Nairobi to Cairo

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After spending a few hours in Nairobi, we got extremely exhausted from all the toutes bothering us for safaris and selling things that we were in no way interested in. The city is quite compact and it is insanely over populated. It seems like the entire place was very modern only five or ten years ago, as there looks like there was infrastructure similiar to any other city, but over the past decade it has been completely run down. We decided to just take shelter in our hotel for lunch and a short nap. In the early evening, Erin left on her bus ride out west and Ryan purchased a bus ticket to Uganda departing the next day. After Erin departed, me and Ry headed off to find some pizza joint a little ways down the street. We instantly noticed how very nice the city was in the evening, after most of the shops had closed and many of the population had returned to their homes. Although it looked very beautiful at night, looks can be deceiving... Nairobi, aka Nairobbery, is considered the most dangerous city in all of Africa, with over a third of the citizens in Nairobi being mugged and robbed each year. Back to our pizza... it was fantastic, and I told the manager that if I ever return to Nairobi, I would eat there again. After we returned to our hotel, I hit the sack for my early flight to Cairo.

My flight to Cairo was great, only 4 hours, and upon arrival I got to see the pyramids from the window of the plane. Arriving in the late afternoon, I checked into a hotel and went for dinner. Although the toutes here are not as aggressive as in Africa, they are quite a bit smarter. I believe someone at my hotel informed one of them about myself, as a man approaced me about 10 minutes after walking through the streets and he was wearing a Canadian pin on his shirt and just happened to guess I was from Vancouver. A little too convient for me. He did convince me to buy some things in a few of the shops which were managed by as few of his brothers.

My second day here was long and tiring. I started off the morning with some Internet time to backup my pictures from my safari earlier down in Africa, and then headed for the museum. Unfortunately you can not bring cameras into the museum and not favouring the idea of leaving my camera with some security gaurd I decided to return it to my hotel. On my way back I got totally lost somehow, and ended up being pursuaded to purchase more things and then some more things. A few hours later, after finding my way, I made it back to the museum. If only I was more interested into looking at historic artifacts, because I blew by the 1000s of ancient displays in roughly one hour. Tired of walking, I went for a quiet drink and ice cream in the Hilton Hotel nearby and then continued to explore the city center.

That night to my surprise Jord came to Cairo! With Jas stuck in Arusha, Tanzania awaiting his new passport, Jord decided to leave and do a little more travelling with Jas catching up in a few weeks. So the next day me and Jord decided to see the pyramids. We headed off to the bus station to hop on the bus to Giza, this actually proved to be quite difficult as not many speak English and the bus signs are all in Arabic. We did manage to find a young man who told us he too was heading to Giza and didn't mind showing us the way. We got on the bus with him and he explained how not to get swindled into any expensive ripoffs by the pyramid tour companies. Arriving in Giza, the man took us for some tea and brought us to the papyrus factory where the papyrus paintings were being created. He finally showed us to a reputable horse and camel riding stables for a tour through the pyramids. We purchased a camel trip, ate lunch and then headed off on our short and hot adventure.

The pyramids were great, but I had actually envisioned them to be much larger from all the pictures I had seen through out school and on history shows. Don't get me wrong though, they were amazing and unbelievable, but just not as big as I had pictured, and the sphinx was actually incredibly small. We got to climb a ways up the pyramids and took many photos of us with them. After the ride we stopped at a Egyptian perfume shop to smell perfume samples. This is one very cool aspect I found about Egypt, they are really into perfumes and smells. Seems like every shop, hotel, bathroom, etc... has specific flowers to give the rooms a beautiful scent, even the facial tissues (kleenexes) have a wonderful scent added to them. Finshing up the journey and arriving back at the stables, we disembarked the camels, had another drink of tea, and made our way back to downtown Cairo with our sore asses from riding the camels.

After a quick bite, we headed to the Nile coast and took a fluka sail ride along the Nile for the sunset... it was quite romantic just the two of us and a few beers. Later that night, after I had packed my things for my early morning 4am departure to Sweden, I realized I had messed up my dates and that I still had one more day left in Cairo. So, I unpacked, and since we didn't have any plans for tomorrow we decided to head down to the belly-dancers and get right pissed. Cairo really comes to life after midnight, I never really thought of it before, but it makes sense. During the day its just so uncomfortably hot that many of the locals just sleep through the afternoon and come out in the night. All the shops are open until atleast 2am and its very enjoyable to walk through the very crowded and busy streets lit up bright with lights and a nice warm breeze flowing by. But it did seem wierd that you could go shoe shopping at 2am in the morning. Little did we know that the belly-dancers are open all night, and we finally decided after way too many beers that we should head back, as it was now almost 7am.

The next day (or I guess the same day) I slept in until 4pm, where I am now at the Internet Cafe typing this story. I am here with a massive hangover headache, suffering from extreme dehydration, sunburned shoulders and a very sore ass from the camel. Jord is due to take the bus tonight and then the ferry to Jordan (the country Jordan) where I am sure he will have a blast with the locals telling them he is Jordan. For myself, I head to the airport tonight for my flight to Sweden departing at 4am. I am looking forward for a much cooler atmosphere and to party with my long lost Swedes I met in Perth, Australia.

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Photos

Arranging the Pyramids
Here I am arranging the pyramids, they are actually not very heavy.

Nairobi Night
A night shot of Nairobi. Looks peaceful and modern, but the daylight will show otherwise; with cracks in the roads and buildings and millions of people swarming the streets.

Camel Closeup
A portrait of Jord's camel.

An Egyptian Sunset
A beautiful sunset over the city of Cairo.

The Nile Valley
A shot of the Nile valley from the window of my plane.

Pyramids From Above
You can just see one of the three pyramids of Giza in front of the engine on the wing of the plane. And also the point of a second one, above the engine.

Meet the Team
The two of us with our guide in the middle.

Famous Shot
Here is our masterpiece shot, the two of us mounted on our beasts of war with the sphinx and a pyramid in the background.

Pyramid Security
Some of the security team in place at the pyramids.

Protecting a Wonder of the World
We could easily see the pyramids needed extra security, here myself and Jord get a great protection shot.

Nice Ass
A man carries some grass on his donkey.

Scaling the Pyramids
We climbed about 30 feet up the pyramid, you weren't allowed to climb any higher.

Papyrus Painting
One of the artists that help paint the famous souvenirs from Egypt.

Scents of Egypt
Here is on of the many perfume shops through out Cairo. They make excellent perfume from a variety of mixtures of different flowers.

Fluka Ride
Your standard issue Fluka sail ride over the waters of the Nile.

Cairo City Streets
A slow shutter speed shot of a street in downtown Cairo in the evening.

Shisha Time
Jord taking a puff from the Shisha pipe during our night at the belly dancers.

Shisha For Me
My turn on the Shisha pipe.

Feeling a Buzz
A guy Fred that we met at the belly dancers and our waitress Mira.

The Three White Guys
Here is Jord, Fred and myself. The only white guys at the belly dancers... the only drunk guys at the belly dancers. Lets just say that we sort of stood out from the crowd.

Dancing Time
Mira dragging me up for a dance.

Comments

[Lush]

Thug Life 2006
my main man had two strikes, slipped got arrested and flipped, s creamed "THUG LIFE!" and emptied the clip

[Nikki]

Kris' Beard
That's hilarious that people spoke to you in Arabic because they thought you were Egyptian. I'm glad you shaved it off, though. hahahaha (HI BY THE WAY!!!)

[deleted_20633]

Egyptian thug...
...but looking great, what can I say! :-)