After saying goodbye to Shane and Kate at midday at Dubai airport we flew 4 hours to our next destination of Egypt. We arrived in Cairo and were greeted by Wael, a rep for our tour company. We had timed our arrival with the peak hour traffic, which apparently lasts for 18 hours a day, and spent the next 45 minutes crawling through the most crazy, packed road system I have ever seen. The roads are marked as 2 lanes but the reality is that there is usually 3 or sometimes 4 cars across. The rules appear to be if you can almost squeeze your car into a gap, then you do it. Even the newest of cars don't have a straight panel on them. Having said that, the total number of accidents we saw was 0, but the near misses were countless.
Day 1 - Today we woke early to beat the traffic. haha. We were off to the Pyramids, the Sphinx and then to the Egyptian Museum. Breakfast was our first chance to meet the rest of the tour group. Our tour has 9 people in it, us, 2 Canadians and 5 Poms, I asked the pommies if they would like to talk about, the World Cup or The Ashes. Might as well start the banter early.
We fought the traffic again and made our way to the Giza Plateau where the Pyramids sit. The only thing more crowded than the roads are the Pyramids. There's bus loads of people everywhere from all over the world. Getting a photo or two without anyone in it is difficult but not impossible. I went into a tunnel in the second largest pyramid with some of the rest of the group but Mandy stayed above ground because it was very claustrophobic. The tunnel was no more than 1 metre high and steadily dropped down a steep slope for about 30 metres then levelled out for 30 more then rose about the same again before opening into a large room with a massive stone tomb in it. The air was stale and it was uncomfortably hot but an incredible experience. Being deep within something so massive you could quite easily freak out if you thought about it too much. As you crawl along, there are other tunnels running off at different directions that are blocked off with iron bars that must go to other rooms that lead to other tunnels and so on. I emerged from the tunnel system sweating and glad to be out in the open again. We then set off to do a lap around the base off of the Great Pyramid.
Back at the bus we headed up the hill to the lookout above the pyramids. There are a couple of spots that are prime for taking photos that you can get all the pyramids in one shot. These are packed with people, souvenir stores, camels etc. and the whole thing ends up being a bit of a circus, but it works OK.
Just down the road further is the Sphinx, another incredible sight to see, just as packed as the pyramids, but well worth it. We spent an hour or so learning about the sphinx and the adjoining temple and the history behind it all. I'm glad we have come here and seen this despite the crowds (of which I was one of them).
After lunch we spent the afternoon touring the Egyptian Museum. It is set up in chronological order from the earliest Egyptian Dynasty forward. Unfortunately they don't tell you on the signs what era of history the relics come from. Had we stayed with our guide we may have found out, but she was rambling on for ages and we felt we were going to miss so much, we decided to go it alone. As we were outside waiting for our bus the roads were suddenly closed off and a procession of police cars, army cars and limousines came around the corner, straight through the gates and up to the front door... and out jumps the President of Egypt.
Day 2 - Today we were woken up early again for our big drive to St Catherine. Waking up early is something we were to get used to over the next few days. The drive takes about 8 hours and on the way we stopped at a resort style restaurant called "Banana Beach". The restaurant was situated in front of massive desert mountains but right on the beach. It had a very Mediterranean feel to it with white washed buildings and bright aqua ocean. We lazed around on the beach while our lunch was being cooked and we sat on the balcony looking over the ocean.
We arrived at St Catherine around 5pm. St Catherine is like the Base Camp where you stay near Mount Sinai before climbing it the next morning. We had dinner and went to bed early as it was a very early morning wake up call the next day.
Day 3 - The wake-up call was at 1.30am. We got our gear together and drove the short distance to the base of the mountain and started climbing around 2.30am. There was already bus loads of people there so we joined the fun. At the beginning there were Egyptian men standing in the pitch black saying "You want Camel". The other option besides walking was going by camel. We refused all camel offers, and trust me there was many, and we set off for the summit. Stepping in camel poo was a regular occurrence as our little torches weren't the brightest. At first we thought it was going to be very stressful with all the camels owners yelling at us to move out of the way while they passed us. It seemed to be busy at the beginning but within half an hour the camels took a different path and we had some peace and quiet. We walked for about 45 minutes to the first coffee shop shack and waited for the rest of the group to catch up. Our tour leader was at the back with the slower people and we had a guide at the front, but he didn't speak English. We then walked for another 1 hour to we reached another coffee shop and waited again for everyone. The walk was uphill all the way (funny that, we are climbing a mountain) but not overly steep so we were feeling pretty good.
After more than 2 1/2 hours of climbing higher and higher we arrived at our last meeting place just below the final obstacle... 735 steps of uneven size that led to the top. Mandy was starting to struggle so I took on the role of personal trainer coaxing her up 20 steps at a time before resting, but really making her do 30 or 35. She was swearing at me and telling me to go on without her but there was no way I was going on, I was having way too much fun harassing her. After another 40 minutes we finally made it, and so had everyone else. Finding a spot to sit proved to be quite difficult so we descended a bit and found a great spot to watch the sunrise.
We spent 30 mins up there before making our way down. It looked completely different in daylight, on the way up you spend the whole time looking at where your feet are landing in the torch light, but coming down the whole valley and mountain range looks spectacular. We finally got back to our rooms just after 8 am exhausted. The rest of the day was spent driving to Dahab, which is situated on the coast of the Red Sea, we then relaxed around the pool and the pebbly beach of our resort. Dinner was at a seafood restaurant overlooking the water ,an amazing seafood platter.
More soon...
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