Arabesque Hotel Cairo

... opting to do all excursions on my own armed with my Lonely Planet guide.

With almost 300 river boats plying the less than 200km stretch between Aswan and Luxor, finding a place to dock is… problematic. The solution? River boats moor up to 5 boats deep, with their lobbies lined up and guests walking through one lobby to the next. That’s why my taxi driver had such a hard time finding my boat this morning, as it was the third ...

Luxor- Huessen picked me up on his boat `Memnon' and we rode over to the west bank.  we then walked down the road where they had set up a projection screen outside for the locals to watch the game vs. Algeria.  I pretty much felt like I was at Buffalo Wild Wings... had i lost all my senses, but tunnel vision to the screen... o ya, and soccer was on the big screen.  No really, here i sat surrounded by 150 Egyptian muslims wearing robes ...

... dips and enjoying beef with vegetables for our entrées. Afterward, we stopped by a major jewelry store so that the group could order custom-made cartouches (nameplates with one’s name written on it in the Egyptian hieroglyphic alphabet) engraved on jewelry, to be delivered to us later in the day. I continued as the happy traveler as we visited our next destinations, Sakkara and the Step Pyramid!

The Tomb at Sakkara (also spelled "Saqqara") covers a ...

... hands and knees semi-conscious and wondering what the hell had happened. Once I collected my wits I stood up to find I was lightly bleeding from a number of places on my head and nose. Also the tough old Ray Bans had gouged into my nose and snapped. After cleaning myself up I felt huge eggs forming in multiple places but Ok. Dismissing the need for medical treatment (I forgot about Natasha Ric*******), I shakily went back to the bus. At the next stop I ...

... but spoke to us through a lovely African sister who spoke 6 languages (and piccolo English) to translate back again. Interestingly, in a crisis, my default language appears to be French, of which I speak less than none.

Despite being in Roma, in the way of migration patterns that have occurred for millenia, we were staying in the chinese part of Rome on one side and the Pakistani part on the other - most of our english conversations were with Pakistanis who work in local shops ...

... to get some more souvenirs. Johnny st*rted to get the h*ng of the b*rg*ining thing, sometimes pushing the vendors down to h*lf of wh*t they were origin*lly *sking. His ploy to *void vendors to whom he didn’t w*nt to spe*k w*s to spe*k in Sp*nish to them. To his surprise, when he s*id “no h*blo inglés” (I don’t spe*k English) to the vendors, m*ny of them responded “Eres esp*ñol? H*blo esp*ñol!” (Oh ...

Steve and I got up early. We decided to walk around the city. It was as I expected--dirty with a lot of traffic. I was a bit surprised that it is as humid as it is. The traffic is bad and reminds me very much of Lima, Peru.

As we were coming back to the hotel, I had crossed the street to get up on the sidewalk. I learned from Lima that traffic does not wait for you, and you better stay out of its. We were approaching an ...

... delle piramidi presenti nella zona. prima di lasciare il sito, facciamo una sosta per un'ultima foto da cartolina, nei pressi della Sfinge. Prima di ricondurci all'aereoporto, visitiamo una fabbrica di essenze e profumi. Ore 12.00 giusto in tempo per le pratiche di imbarco e si parte ... destinazione Malpensa. Arrivo previsto per le 15.00.

... in a camp in the Desert, enjoy watching the stars. Overnight in the White Desert.

Day 5: Optional

Breakfast at the desert; enjoy with the rocks and sand dunes- Drive back to Cairo- Transfer to hotel. Overnight in Cairo.

Day 6: Final Departure

Breakfast at hotel- Transfer via air-conditioned modern vehicle to Cairo International Airport for final departure.

Cairo, Egypt melano

... history as offered by our Egyptian guide surrounding the building of the Aswan High Dam (and how it led to the nationalization of the Suez Canal by Egypt)
~Being impressed with the excavation undertaken to free the impressively large Temple of Edfu from thousands of years of Nile River silt and desert sand just outside of Aswan
~Taking a camel ride in the much cooler desert just before sunset on the west bank of the Nile through the ...