Oasis, Days 34-37

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Thursday 26th May 2011 - Day 34 Oasis

Unfortunately my "normal" spaghetti bolognese dinner the night before had not agreed with me and I threw it all up during the night so I was not feeling in the best form. Turns out Jess had not been well either! I was all packed up and at reception just after 10am. We got two mini buses to where the feluccas were docked. We had been told by Dave a few days prior that we needed to split into two groups. We knew there was quite a few that wanted to spend the whole time drunk, having already planned their two days worth of drinking games so I opted to go on the quieter felucca, getting rowdy when we wanted to. So on felucca 1 was: Me, Jess, Jen, Di, Nathan, Sam, Amanda, Gav, Dre and Amin. Felucca 2 was: Bonnie, Joss, Karli, Ben, Pop, Stacy, Simon, Kev, Emma, Dave and Nev. When we had put all of our stuff on the boats and got settled in Dave then piped up and said our boat was bigger and therefore someone from their boat needed to move over. Clearly no one was keen as they had been planning their group for days but in the end Emma moved to ours, very unhappy of course! Seeing she was unhappy we offered to swap boats, we didn't care what boat we were on but Dave put his foot down and said no, the boats were staying as they were. So on that note off we went. The feluccas had just one large flat deck with mattresses laid all along it which is where we sat and would sleep, also with a shade sail over top to protect us from the sun. The feluccas didn't have motors, only sails and given there was hardly any wind we didn't go fast or far. Dave had warned us about that already so we were expecting to just drift along. It was good though as it was nice and relaxing. We stopped every now and then so we could go swimming or to have lunch. I had bought a yellow floaty ring to sit on and Pop had bought a boat so those came out every time we stopped for a swim. The sun started to set about 5pm so we pulled over to the shore and set up for the night as there was no night navigation equipment. After dinner our felucca decided to play some drinking games and we turned out to be the drunk rowdy ones that night - the other felucca had got stoned along the way and everyone fell asleep. We played a few rounds of Asshole (known commonly in NZ as Scum) and that quickly escalated into strip bottle caps - pretty much you got dealt 4 cards and the aim was to get four of a kind (QQQQ, JJJJ, etc). You take a card and pass on one that you don't want, making sure you always have four cards in your hand. When someone gets their four of a kind they grab a bottle cap in the middle of the circle and then it's a free for all grab with the person having no bottle cap (there is always one less bottle cap than the people playing) had to lose an item of clothing. We were all in our togs so it didn't take long for the nakedness - all on the side of the guys as us girls were awesome at playing it. Pop and Nathan were the first victims followed by Amin and Simon, Dre and Gav being the other guys left with at least one item left on. The girls lost a top here and there but not enough to be naked although Di did lose the final round and she was only wearing her one piece bikini but she decided not to get it off as the game was finished so we didn't see the point. We had no idea what the time was when we eventually fell back on our mattresses and went to sleep.

Friday 27th May 2011 - Day 35 Oasis

Because the Feluccas were open aired the sun streamed in as soon as it started to rise so we were all up and ready to go by about 6am. We had breakfast and headed off for another day on the Nile. Today was exactly the same as yesterday, we didn't go far stopping every now and then for a swim and lunch and another swim but it was so much fun. Our spot for the night was very much out in the open. The night before we had quite a large hill sheltering us but tonight it was bare flat land that had no shelter whatsoever, just some water buffalo roaming around. After dinner some of the others came over to our felucca to join us for a game of Ring of Fire. We made up our own rules during the day to make it a bit more interesting not realising that the others were going to join us - some of them were not that impressed by the new rules and after one round they lost interest and went back to their own felucca. Just as we were getting into another game a storm hit out of nowhere. Having no shelter, the wind and rain rocked the feluccas. It got worse and worse so the crew decided it was not safe to stay where we were so we made our way back to a more sheltered spot but given that there was no night navigation it got pretty hairy. At one point we ran aground and the guys had to help get the felucca off the sand and another time as we were sailing next to the other felucca we hit it twice, finally deciding sailing right next to each other was probably not the best idea. We had put all of our belongings in the middle of the felucca as it was rocking badly and was likely to fall overboard if they were left on the edges. Unfortunately, the situation was not helped by the fact that an oasis felucca had in fact sank before, although no one was hurt just all their stuff was lost to the Nile, so there were a few people a little afraid but we could see land most of the time so I wasn't too fussed, it was quite fun actually. We finally managed to find a suitable sheltered spot for the night. After everyone relaxed and calmed down we joined the locals on the beach as they had set up a bonfire and had some instruments out playing music which was really good - it lightened the mood quite a lot. They were sleeping by the fire that night so we did not want to stay long. Despite the drama of the storm I actually had a really great day and night.

28th May 2011 - Day 36 Oasis

The sun woke us again early but we did have to be up anyway as our bus back to Luxor was picking us up at 8am. We had breakfast and then just drifted down the river to where the bus was. The drive back on the bus was boring and when we got to Luxor there wasn't really much left to do as we had already done it all while we were there. This kinda sucked as our train to Cairo was not leaving until 11pm so we had pretty much the entire day to find something to do. The hotel we had stayed in let us leave our bags there and hang out in the air-con if we wanted. We went to get some lunch and rested at the hotel then we went out again to get some dinner. We were harassed by kids that were trying to not only get money from us but were making a grab for our food so we had to retreat back to the hotel. I had a little nap before we made our way to the train station. We had been given the impression from Dave that the train was pretty bad. We were told that our seats would be bench seats and that it was not good to sleep on the floor of the train unless we wanted to sleep with the bugs! I'm not sure if he was telling us that because that was genuinely what he thought or whether he was having us on but the train was not like that at all. The seats were individual and bigger than airplane seats and they reclined back so far that I was almost lying down. There were overhead racks where we could put our bags too. Most people popped sleeping pills so that they could sleep but I went without. I had a pretty good sleeping considering, only waking a few times to turn over or get a little more comfy. I had my sleeping bag out that I shared with Jess so I wasn't cold at all as well as my pillow so all in all it was not a bad journey!

29th May 2011 - Day 37 Oasis, Final Day!!

We arrived at Giza train station at about 8am. We got the bus to the hotel that Oasis had organised to stay in - most of us had opted out and booked much cheaper accommodation instead. We dropped our bags off and headed for a day out at the pyramids which I was soooo looking forward to. Even the smallest of the three pyramids was impressive in size. We stopped to hear about the history and of course to take loads of photos. We then had a token camel ride around - I gave my camera to Jess and I had hers so we could get photos of us on our own cameras. Given I hadn't been able to go on the other camel ride I quite liked it. Everyone said these camels were much better than the ones they had been on so I was glad I didn't pay to go last time. The kid leading my camel then decided it would be funny to try and make it run which I was not impressed by given that I was likely to fall off. We then visited the Sphinx which was awesome but smaller than I thought it would be and had some scaffolding around it due to maintenance! After the pyramids we made our way to town to go to the museum where lots of the artifacts from the tombs were stored. Our guide was boring and I stopped listening to most of it, as soon as he told us what time and where we had to meet I wondered off. I went back to see the Tutankhamen stuff which was awesome. One of the artifacts was his coffins, two out of the three and on the plaque it read that his mummy was in fact still in his tomb in the Valley of the Kings so as to not disturb his soul. This actually really pissed me off as our guide at the Valley of the Kings had not told us that he was in there. I stood right outside but didn't go in as I was of the impression that it was empty like all the others. Had I known his mummy was still in there I would have happily paid the extra money and not bothered seeing the others. This resulted in one regret of my trips which annoyed me greatly but at the same time gives me an excuse to go back!! After the museum we went back to the hotel where we had planned our last dinner together. A few of us wanted to actually sit down and have a proper last meal together but most just wanted to get falafel sandwiches on the go and take them to a hotel nearby where they served beer. The place was narrow and small so we could only talk to the people sitting around us rather than everyone so it was definitely not the last night we had thought it would be. We did a tip collection for Dave and presented it to him and he and Nev gave a couple of speeches to thank us for being such a great group. After the beers we headed back to the hotel to say goodbye to those who were staying there - Nathan, Sam, Amin, Simon, Dave and Nev. Emma and Dre were staying at the Novotel, the rest of us were staying together. The street we were staying on was crazy, there were people everywhere and almost all the shops were still open and buzzing. We got to a hotel called Central Plaza but the hotel we had booked into was City Plaza. It turns out that it was one and the same so after having to negotiate the traffic and go all the way around the block again (as we had driven past telling the driver it was not the right place) we finally made it back. The hotel was on the 6th floor and we didn't notice the lift until we were half way up so didn't bother using it, although it did look pretty dodgy and would probably only fit one person and their luggage, maybe two! The stairs on the way up were rough, the whole building was rough but when we got to the hotel we were relieved to find it was quite nice. We checked in and were given our room as did Di and Amanda and Gav but when the others went to check in they were told there as not enough room for them - they had booked a large dorm to share. They were told there was a sister hotel 5 minutes away that had room but given that it was late they were not exactly thrilled by this prospect and were trying to sort out splitting up to find room. We left them to try and sort it and dumped our stuff in our room. He sat relaxing for a bit then realizing that if they did go to another hotel we would not be able to say goodbye to them, we heading back to reception only to see them running past down the stairs. We shouted to them to see if they were coming back and most said no which we were surprised by so we simply yelled at them "nice to meet you" and then they were gone. It was definitely not the goodbyes that we had expected but what can you do! Di came down to our room (Jen, Jess and I were sharing) and we had an Oasis debrief over a glass or two of the final bit of nasty vodka we still had. We had a great chat about the trip and about all of our next adventures and it ended the night and in fact the whole trip on a real high.

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