Blogs from Lower Egypt, Egypt, Africa - page 109

After living in Cairo for any amount of time, you quickly learn the ropes for two fundamental skills: using taxis and crossing the street. Zen and the art of using taxis Cairo's underground metro system covers a relatively small area, and the city buses are invariably packed, so the best way of getting around town is to catch a taxi. Luckily every second or third car here is one of the thousands of battered black-and-white taxis that trawl Cairo's streets looking for passengers. Hailing a taxi is as simple as stretching out your arm with your hand palm-side down. Say the general area of your destination, and if the driver is interested, he'll simply nod, you climb in, and off you go. (Truth be told, I've never had a taxi driver decline a destination. Foreigners are ... read more

Well, our last day in Egypt! Finally we were going to see the Great Pyramids... the only standing ancient wonder of the world. Pretty wild stuff. Incidently, I have discovered a term that is used for Shane's and my style of travelling. I always thought that we were "moderate budget backpackers." Nope, the actual term is Flashpackers. Yes, flashpackers. Backpackers with a little bit of money. It's quite a growing phenomenon. Here's the article in the Sunday Times: http://travel.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,10296-1339393,00.html. Fits me to a tee. We got up early and went down for breakfast. We then headed to the Pyramids of Giza at around 7:45 AM. There is a barricade down Pyramid Road, which leads down to - you guess it - the Great Pyramids. The guards let the tourists through at 8:00 AM. Since we were ... read more

On Sunday, November 27, I arrived at the International Language Institute (known hereafter as "ILI") to register and test for my Arabic classes, and search for more permanent accommodation while in Cairo. Security I was surprised to walk around the corner, spot the school, and see a guard with an AK-47 sitting out front. Apparently the number of foreigners there merits such attention. I must confess I have never gone to a school with an armed guard before. There seem to be four levels of building security in Egypt (in order of increasing security): * Unarmed private security guard out front: often asleep or reading the newspaper. * Unarmed private security guard with metal detector: also often reading the newspaper, and despite setting off numerous metal detectors, I never seem to get searched. * Uniformed policeman, ... read more

The most impressive feature in Cairo is crowd - its noise, movements and purposefulness, dirty rags, dusty roads, innovative vehicles, bright smiles, suspicious glances. We would just get out of agency buss after some tour and get lost in the masses. A fellow passenger once asked us “seriously, what you do when you leave the group?” Enjoying the freedom to roam on our own was not something any of them understood. Especially after the warning we got that even crossing the street was easier done by taking taxi then trying ourselves, unless we rely only on eye contact and sound of horns. We were told that between 20 and 25 million people reside in Cairo and that daily oscillations including commuters result in 30 million people. Luckily we had very competent guides because we came completely ... read more

Ooops we did it again,,,, Yip, we missed the bloody ferry to Sharm El Shreik on the Sinai Peninsula. This was due to the fact that we had enough booze in our systems to take out a small elephant. We went to this awesome beach club, whose name evades me but we danced the night away until 5am when the sun was up and the club was closing. It was a bit disappointing but there is always next time. We spent the next day either sitting or laying down wondering why nothing in our surroundings would keep still. The next day we went scuba diving by these two incredible coral reefs in the Red Sea. I have never seen anything quite like it in all my life. The marine life was superb. The colours of the ... read more