Final thoughts from Egypt

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Egypt part 3

So on Saturday we set off by taxi for Luxor with a stop off in Edfu to see our final temple. We passed through Kom Ombo in the car and it looked worse than from the train and it gets our vote as the worst place we have ever been overtaking Berastagi, in Sumatra and Varanasi in India. The temple at Edfu was magnificent and there were only about 20 other people.

Back in Luxor we checked into the Iberotel with a pool on the banks of the Nile. The setting was fabulous. However as with most of Egypt nothing is quite what it seems and having unpacked the bags we found out the shower didn’t work and after checking it couldn’t be fixed so we had to move rooms..............and that needed fixing too!!None of this was helped by the fact that Chris was feeling terrible from the effects of the dust and pollution. A trip to the pharmacy got some antibiotics and it took a week to clear. We decided to eat at Ayman’s place but had a bit of a tussle when a young lad walked in with us off the street looking for commission. It took some time to get rid of him and apparently the hassle is constant for Ayman as a Coptic Christian in a Muslim state.

Sunday I woke up to an amazing sight from the balcony a whole collection of hot air balloons and I spent 30 minutes taking loads of shots to get half a dozen good ones. Sunday we had a wander round the souk, booked our bus tickets to Hurghada and had a meal out on the edge of the souk. An Australian company arrived with a group of bikers who were doing Cairo to Cape Town; I could see the look of envy on Chris’ face!!

Monday was an odd day I had breakfast and then went back to bed with this cold which I have had off and on since Christmas. There were people painting next door to our room and the final straw was when they had a noisy meeting outside our room, I went down to see the duty manager to complain and it was the same one who had got the troubles about the shower. He did apologise and we got a plate of complimentary fruit before we left!! In the afternoon we had two hours on a felucca on the Nile watching the sun set, it was so relaxing. We enjoyed Happy Hour (20%!o(MISSING)ff) with a Canadian family who were enjoying the Egyptian wine; I wouldn’t use it as toilet cleaner!! We had our final lovely meal with Ayman.

Tuesday we set off on the GO bus for our 5 hour trip to the Red Sea resort of Hurghada. It was okay and we had a stop off for tea on the way. When we got off the bus it was chaos in the bus station and Chris eventually got a taxi sorted wile I waited with the bags. It is times like this that it is good to have two people travelling. We arrived at the hotel and I checked our 7^th floor room and the shower wasn’t working!! Eventually we got sorted and had a big room with nice big balcony with a sea view. We got sorted and changed and went down for a drink and found that although we had booked bed and breakfast we were all inclusive.

Now on the surface that is fine and don’t look a gift horse in the mouth but it was all a bit too much Hi-di-Hi for us. We made two lovely Dutch ladies Sunshine and Moon who came to drink, eat and dress up! The drinks were pretty bad the beer was tasteless. The food was okay in parts but not much was Egyptian. The purpose of Hurghada was for Chris to dive and me to chill. He did three days and six dives and reached his 50^th dive, and he said the fishes etc were fabulous. I had another day in bed dosed up with flu stuff and then had a pedicure, massage, facial and haircut. The facial was interesting it felt like sandpaper rub followed by squeezing all of the spots and blackheads but I was glowing afterwards.

Originally we were going to get the bus to Cairo but we got a cheap flight, business class on Wednesday. It was all very smooth; we got fast tracked through security and got breakfast on the flight and priority for our bags at Cairo airport. We met a Dutch guy who worked for Movenpick, the Swiss hotel chain, and he told us that most of the big chains don’t own the hotels they just allow people to use the name, set the standards etc. He had been in Hurghada to remove the contract from the hotel there as standards had dropped. We had booked a transfer and after a call it eventually turned up.

Cairo is huge and the traffic is crazy and we got to our hostel in about an hour. It was in a grotty building on a busy street corner in downtown Cairo. The room was pretty basic and cold but at least it was en-suite and big enough to put our stuff. We had to get the curtains fixed so we could close them and had to get a heater for the cold. With hindsight we maybe could have moved but the location was fine for where we wanted to be. We had a Cairo staple for lunch Kushari which is macaroni, spaghetti and noodles mixed with chick peas and lentils and a tomato sauce, it was £1 for two people. For dinner we had Egyptian fast food in a smoke free restaurant and enjoyed a lovely pizza, which is more like a cheese and vegetable pie with very thin pastry.

Thursday was my birthday and we went to the Cairo museum. It was absolutely mobbed; it is Egyptian school holiday and Chinese New Year. The museum is an absolute mess and has so much stuff it is impossible to get through even half of it before you have had enough. The main purpose though was to go and see the content of Tutankhamen’s tomb and it did not disappoint. I was blown away by the delicacy of some of the artefacts and the pride of place the death mask. I had already decided to postpone any birthday celebration till I could enjoy it in comfort with a nice glass of wine and a smoke free atmosphere i.e. not in Egypt. Chris had a shave and haircut and I watched fascinated as an Egyptian man had his face threaded, scrubbed and then had a face mask, haircut and hair dye!! We had an okay meal in a place called Alfi Bey which is a local colonial restaurant and some of the curtains haven’t been washed since that era!!

Friday, today, we had a visit to the Citadel, for a bit of a different era and it was mobbed with very happy Egyptian tourists and there were very few foreigners there. We even had a cup of tea with a view of the Pyramids in the distance. We had a trip to the souk but it was nothing to write home about. Tonight we will go to our local fast food place and maybe have an ice cream across the road. The shop is busy from the minute it opens till closing time and it sells pastries and ice cream. You fight your way to the till to pay E5 (20p) get a receipt and then fight to to order your ice cream, receipt in hand.

Tomorrow we fly to Madrid and it will be good to be back in Spain and to eat some ham and pork and to drink some good wine. We plan to see Picasso’s Guernica at the Reina Sofia and go to the Prado and to have a birthday meal for me. Monday it is the train back home and hoping the house is okay after the heavy snowstorms.

So, as always with these trips, here are my reflections about Egypt.

On the positive side there are some amazing sights to see, the children are friendly and seem very happy, some of the food we ate was delicious and our money went far as the exchange rate was more than double from three months ago. We only met about half a dozen genuine lovely people. Highlights for me were the Pyramids, King Tut , Edfu temple and sailing on the Nile.

Sadly there are far more negative things and many of them linked to the fragile state of the economy. The level of hassle in Luxor made our lives miserable as there is no work for people as there are so few tourists. The majority of people are pretty lazy and there is no attention to detail from simple things like having to ask for cutlery to eat a meal with to a total lack of systems for cleaning. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of pride in the surroundings and rubbish is thrown on the ground even where there are bins. Smoking is allowed everywhere and in one hotel the non smoking bit was right in the inside corner of the lobby. Too many people want to “help” in the hope of getting a tip just for directing you somewhere.

Overall I am glad we made the trip and in a strange way has made me look at India in a different light and I might just get to visit the little train in Darjeeling.

Till next time

Norma x

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