Cairo - back again

Trip Start Jul 04, 2006

Trip End Jan 15, 2007

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Flag of Egypt Cairo, Egypt
Sunday, August 27, 2006

Turkish keyboards are infuriating! I blame all random punctuation problems you find in this blog entry on them.

After our final dinner in Dahab and a very brief sleep we got on the bus and headed back for our last few days in Cairo. Our last few days in Cairo were supposed to be relaxing, but really they werte anything but.

After saying our goodbyes to our tour leader Mostafa, 6 of us got on a van on our way to the Egyptian museum. That's when things got interesting.

Let me preface this story by saying you never want to drive in Cairo. If there are traffic lines, they are merely superfluous markings on the road, put there to only give the general appearance of order

Cairo

. Same goes for traffic lights for the most part. Now add pedestrains running out into the street at random times (no crosswalks remember), the occassional donkey, topped off with 45+ degree heat, you have the streets of Cairo. Oh yeah, there are also the 15 million cars, whose brakes may not be so great, but horns work very well. From what I was able to figure out:

- 2 honks = I'm coming up on your left
- 2 honks = I'm coming up on your right
- 2 honks = You're in my way
- 2 honks = You just cut me off
- 2 honks = You're cute

Now that driving is understood...

On our way to the Egyptian museum we were speeding through the city in our minivan. We stopped at a light (we were with a professional driver) and other cars were speeding in front of us. The light changes, and one car that was supposed to stop, did not. Our driver decided that he didn't want to stop either, so he promptly plowed into the aforementioned car

Egyptian man and Tania

. The thing is, both Haylie (Trouble) and I both saw this coming, though figured that the driver would have as well so didn't say anything. Maybe we should have.

Regardless, damage was relatively minimal and besides a broken nail and sore shoulder suffered by others in the group, we were unscathed. Overall, a good way to get to truly experience Egypt though, I would would say.

As for other stuff, the Egyptian museum was fascinating, the bazaar - just massive and the citadel and Mohammed Ali mosque (not named after the boxer for those who may be confused - the mosque came first) just beautiful.

So that's about all for Egypt. With about 3 Egyptians pounds left (about 75 cents Canadian) Tania and I headed to the Cairo airport on August 26th and took off to Istanbul!

Thanks again goes out to everyone from On-The-Go (especially Sherif and Mostafa) for helping to make out Egypt experience so enjoyable (and easy!). Thanks again to the group for being so cool to be around. Sure we'll be seeing more of you in the not too distant future.