice, noodles, macaroni, lentils, chickpeas and a yummy tomato sauce to mix in with it, it is a cheap and tasty way to fill up. We were hooked from the first bowl!

We arranged at our hostel for a car to take us to the Pyramids the following day. We awoke to the sound of rain and decided to postpone it but the hostel were not so helpful at that suggestion and in the end we decided to give it a go. Our first stop was the famous Giza where we were bamboozled in to paying for a camel to take us around - I don't know how that happened!! I haven't rode a camel in years and it was Jed's first time so climbing up on to this rather large beast was a little on the scary side! We made it on and our little camel driver, Abdul managed to mave out of the way of a few attempted bites! Holding on tight we made our way off to the Pyramids. It was a bit of a dodgy set up, we ended up going in through the side entrance where I'm pretty sure our guide gave the guard a bit of a bribe(baksheesh), but we were in! We made our way up over the hill with the wind and rain stinging our faces - not what you expect from the Sahara desert! From the top of the hill we could see all of the Pyramids and they really were impressive. Mohammed, our guide told us that they took 30 years to build and that when they were finished, all of the workers were killed in an attempt to keep them secret. They are built entirely from sand and stone, nothing else. I think it's amazing how long they have lasted.

As we approached Chephren's Pyramid we had to work our way through huge chunks of rocks which had fallen all around it and as we looked up I was half expecting to see more giant boulders rolling down towards us! There is a huge amount of litter surrounding the area and it takes a lot of imagination to picture the Pyramids when they were first built. Plastic bottles cover the sand and Mohammed admitted it was all the Egyptian people's doing.

We got back on our grumpy camel and made our way round to the Sphynx. This amazing creation was carved out of a single piece of rock. It has the face of a man, to show intellegence, the hair of a woman, for beauty and the body of a lion to show strength. Even without its nose it was quite a sight and we enjoyed a good look before gracefully alighting our camel and making our way back to the car.

Next we drove on to Dahshur where we climbed the steps of the Red Pyramid and Jed decided to venture inside the dark, low, slanted staircase to see the tomb. I decided against it when I saw a huge Japanese tour group making their way up. I didn't really fancy being stuck inside waiting to get back up! Jed said going down into the Pyramid was an odd experience with the air feeling heavy and warm and he had to adopt a kind of crouching crab like movement on the descent. We finished up here and moved on to a place called Memphis which we had never heard of but the driver insisted on. It was a complete rip off and we were in and out in 5 minutes. We finished up the day by going to Saqqara where we could see the step Pyramid. We had quite a good view of it as we drove in so decided to save our money and head back. Seeing Pyramids can be quite tiring! There are actually almost 100 Pyramids between Giza and the Fayoum some 70 km south. The drive back was a bit of an adventure with some very interesting manouvers pulled by our speedy driver! We went through the longest tunnel I have ever seen (or maybe it just felt that way because we were stuck in traffic in there for so long!) but we made it back in one piece!

The following day we awoke with very camel sore legs but decided to head out for a walk in to the Islamic quarter. We took a bit of a long route in, which turned out to be quite interesting with all the locals coming over to us to say "Welcome to Cairo!" and children asking our names and trying to practice their English. We wandered in to a walled area with lots of interesting markets. There were animals hanging in the street being skinned and some very fresh rabbits on sale for cooking purposes. Most of the alleys were impossibly dirty with shops seemingly converging upon you, the air heavy with smoke and sewage. It is a place with constant energy and an absorbing cultural experience. Before long we found ourselves in a tourist area and a little past that we were back in the strange markets again. We saw many mosques and interesting buildings on the walk and came across the Citadel which was unfortunately closed. We got more than a little lost on our way back and wandered in to an area where even the taxi drivers didn't speak English. On very sore legs we marched on for a very, very long time. We thought we were close, then found we weren't and in the end, we gave in and flagged down a taxi, who lucky for us knew what we were going on about.

We also found time to have a look at the Coptic area of Cairo. The Coptic Christians being more orthodox than Christianity as we know it in England. Meaning they have a different calendar and celebrate Christmas on the 7th January amongst other things. Anyway we had a nice look at some churches as we sometimes like to do and generally enjoyed a stroll in the sunshine.

We spent our last day in Cairo doing some more walking! We went down to the river, walked over the bridge and explored the island on the other side which I must say, is much nicer and calmer than our side. It was a beautiful day and the breeze made it perfect for walking. We went off for a coffee and then came back to enjoy the sunset which was lovely and a striking reddy orange. Sneeky couples were holding hands and we were offered countless felucca(boat) trips as we strolled along. A few hours later and we were on a hot and bumpy bus bound for the airport. We flew to Ethiopia where we will stay for a month before returning to travel in Egypt. First impressions of Ethiopia are good. The people are smiley, the children beautiful and the sun is shining. We can't wait to see some more of both of these countries!


Sam and Jed

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Part of trip: Africa

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