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Published: November 25th 2012
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Taxi time
This was the first taxi that seated all 7 of us comfortably This morning I awoke at 9.30am, angry at myself that I had slept in so late I promptly get up, open my windows and head towards the shower. Damn these fricken itchy bites, where the hell did I get them from! I have two on my back, three on each arm. I head to Erenis room to see if she's keen to get some breakfast, She's already eaten so I head on down myself. She tells me Tilly (a girl on our tour, that has done one of Ereni's tours before) is already downstairs, she's in blue.
Once in the restaurant I see girl in blue with other girls from Contiki, so sit with them and have some laughs. Contiki is like Busabouts sister company, so they go to all the same hotels and all that. They are doing the same tour as us just with some little differences. After breakfast because yano, we're best of friends now, we all decide to meet back at reception in 30 minutes and head to The Egyptian Museum & City of the Dead. Once we all rondeau we introduce ourselves, there is Kai (a cop from Aussie who had just finished the Winter
The Egypt Museum
Panorama of the outside. Wanderer with Contiki around Europe), Jess from Aussie (who is very nervous as this is her first tour, honestly this girl has a fricken first aid kit in her bag and her passport strapped to her under her clothes) Shantelle from Alberta Canada (you'll love this Malcolm), Tilly (who has just finished the 3 loops of Busabout), Ereni and I.
We set off and all barrel into a quirky 7 seater taxi. On the way we are all giggling, there is Kai and I in the back, Jess, Tilly and Shantelle in the middle and Ereni in the front. We were warned when we got here that taxi drivers will try to do extras to get more money, eg offer to take you shopping. This taxi driver did, he offers to take us to The Museum, wait then head to the pyramids, then take us shopping... So funny. "Lah Shukran!" We yell repetitively.
Once we arrive at the The Museum we pay the driver 30egp and head inside the gates. We take a few photos outside, buy our tickets and enter. They X-ray our bags and make sure we don't have cameras. In this museum you are not
Illegal Photo
I snapped this photo inside the Museum even though your not allowed to take photos.. Im a badass! allowed cameras and are strictly not allowed to take photos, we are all stopped. Ereni & Shantelle have a camera, so they have to go back and put them in lockers. Jess and I have our phones and I plan to take sneeky photos with mine! haha.
After they get back we check out the map of The Museum. This Museum is huge and shows Egypt through the different eras such as ancient egypt, old kingdom, Middle Kingdom, Greek roman area etc. We walk around checking out the treasures, mummified animals and tombs including the youngest Pharohs tomb - Tutankhamen. God! I remember reading about this sort lf stuff during my lunch breaks at School! Now im seeing it for myself!
King Tut Came into rule at 9 years old and died at 19. The detailed work on some of these old artifacts are beyond our belief. To think that they managed to do this thousands of years ago is insane. We wander around, I snap some sneeky photos and head towards the exit. I decide I want a postcard so stop and choose my favorite one with King Tut on it. The gentleman says to me, are
The Egypt Museum
From the top left, Me, Kai,
From the bottom Left, Shantelle, Jess, Tulia and Ereni you Arabic? I advise, no... He mentions I look like Nefertiti a beautiful arabic queen... Aww how adorable.
We meet the Contiki girls back out the front. The girls collect their cameras we ask some locals to snap our pictures and head off to visit inside the Tahrir square. However on our way we meet a lovely man from Cairo who tells us it's best to go to the square after 5pm and helps us cross the road to go shopping at a couple of government buildings. Before saying his goodbyes to us he asks me if I am Arabic... Cute! He says I have the beautiful features of an Arabic woman. Awesome. Kai is scarce so we decide to wander off to get some food.
We head off and find a little cafe. The meals are alright priced and the menu looks good. Mmmm, Kofta! Afterwards we decide to head outside and try to flag down a taxi to take us to the City of the Dead. After buying a pair of sunnies a man with a taxi approaches us, we ask him "is there room for 6?!" He says yes 4 in the back, two in
Lunch!
Having lunch at a cute wee Egyptian Cafe. Cheers to Bangers (the pig). If your interested in Bangers adventures, there is a facebook page "Bangers on OE" or something... lol the front... Fuck. Then we advise we want to go see the city of the dead. He replies "pyramids Giza! Yesss!" ... After a lot of debate I remember it's very close to Ali's mosque and the Citadel, so I ask him to take us there.
We all hop into this taxi that really its only meant to seat 3 of us! What a laugh! My butt isn't even touching the seat, Shantelle is overheating, Kai is freaking out with the traffic, Ereni's butt isn't touching the seat and Tilly and Jess are sharing. Jess is getting the "I want to have your babies eyes" from the taxi driver, along with the occasional butt grope. Eventually we make it by the Mosque, after some miscommunication we accidentally end up in the complete slums of Cairo. It's VERY scary and eye opening here. Imagine slum dog millionaire... Well yah. That's it.
We decide to get the Taxi Driver to take us back to the hotel. I weirdly enough have great navigation! On the way we actually see the City of the Dead, the driver pulls over a bit and let's us take a photo. A police officer goes past, sees we're overloaded and smiles, talking to the taxi driver he asks us, where we are from. Of course over run by Australians all he hears is AUSTRALIA... and mine and Shantelles little wimper in the corner "New Zealand - Canada" gets missed. We snap a photo of them and he waves is good bye. What a GC! After many screams and an incredibly long drive through an incredibly long tunnel we make it back to our hotel. We pay the taxi driver 70egp and bid our farewells.. Oh wait.... "You are gorgeous, sexy, beautiful Egyptian woman" ... Awesome. I'm fitting in lol.
We head inside the hotel cracking up about our awesome and amazing Taxi journey. We share a couple of beers together and await for Mohumud to arrive to give us orientation. At orientation we meet Jasmine and Matt. A couple from Aussie and James another Busabout guide also from Aussie. Mohumud goes though some of the tour, extras and all that. We then head off, have an Egyptian dinner which for me is two falafel sandwiches. They come to 3egp!!! That's like $.50 nzd roughly!! The lovely man serving asks for my mobile number, I laugh and we head off back to our hotel.
Mohumud bids us fairwell and explains he will meet us here at 8.30am. We rock on inside, have a coke and use some Internet. The Assistant downstairs is very nice, he makes sure he is a great service to us and explains to me "you are very beautiful, you look like cleopatra, queen of Egypt" Ahhh... Well, if I am maybe the resurrection of Cleopatra then why do I need to pay for this cola.. Boom!
Anywho, off to sleep again. Tomorrow I get to cross the other thing off my bucket list... Watch this space!!
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