Day 1: 18 Aussies/Kiwis, 1 Frenchman and a Canadian walk into a bar

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Tour is starting. Felucca Odyssey is the name of the tour with Travel Talk. My original plans with Topdeck fell through so after checking around I settled on Travel Talk which gets good reviews. Flight got in from Frankfurt at 1:30AM and they were good enough to send a driver for me. I had gotten a visa beforehand but the person from Traveltalk was there to help me through immigration if need be. Driving from the airport took about 40 minutes and I got my first view of the mighty Nile on the way in. It was an impressive sight.

Got to my hotel Cataracts Pyramid Resort and checked in with both the hotel and Travel Talk. The tour itself cost $400 CAD and I paid 160 British pounds as a local payment. For Egyptian tours you pay part of the tour as a local payment in cash so that they can cover certain costs locally. I was both exhausted but excited so sleep didn't come easy. Tomorrow or technically today I would meet my group.

Woke up at 7AM and got breakfast at the hotel restaurant. Nothing fancy just bread, juice and fruit to start the day. The tour would meet at 6PM for our orientation meeting. I bought a dozen post cards to scatter across the planet and before I could leave that one store in the hotel another person from a different store waylaid me and gave me a hard sell to buy something at his store. I politely declined as I usually don't buy things until the end of the tours to avoid carrying too much on tour. I hadn't slept well for a few days so I mostly slept through the day and periodically checked my internet in the hotel lobby. I did notice something strange when I went to the hotel lobby at 5:45PM and no one showed up by 6PM. I finally went to the reception and ask them the time. They informed it was 5PM. I checked my phone again and it still showed 6PM. I finally realized my phone had daylights savings turned on which Egypt does not use. Mildly amused I left the lobby and came back at the proper time.

At the proper 6PM my tour mates started showing up. First person I introduced myself to was Emily and Stephan. Stephan is one French guy on tour and Emily is his roommate. They both lived in London as ex pats. Around this time our tour leader Zizo showed up and ushered everyone to the a meeting room above the restaurant. We introduced ourselves first and as usual I forgot everyone's name quickly. I would get everyone's name down in a day or so. I am used to meeting a lot of Aussies/Kiwis travelling and this tour had 18 Aussies/Kiwis, 1 French Guy and myself the Canadian. Zizo mentioned that most of us would be expats living in London. That is true except for myself. Everyone was living in London as Expats. A few actually lived fairly closed to each other. I found out that Travel Talk advertises heavily in the London market so that would explain the number of expat from London. The other part is likely referrals from previous passengers to their expat friends.

Anyway back to the tour. Zizo took us through the tour schedule and what to expect in Egypt. He gave some gentle advise for the ladies in the group that there may be some unwanted attention from Egyptian men but they could dress as they like except for our visit to the church and mosque near the end of the tour. I will say there was some cat calling and unwanted comments along the way but the ladies held up very well. After orientation everyone opted for the Nile river cruise. I ran into someone at the end of his tour on my way back to my room and he advised I was in for a fun time on the tour.

We all piled into a bus and drove to our boat. On the way I did notice there was a large number of river boat cruises all along the Nile. We got to our boat and the first blip we had was that everyone had to surrender their water bottles as they didn't allow any outside food/drinks on the boat. Dinner was buffet and it was beef, fish, vegetable, and various local breads and sauces. It was good food and we could eat as much we wanted. Drinks were separate which was standard for the tour. I chatted and got to know people on my tour. There were a large number of teachers and nurses on this tour. After eating most of us went upstairs on the observation deck to watch the Nile go by. it was a nice view and I did notice other boats were playing very loud music and had a lot of lights running. I think was mostly to draw attention as they didn't seem to have a lot of people on them.

Entertainment started with a belly dancer. I will have to say the consensus seems to be that it wasn't that great of a performance. I have seen plenty of other dancers from around the around and I will say I have to agree it could have been better. Everyone watched politely and the dancer went around got pictures with people in the audience who wanted one. Next up was a dancer with wide hoops. He was also a little person and he and the other dancer with the wide hoops were entertaining. It was nice dance they did and they had some funny interactions with each other. The taller one also went around and flirted with some women in the crowd. He was especially persistent with Kate from our tour who is an attractive Aussie from Adelaide and was on the tour with her boyfriend Josh. They were one of 2 couples on this tour that came together. Anyway the flirtation was all in good fun and I did verify with Kate that she was amused and not insulted by it. After all the entertainment it was getting late so we all went back to the bus and we went back to the hotel. It was good start to the tour and looked forward to the rest of it.

Below is a breakdown of our tour group.

Kait

Laura

Huot

Stephan, Emily

Ollie, Luke, Ashleigh

Gary, Carey

Becks, Jess, Sarah Payne

Kate, Josh

Brendan, Myles, Sarah Wiseman, Erin, Emma

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