Finally in Egypt!!!

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Well after the initial flight dramas I arrive in Cairo airport at about 1am and was met by our Contiki rep who introduced me to two other girls who'd been on my flight, Wendy and Kathy which was nice.

We boarded our shuttle and headed towards our hotel.

The first thing you notice is the traffic, it reminds me of my time in Thailand, there are no lines on the road and seemingly no road rules except the old survival of the fittest!!! the streets were jammed packed going back towards the city and they tell me that that is because Egyptians work 24 hours a day. The streets were packed with people too busily going about their business.

Probably the most amazing thing we saw was our first glimpse of the Pyramids, right from the road that we were traveling on!! two of them, right there!!! I just couldn't believe it, you kind of have to pinch yourself to make sure it is real since only hours earlier I was in London airport.

It turns out that the Pyramids are about 3 minute car drive from our hotel.

Once arriving and checking in at our very impressive 5 star Oasis Hotel the girls and I retired to the bar for a couple of beers before heading back to our rooms by about 3.30am.

Didn't do much the next day, slept alot and then had lunch up by our pool which of course was really harsh!!!

That night we had our Contiki meeting and discovered that there was 29 people on our tour and met our tour guide Sharif - not sure how it's spelt!

Then we grabbed some dinner and sampled the local wine which I have to say is Not wrong, just different!!!! We also had our first go at the apple shisha! the big smoking tube thing, I can hear you all saying - but Lisa doesn't smoke, and that is true, but firstly Nat told me I had to do it and when in Egypt!!! well you know the rest of the saying!!!

Next day we all board our bus and headed out so that we could visit the pyramids, and everyone was more than just a little excited!!

The Pyramids were built about 4,500 years ago and are the only 1 out of the 7 ancient wonders of the world that still exists. We saw the 3 pyramids which they call the Grandfather, Son and Grandson ( I hope I got that right!!!) but their Eygptian names are Cheops, Chefren & Mycrenus.

As you approach them for the first time, you note the individual stones and the shear size of them that it took to make these amazing structures... the suface used to be smooth that covered the stones, but through the mining of the pyramids to find the entry doors, they left the stones exposed and some have turned to dust...

The Eygptians were smart and hide the entries high in the pyramid so there was a new enterance forced in the Pyramids before they found the original one.

There were men on camels everywhere, some police, some harrasing tourists. The police chased away both the children trying to sell you things and the men trying to get you to take a picture of them on their camels and then asking absorbadent amounts of money. At one point one of the policeman actually got off his camel and started chasing a young boy with a whip and throwing stones at him!!

When the Egyptians were building the Pyramids they used about 2 million blocks of stone that weighed approximately 2.5 tonnes each, it make you marvel at their brilliance in creating these structures which are said to be only 4mm out of alignment.

The Nile flooded about 8 moonths a year so during contructoin the workers could only work for the remaining months.

We bought tickets and walked inside one of the pyramids, they only let about 100 people a day in so we were lucky. You have to bend in half to go through the low tunnel which first goes down then heads back up. It had some flurecent lighting through the passage way and it was soooo hot, with no ventilation, and you can imagine how hot it would have been when they were building it and had to use fire torches to light their way.... at the end we entered an empty tomb. We stood inside there for awhile and marvelled at the craftmanship that went into it and then came back out, happy to be in the fresh air again.

We have all heard stories about tourists getting on camels at the pyramids and the Egyptian men taking them out into the Sahara Desert and leaving them there... or asking for rediculous amounts of money before they will let them off the camel, even after they had an agreed price. So our guide said that we can't ride camels there, but we did by the headdress and get a picture on a camel there... we are riding camels at a later stage. Even there though, the little boy, of about 7 was there to take my money and we had an agreed price of $5 egyptian pounds and when i got off and gave him the five he said 'another five, another five' so i yelled out to the other girl and asked her the price and he was like 'ok, goodbye, goodbye' cheeky little bugger!!!

The 3rd Pyramid was cased in granite but it had also been quarried so the majority of the casing was now gone.

There is currently 118 pyramids in Egypt.

we then went up the top of a hill to a look out in the Sahara Desert where you could see all 3 pyramids in a row.

Eygpt is 80% Muslim and 20% Christian in faith.

There are tombs between the pyramids, but they don't belong to Pharohs, they belong to his relatives and friends.

It is said that the Pyramids where built to reflect the suns rays as the sun's rays were seen as the passage way to ascend to the heavens - that's why they buried the Pharohs in the Pyramids.

One side of the pyramids is boarded by the Sahara and the otherside by the Arabian Desert.

100,000 people worked on the construction of the pyramids, they weren't slaves though, these people where given good and housing and it was believed that if you worked on the Pyramids then the Pharoh would support you for a second life.

The 1st Capital was memphis - in the Old Kingdom, and the 2nd Capital is Luxor - Valley of the Kings.

We then headed down for our group photo which happend to be take infront of the Sphinx and a Pyramid - such a tough spot for a picture!!!

Until 1926 you could only see the Sphinx head - the rest was covered by sand. The Phinx is 20m high and it's head is about 5m. I guess I had expected that it would be bigger.... however it was still a sight to be seen.

They explained the mummification process to us, which involves them cutting down the left side of the body and removing all organs, then they would lay you out on a roof in the sun, covering you in salt regularly, for 40 days before wrapping you in the bandages.

We went to the Museum which was very interesting even though we were extremely tired. The museum was built to hold 30,000 peices, but currenlty holds 70.000 pices. It has so many artifects now that they are in the process of building a new museum in the Sahara which will be the worlds biggest museum. I hadn't expected the heat to effect me so badly! we were all more than just a little lithargic. We saw King Tuts famous gold head gear. We saw other masks and some of his coffins. He was buried in a wooden box which was placed inside 2 other gold one which was then placed within 3 other boxes, bit like bubushkas actually!!

We were told the faces that you see on the Pharohs statues and coffins doesn't represent what the Pharohs looked like, more like what they would like to look like in the after like - their own versions of perfect.

We went to the bathroom in the museum and they actually had a women standing in their rationing out toilet paper for everyone, which is an interesting job!!!

Had lunch at the Happy Dolphin which was literally right on the Nile River. The water was like 1 foot away from me. The lunch was traditional but not too bad!!

The popluation of Cairo is 17 million, population of Eygpt is 72 million, but only 5% of the country is inhabited.

We were then taken to a shop that sells pure oils - they sell them to Calvin Klien etc, to make popular fragrences. I bought Aida, which is the base for Jadoor, which you can tell. I also got Frankencense and 2 hand blown vase/bottle things for them to go in which are beautiful and delicate, hope they make it home!!

Then it was time to board our overnight sleeper train for the 800 mile journey between Cairo and Aswan. I'd hate to see what the class beneath first class looked like since we upgraded!!! the rooms were so tine you ould barely fit your bags in the room. We had dinner in the room which was a littel less than ordinary!! Then Rose, my roomy, cracked open a bottle of Vodka and we ended up having about 9 people in our room, perched ontop of our bags, and generally just jammed in our room!!! I got to meet a few more off the tour which was good and Nat would be really pleased at how many names I have actually remembered all by myself!!!

After a long night, which wasn't too bad, managed a little sleep, we arrived in Aswan!!!

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