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Published: April 23rd 2008
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28/03/08
Today Megan and I finally arrived in Cairo at 1:20am, with pretty much no sleep the for the second night in a row. After queueing for ages to finally get through the passport check, we had to wait for Sam's (Megan's boyfriend) flight to land. When he arrived, we were then on our way to our hotel.
We were thankful we had a transfer that night, as there was a bit of know-how involved in getting to our hotel. And so followed our first taste of Cairo traffic. Of course seat beats are just not worn in Egypt, and some drivers even find it offensive if you put yours on. Apparently you are always in a taxi with the best driver in town. All I can say is sometimes it was best to just shut your eyes and not think about what was going on outside the car. Our taxi driver on the first night was really nice and told us where some of the sites were for when we were ready to venture out.
We arrived at our hotel at about 4.00am and it was time for bed! Upon getting out of the car, I managed
to hit a 12 year old boy with my car door. Of course I appoligised, but then some thoughts crossed my mind... Why was a 12 year old boy out at 4.00 in the morning, and why was he walking in the middle of the road!
Final got to sleep at 4.30, only to be woken at 5.00 by the call to prayer. Apparently there was a speaker right outside my window. Awesome. That's not even to meantion the constant beeping of car horns.
29/03/08
After an interupted sleep, it was time to set out and see some of the city. Our first adventure for the day was to walk down to the Nile, during which we passed the Egyptian Museum. We stopped and stared at the Nile for a while, while watching a man with a seemingly endless fishing net. It was great to see the Nile, it was just a shame that it smelt like poo.
We then headed across the Nile towards what looked likle some nice gardens. Upon arrival, we soon discovered that it was part of a mosque. We then headed back over the river and risked the traffic. I have
never been anywhere that it is so hard to cross the road, and there is blantenly no road laws. So crazy! After day one being down there was only one time when we were nearly hit by a car. Megan was luck by about one centimeter in the markets.
Khan Al-Khalili was our next destination. Here there is the big market of Cairo, and also some impressive looking mosques. Our taxi driver decided to take us on the scenic route on the way there. This was pretty good actually, as we had already fixed our price (we were so ripped off). He showed us some nice landscapes we probably wouldn't have seen otherwise.
After wondering around the markets for a while, we decided to get something to eat. Don't know what it was that we had exactly, but it was good. Some sort of meat in a roll with sauce. The rolls in Egypt were at first surprising sweet, this was until we found out that Egyptians are absolute feends for sugar.
We then wandered around the markets for a while, and decided to hold off buying anything until our tour started, figuring that we will probably
find out what is a good price to pay then. Sam was rather enjoying all the comments on his "two wives" though.
It was then decided that we follow Sam to one of the spots the taxi driver had shown us, as he knew the way. We never got there, but did eventually make it out the winding maze like streets. All the faith that Megan had in following Sam anywhere for the rest of the trip was now shattered. It was really interesting to see a more "natural" Cairo though, and the children thought we were quite a novelty. Obvoiusly not may tourists stray from the more popular streets. It was good to see that side of the city, but also nice to be out of the confusing labrynth and back to familliar areas.
We decided to go to the Sound and Light show at the Giza Pyramids that night. This was intersting. We arranged with the hotel to order us a taxi to get there. The hotel had signs up about the Sound and Light show and transfers, so we asked what time the English show would be on. We then order a taxi with the
English show in mind. It came to the arranged time, and no taxi. The guy behind the counter had forgotten to order one. Shortly later another one was hailed and we were on our way. It was a long drive, made even longer by the crazy traffic, beeping horns and terrible car fumes. The taxi driver also tried to light up a smoke on the way as well, but Megan put him back in his box on that one.
We arrived with a few minutes to spare, only to find out that we were two hours late for the English show! We had come all this way, so we decided that we would still see the show, unfortunately it was to be in Italian!
There was an interesting find when we got inside. There was a band made up of Egyptain men, dressed as Pharoes, playing the bagpipes.
We managed to score front row seats for the Sound and Light show. The pyramids were pretty stunning and we where surprised that the show wasn't as tacky as we thought it would be. It was a bit of an issue it being in Italian, as the show was very much story based. We managed to follow a little though. Now I can't wait to get back to the pyramids and have a look around.
Once we got back to the hotel, I started to feel a bit crook. Damn you polluted Cairo!
30/03/08
Today I spent the day in bed as I was really sick. Really not fun. I started to feel better in time for our first group meeting for the tour. I also met my new room mate for the trip, Lucy from Sydney.
After the meeting, the whole group headed out to dinner and had local food. We had Egyptain pancake which is filled with meat and veg. Unfortuately didn't have much of an appeitite though. The resturant was surprising. It looked like a fast food place, and we probably would never have gone in there if it weren't for our tour guide, Mohamed, thinking that it wouldn't be very authentic.
Stay tuned for photos...
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