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Published: November 20th 2019
CAIRO
Those wonderful pyramidsJust as bad as a Europe flight to get here....22hrs in total...change at Dubai and then 4hr flight to Cairo. Our driver was there to meet us and it was quite easy to get out of the airport. Driving from the airport Cairo looked just like I imagined....concrete jungle of apartment blocks....that look like they should be condemned and look like they are falling down, crazy traffic most of the way, dusty with a dust haze over the city but quite mesmerising with all the sites and sounds, people going about their daily life. We came a day early to Cairo before we join our tour group for the main tour of Cairo, train sleeper overnight to Luxor and then a 4 day Nile Cruise down to Aswan, a day trip to Abu Simbel and then fly back to Cairo for another day there and then bus to Alexandria and back to Cairo. We booked a day tour with our friend Assem from Dubai who has just opened up a branch here in Cairo, knowing his expertise and having used him 3 times we were not surpised wth the quality and value for money tour we had of Cairo, as requested
CAIRO
street life...tuk tuks are alive and well we wanted to do off the beaten track type tour, as the main pyramids etc is being done with Webjet, so we set off early to visit the old Cairo where the old coptic churches are and it was fabulous winding around the tiny lanes and alleyways visiting some very old places, then our to garbage city where there is a whole city of 5000 people live and sort garbage every day for recycling and sell it...it seems very poor but these people make a really decent living, stench, flies, garbage everywhere our guide was embarassed to show us this but that was a request I made. We were taken to a local restaurant for their Khoshery lunch which was terrific, we all really enjoyed it....no meat for the boys but they did enjoy it anyway! Finished off the day with a felucca ride on the Nile which was beautiful....could have been any river anywhere in the world with all the posh hotels lining the banks. Back to the hotel for a briefing of our 11 day tour to come and meet other guests...seems there will be 14 of us.
Sunday first day of tour to the pyramids, sphinx and
CAIRO
Back of pyramids from our hotel balcony Cairo museum......OMG! Truly spectacular....if you are thinking of coming here to see this...DO IT! We spent a few hours around the area soaking it all up! Our guide is full of knowledge having done his degree to be an Egyptologist! Local kids playing with rocks on a rocky outcrop near one of the..pyramids smashed a rock onto the head of a girl in our group....police, ambulance, hospital, CT and 14 stitches later rejoined the group for the museum tour in the afternoon! She is feeling OK but a bit shocked! Bus from hotel to train station 7.30pm for a departure of 9.15pm....think we got away just before 10pm...pleasantly surprised the sleeper quite comfortable and served an airline type dinner on the train...slept about 5hrs of the 10hr trip. Big day in Luxor today....been here before but Karnak Temple is another one of those amazing places to see. It is just as spectacular and mesmerising as it was on our visit in 2013 with Rae, Jim, Jill, and Greg....we are loving it all over again! Boarded our boat in afternoon and were pleasantly surprised as to how nice it is....lovely big room, air conditioning works super good...it is still very hot
CAIRO
Street sellers here especially down in Luxor on the upper Nile. The food on board is really good too...cannot complain...3 meals a day which we do not need! Tuesday was a very early start 5.30am breakfast and 6.30am take off to the Valley of the Kings...which is another amazing place...62 tombs have been unearthed so far and they open about 10 at any one time of which we saw three today....the colors are just something else..just so well preserved after thousands of years...hard to get your head around it. Just beautiful and we are blown away with it all. After a visit to a stone factory headed onto Hatshepsut Temple which was a queen who had this enormous temple...beautiful in itself and such an imposing view from far away....but nothing can beat the pyramids and Karnak Temple. Back to the ship after stocking up with beers and water etc. Its a bit weird that we do not get bottled water provided and they charge quite a bit for it on the ship so best to stock up on shore. Stunning sunset as we sailed along the Nile to the the Esna Lock....it took two boats at a time but we have been
CAIRO
Mercure Le Sphinx in much higher locks but exciting just the same. After 5 people not turning up at the start of our tour...we now have had 3 more go down for the count...vomiting, diarrhoea....our Vicky with the stitches doing well but her husband has been down for two days. Hope we don't catch anything....the boat is buffet and I do not like buffets for this reason....so our bottles of sanitizer getting a workout.....the boat does not insist on people using it which is a bit of a worry. Another two nights on the boat and day yrip to Abu Simbel and then fly Aswan to Cairo on Saturday
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