Third day in Egypt: trip summary so far!

SUMMARY OF EGYPT SO FAR

Overall Egypt is a very dusty and dirty place. There is rubbish EVERYWHERE!!! In the gutters, on the street and pavement. The really sad thing is that the locals are the main ones that just drop rubbish on the street as they walk by with no respect for their local environment. On the other hand the people are very friendly and helpful especially the hotel staff. Everyone there seems to know who I am and is very willing to make sure that my every need is taken care of.
The traffic here is horrible it's always peak hour and apparently the traffic over the last few days isn't busy at all! There are no road rules and the traffic can be up to 6 lanes deep in both directions without line markings. When there were markings drivers took no notice of them at all and drive were they please. The only thing separating the two directions of traffic is usually a meter wide dividing strip. People pull straight out into the traffic without indicating or looking. There are no road rules to speak off and I’ve only seen one set of traffic lights!! If the lights are red and there’s no traffic coming in the other direction the cars stopped will just take off. The only real time they pay attention to rules is when the cops are out there channelling traffic. Every car here has a horn and boy do they know how to use them. They toot for anything to say hello, to ask if you want a taxi, to tell you to get off the road, to hurry up or to ask you what the hell are you doing!!! To cross roads the locals just walk straight out in front of cars and a couple of times I’ve thought that we would hit a few!! The best way for us tourists to cross the road has been to cross with a group of locals as they’ve been doing it for years.
Ok onto my activities for the past 3 days!!

DAY 1

On my very first day in Cairo I managed to lose my hotel, something most of you would know as only something I could possibly do. And do it in style I did. I’d been at my hotel a couple of hours and was bored so I decided to go out to the shopping mall which was a complete disappointment, as there was only bags shoes and more of the same. Afterwards I went for a walk and got told by a taxi man I was walking to the station at the end of a dead end street. So I turned around and started walking in the other direction and bumped into a guy from Kuwait (he was 34). He first started talking to me in Arabic and soon realised I had no idea what he was saying to me. From here he started walking with me and making basic conversation asking what I was doing and where I was from ect. I ended up telling him I was looking for a post office and he said he didn't know exactly where one was but that there should be one in town. Of course I was going in the wrong direction and he said he would show me the way especially as we needed to cross several main roads with 6 lanes of traffic in both directions (scary stuff I can tell you). We never found a post office but he decided he would take me out for fresh juice and Egyptian sweets (don't worry it was a very public place). They were lovely, however by this time the conversation had taken a very different turn. ·He started telling me that he liked me too much, to which I told him my engaged story which did nothing to put him off! He then proceed to tell me he would marry me. I told him it wasn't possible ect that I was travelling for 7 months doing a range of tours. To that he said that he would pay me the price of everything that I had paid for so far if I came stayed with him. Again I said no so he suggested that I stay with him for the two weeks and he would escort me around Egypt. Again I said no and that I should be heading back to my hotel. It was then that I realised I had no idea where I was and that I had left the hotel address at the hotel in my room! A really smart move on my part and only something I could manage. I decided to head to the closet hotel to see if they knew of it and they gave me an address. He then decided to walk me there so that I wouldn’t get lost and kept asking why I wouldn’t stay with him. The address I got turned out to be incorrect so I promptly asked for the nearest internet café so that I could look it up. By now I had told him that he was making me feel really uncomfortable and uneasy. To this he asked why and I said think about young girl in a foreign country talking to a guy she doesn’t know who wants to marry her. He said fair enough and was kind enough to take me to an internet cafe to get the hotel address. Once retrieved I jumped in the nearest taxi and got out of there!!! When I got back to the hotel I went to straight up to my room to sleep even though it was only 5pm. I was exhausted.

DAY 2

I went to the Citadel (Salah Al Din), the Hanging Church and the Coptic Museum.
On the way down to the Hanging Church and the Coptic Museum there was a strip a local shops. Here a local asked me to write a letter for him to tell his friend in South Africa about the birth of his baby daughter so that he could send it in an email. In the end I think it was a poly to get me to come into his shop and have a look around. I refused to buy anything but got a free cup of Egyptian tea for my efforts (this tea tasted the same as normal tea with tea leaves and all). On my way down there was also a variety of other museums and churches where a number of locals lived among them (I’m not sure what the name of this place was called). Here I got involuntarily sidetracked by a local who showed me around and then wanted tips for his efforts. He did take a few photos with me in them which was helpful. There was also a shop there where I had another run in with a local shop assistant who started chatting with me and showing me around the shop, nothing indecent. He then showed me the way to the other churches. On my way back through as there was only one entry and exit he chased me down and gave me his email asking if we could be friends. I took his email to be polite but have no intention of ever email him. When I finally reached the end of this street I finally reached the Hanging Church, which was beautiful, and Coptic Museum, extremely interesting. However I wasn’t allowed to take photos in them so I grabbed some postcards which show the interior of the Church. I will post some other photos when I get to Ireland and have a computer to upload them onto.
The Citadel built by Salah Al Din, is huge!!! To go inside the Mosque you needed to take off your shoes or wear special shoe coverings. Inside the walls there was a massive outside praying area which they still use today. Definitely somewhere I wouldn’t want to be praying tin the middle of summer it would be so so hot! There was also an inside section that had amazingly high ceilings and huge chandlers. It was gorgeous! Outside the mosque there was various museums along the was such as the old police museum, the military museum and general one. All with a variety of interesting artefacts, including old money presses.
This all occupied me till 5pm and then it was back to my hotel for dinner then bed.

DAY 3

I had a quite one as I had visited all the places I wouldn't be visiting on my tour already. So all I did was write some postcards and then went to the local shop to buy a bag so that I can leave some of my stuff at the hotel while we tour around! This was an interesting experience as the shop assistance spoke no English but we finally managed and it only cost me $6 to buy the bag! On the way back to my hotel I meet a guy (24yr) Rumiy. Very nice and he offered to take me around for the day, for some unknown reason I agreed and he took me to a local café for lunch and shisha. On the way home he was kind enough to take me to a supermarket so that I could buy myself some toilet paper as none of the public toilets here have any! The toilets are also rather dirty and most often or not you have to tip the lady standing at the door who keeps them “clean” and may offer you toilet paper. I also bought washing soap and together they only cost 77cents! He then left me here in the internet cafe. Which brings me to the end of my tip so far.
Tomorrow I leave on the tour and the first stop is the Pyramids and Sphinx and then Aswan. But more about them later.

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Part of trip: My World Trip!!!

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