Egypt
Trip Start
Nov 15, 2008
1
2
68
Trip End
Jun 15, 2009
Cairo,
Egypt
Sunday, November 16, 2008
We were greeted at the airport by a nice little Egyptian man who worked for expat, the company we were going to be traveling with over the next two weeks. We had to get a Visa to enter the country and when I asked our man he pointed over to what looked like a currency exchange booth. Feeling a bit confused I went over and said I needed to change money for two visas. He took the money presented me with two stickers and told me to put them in our passport, apparently this was the visa.
Two people from our flight were also on our tour and we crammed ourselves into a little car to make the treacherous journey to our hotel. Now we have driven through some pretty crazy cities on some pretty crazy roads, but nothing quiet prepares you for Cairo traffic. I think I have worked it out though - drive where you fit, it doesn't have to be a lane, and if you are about to pass, hit, say hello, or abuse someone, just beep your horn very loudly and for as long as possible.
We made it to the hotel in one piece, and I got to see Mum and Dad for the first time in two years. It was great to see them again, and within minutes it felt like I had only seen them yesterday. We did the meet and greet with the other people on the tour, all in all there were 13 of us, Kiwis and Aussies with a Brit and Saffer thrown into the mix, and two older Americans who were joining us for the first few days. That night most people went on a Nile cruise for dinner but Dave and I went for tea with Mum and Dad to do some catching up.
The Hotel wasn't much to boast about, but Mum and Dad definitely got the raw end of the deal. Where everyone else had tiles and a reasonable bathroom, they got dirty old carpet that smelled of something very wrong and a bathroom where the toilet leaked all night and the shower went cold before you could get under the water. It was meant to be a three star hotel, but I am not sure it would even get a 2 back home!
The next day we got to see the pyramids, we started at the oldest one, the step pyramid and then continued onto the ones in Giza. This has to be one of the most awe inspiring places I have been, they really do not disappoint. When you are there standing next to one of the huge blocks of stone, you do feel a bit humbled. I learnt an interesting fact though, the people who built the Pyramids were not slaves. Apparently they have found a stone where it showed that the people had parties every night, and why would you have a party if you were being forced to build it?? A few people rode camels around the site and then we visited the sphinx to complete the picture.
By this stage it was about 3pm and we were all starving. There was a pizza hut across the road and the American couple were completely disappointed when we were told we were getting some local food. It was in a perfume shop where they sold all the bases to the big brands overseas like Joop etc. The food was great, but the American's just couldn't understand why we couldn't have just had Pizza.
That night we had an overnight train trip to get us all the way down to Aswan. Half of us were in the normal train and the other half got a sleeper one which cost them an extra 60 quid, 60 quid the rest of us wished we had spent by the end of the trip. The sleeper train was a completely different train to ours and they left an hr earlier, well that's all it was meant to be. It seems our Train was running on Egyptian time, and turned up almost 2 hrs late. The seats were big and comfortable and we settled in for the 12 hr trip thinking the other guys had wasted their money. We all slept pretty well (bar Jessie who had the worst seat in the house) and woke at 9 am thinking we only had an hr to go, let me just say this - Welcome to Egypt!
For some reason unknown to us the train decided to keep stopping every few km's, and after a few minutes start up again just to stop a bit further down the tracks. We were all doing pretty well, until it hit 1pm and we were told we were still about 3 hrs away! No one had much food with them and we were all getting a bit fed up and hungry and just when I was thinking things couldn't get any worse........ The air conditioning started to leak on mine and Jessies head. At last 16 hrs after we left Cairo we arrived at Aswan, tired dirty hungry, and in mine and Jessie's case - wet. To add insult to injury the sleeper train had arrived at 9:30 am and they had spent the day lying around the pool. My advice to you, get the sleeper train.
![[11] Camel and Pyramids](http://images.travelpod.com/users/el_condor/thumbnail.asia_2005.1143747660.picture_032.jpg)