It begins: Arrival in Egypt

Part 1 of 2:

Leon, Jodie and I arrived at Cairo airport at around 11pm tonight, yeaahhhh. Despite 19 hours of flying, with a 5 hour stop over at Changi (Singapore) airport, I didn't even get a wink of sleep. I guess I was still buzzing because the trip was actually happening while my head was still stuck in replay mode from the previous nights' farewell-antics.

After exiting the plane we followed other passengers through the airport terminals and reached a corridor lined with (mostly) sus looking people holding travel company signs (hello Pink Travel!). We were 'greeted' by a man holding a Topdeck sign (well, no real greeting per se, more like a nod and a "follow me"... yeah not sus at all!?). He directed us to a luggage bay and picked up our suitcases for us, good dude. Next he directed us out of the airport and into a nearby parking lot. I did expect it but it still surprised me when I realised the majority of the people waiting for passengers in the airport were smoking - Welcome to Egypt!

Anyway mystery snap-pants-man drove us to our hotel, it would have been around midnight by now and the roads were packed! The Egyptians seem like pretty crazy drivers, no one was driving in a lane, they were all over the place. Just crazy. We were finally dropped off at some really crappy looking hotel called The Indiana and Snap Pants carried our bags in (I'm starting to like this)... We had no idea who he was and in hindsight I guess we were probably being a little naive following some weirdo in snap athletic pants through a packed airport, getting in a van with him and not questioning him once... Come to think of it, we trusted him even though he didn't give a name (and we didn't even ask haha). Ah tourists.

After checking in (and having reception staff obviously talking and making fun of us in Arabic) we made our way up the most rickety little elevator. To access the elevator we had to open a door that was fixed to the wall, so as the elevator moved we could see the bricks and levels swish past, I was scared I'd get sucked into the gap and into a Freddy Krueger nightmare world. Once we got into our room our suitcases were delivered. The bell man dropped them off and stood there awkwardly until we figured out we had to tip him... we only had big notes on us and didn't want to look cheap riffling through my bag to find the exchange rate-table that I'd made so instead of giving him 50L.E (Egyptian Pounds) we gave him 5 English Pounds... which was actually much more. Wooopssss.

Anyway our hotel SUCKS. It's the tackiest place I've ever seen. The carpet itself is FILTHY, the 3-second rule does NOT apply here. The curtains, chair upholstery and bed covers match, and one complete side of the room is cupboard door upon cupboard door - which we checked for corpses but they were empty (probably decomposed on the stenchy carpet, and stuffed into our sand-filled beds). This place is definitely from Freddy's nightmare world. I hope I don't get sucked into my bed in my sleep.

"Be alert but not alarmed" hahaha Mum.

Part 2 of 2
Jodie blocked the toilet this morning with Mr Hanky. The cleaners got him out, but how... we will never know.

Today we went to Arkadia which is a shopping center, it's our first/only full day to ourselves in Cairo before our tour starts and we decided to go to the shops because I stupidly left my lens adapter at home (on my desk... next to the computer... I KNOW EXACTLY WHERE IT IS ARGHHH) and so I was unable to attach my polarizer or fish-eye and I realllly want them!!! . We left our hotel at 11:30 am, thinking it was a decent enough time... (you'll see why it wasn't in a minute). A worker at the front desk organised our taxi for us and said it would cost 60L.E for a return trip (roughly $12AU). Our driver's name was Ali and he was awesome. He cut off everyone and beeped his horn every five seconds (which seems normal on these roads anyway). People around Cairo are INSANE drivers... I just can not explain it, you seriously have to experience it it's just that crazy. I've come to the conclusion that they drive like blind, amputee epileptics. Picture this: roads that are as wide as our 3-lane motorways (mostly unmarked lanes, but if they are marked it's still a shit-fight) and have up to 5 cars squashed in there with total disregard for lane markings, and even less for pedestrian crossings, and pedestrians themselves. The strangest thing was despite the erratic driving we felt really safe with Ali... and to be honest it was the highlight of the day haha I still shake my head when I think about it.

Once we arrived Ali said he would wait for us and told us where to meet him... $12AU for a return trip of 10-15min one way, plus around 2 hours of waiting in between!! I looked up travel expenses in a guide book and apparently we got ripped off, I still think it's awesome cheap.

After getting out of the car we wanted to cross the road to check out the Nile but we were too scared to get through the cars... it was only day one, and I'm too young to die! Aaanyway eventually we made our way into the shopping center only to find that everything was closed! It would have been about 11:45am by now... and shops were closed!? We wondered around for a while hoping to find a camera shop and even though everything was closed we didn't find one so we eventually called it quits :( Anyway we noticed at around 1pm that shops started opening and I asked a man when they all open, he said whenever they feel like it, but generally around 1pm (WHAT) and they close at around 2-3am (WHAT).

After the disappointment of not finding an adapter we headed back to the Indiana... Ali cheered me up with his psycho driving.

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEEEEPPPPP

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