Onto the last leg - into Africa

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Hello from Egypt.

We have now fled the drizzle of northern Europe to arrive to 35+ degree temperatures and cloudless blue skies.

Since we last posted we had a good week trotting around London, picking up the last bits and pieces we need for Africa, as well as enjoying the welcome hospitality of friends and family in the city. Suitably refreshed after some time sitting inside on a couch and binging on satellite TV we were rearing to go when the time for our flight to Egypt arrived.

We arrived at 2am to find the streets of Cairo alive with locals wandering around, drinking tea and smoking sheesha pipes at night to beat the heat of the day. It is also Ramadan for all of September, which means that everyone comes out at night to eat and socialise, as they are fasting during the daylight hours. This means that finding food for ourselves during the day is a bit of a challenge, but we normally have some success with tourist orientated places such as hotels, mid range restaurants and KFC.....

We spent three days orientating ourselves and exploring Cairo initially, with the best of these being a whole day spent with a charted driver checking out all the pyramids in the local area.

As you can see from the photos the main attraction was the famous pyramids and sphinx of Giza. We also went further south to check out the earlier "prototype" step pyramids of Saqqara.

We clambered around inside the very steep and narrow entrance shaft of the red pyramid in Dahshur. This was a real killer of a climb, as it took two days for the muscles in our legs to recover!

As well as this we did some tripping around the precincts of Cairo, including the old city of the Copts (Christians) and their hanging church. Although the photos don't show its 'hanging' nature, it is built on top of an old Roman gate, so originally was suspended in the air. A nice end to the day was to join the locals for a cup of hot tea and a sheesha pipe.

We have just arrived in Aswan in the South of the country, adjacent to the border with Sudan, after a 14 hour night train. We are about to depart on a felucca cruise down the Nile to check out some of the best preserved Egyptian temples in the country, including those at Kom Ombo and Edfu as well as dropping in on some Nubian villages along the way. This will put us in the middle of nowhere for the next four days or so, so if you can't get hold off us don't worry as we should pop up again in a few days time.

Hope the weather is now on the mend back at home and all you ski bunnies out there are getting some good runs in :-)

S&S

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