Cairo!!!

Trip Start May 13, 2008
1
6
16
Trip End Jun 26, 2008


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Saturday, May 17, 2008

After about 24 hours of travel we finally make it to Cairo!!! The local time is about 4:30pm as our Alitalia flight was delayed about a half hour. We didn't yet have a visa so we were hoping everything would work out ok as we walked to the arrivals hall. We were relieved to see a Contiki sign as one of the few hundred tour companies that were picking up people off our flight. Our contiki member greeted us and pointed us in the direction of where to buy the visa. It was totally just a way for Egypt to make money off tourists cuz we handed over 10 euros each equivilent to $15 and we handed stickers to decorate our passports with a blue "Egypt Visa." Only then after aquireing the expensive pretty sticker were we allowed in. Yay! We waited about an hour in line after getting our visia to go through customs along with about 400 other tourists and got our visa stamped. After getting in we waited for a couple other contiki travelers to arrive then we found ourselves in a group of about 6 Canadians and Americans following an Egyptian guy taking us to a bus shuttle to our hotel. The first of our fellow travelers we met were from New York, New Jersey and Canada. Wow! This was a little surprising because we thought it was going to be mostly Austrailians on the Contiki trip. Everyone seemed very nice and we had about a 45 min bus ride to our hotel. We met John and Angela from different parts of Canada and Barbara and Meleha who went to med school together on the East Coast. 2 doctors on the Egypt trip with us...nice!! Plus the 1/4 optometrist that Jill adds to the mix whooo! Anyway we got the the hotel and the airport guy checked us in. Shortly after getting to our rooms we had our trip meeting. We changed clothes and made it just in time.

The Oasis hotel was actully a luxury resort...NICE! This was nice after our 24 hours of travel but first we had to have the trip meeting which was held in a hotel conference room. There was a slight awkward silence like the first day of class in 4th grade but our guide arrived shortly and began telling us about our 9 day adventure through Egypt! Our guide's name was Shiriff and he had lived in Egypt all his life and was an Egyptologist and had been leading this Contiki tour for 17 years this year. The first thing he did was teach us the pharse "Yala yala habibbi" which is arabic for "lets go my friend" or "my sweetheart." We found later we would hear this pharse ALL the time and it became quite annoying especially when it is followed by "let's go Contiki." All in all he told us we would be very busy on the tour but promised we would have a blast! We were told we had to be ready by 745 am the next day to go see the pyramids and go for a camel ride through the Sahara dessert! Very exciting. We left the meeting and most of the group being as hungrey as we were went the the hotel resturant and got to know eachother over a late dinner. We both sat in different places at the long table and met different new people. Jenn has pizza and Jill had an Egyptian randition of a grilled cheese sandwich. It was interesting but good. The most interesting thing that was found on the hotel menu had to be the fried pigion that one of the American guys, Brian was brave enough to order....GROSS. He and the people around him tasted it but it was kinda gross and there wasn't a lot to it. I tasted it but don't worry guys, you're not missing much. After drinking a beer we went to bed excited for the following day...our first day in EGYPT!!!
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