Tuesday 21st March So, i arrived no problems at the Cairo airport at 1.30am and was met by the gobus rep, Allad who got me a visa etc easily. He told me that another rep, Narelle would meet me in the reception of the hotel at 10.30am. I slept like a log and had breakfast in the hotel before meeting Narelle. She is great, (australian) but has been working here for 3years and co-ordinates all of the go bus and lets go tours in Egypt. She helped me to plan an itinery which allows me to join some tour groups in places so that i'm not always on my own.
After finishing with Narelle I headed out to the Egyptian Museum. It was relatively easy to find, being a major tourist attraction and all. People offered me directions in the street, although some did have ulterior motives...'come in and have a look at my papryus/purfume/shisha shop' and that kind of thing.
It was really weird when I first stepped out into the streets. There are hardly any women and the men just all stare at me all the time (and yes I was dressed pretty conservatively). It was a bit disconcerting, but i'm learning not to make eye contact. I got to the museum an started to look around. I thought about getting a guide, but in the end didn't bother. The museum was great - almost too great, everywhere you look there are artifacts, and by the end I was so blaise about it all. Apparently if you look at each thing in the museum for 1minute you'll spend 9months there!! The highlighs were of course the Royal Mummies room (they were creepy and a bit gross with their hair and teeth and everything still there - their skin is completely black too which I didn't expect.) and Tutankhamen's treasure...his funery mask is beautiful.
There were alot of American tourists about and they are for the most part really annoying. There were coach loads of them and they were literally shoving me out of the way in the Tutankhamen room. After 5hrs in the museum (i don't have a spare 9 months!) I tried to walk to the Dahab Hotel to reserve a room, but I got lost so had to get a taxi. It is really cheap accomodation there, LE20 (LE means egyptian pounds) which is like 2GBP! I grabbed a chicken and cheese pita pizza thing for dinner and then got a taxi back to the Bostan. I discovered and internet room on the roof top along with a nice garden, theres an awesome view of the ciy lights but it doens't show ip in a photo.
Wednesday 22nd March Wow, what a day! I met Narelle again in the morning at 11am (after eavesdropping on her meeting with an English couple going the same way as me - they seem ok) and am going on a small tour to the Pyramids and Giza tomorrow.After this I transferred my stuff to the Dahab hotel with no hassle to mention. The guys at reception are really nice and helpful and hte courtyard style rooftop is cool. I then made my way to the Metro (subway) which i took to Mar Girgis, the Coptic christian area, also called Old Cairo). I saw a few old churches, very different architectually to those in England.The best bit was the necropolis though - a huge graveyard of tombs (not dissimilar to the one I saw in Glasgow) which resemble tiny houses. Poor people actually live in and around the tombs (creepy huh) - you can see their washing lines and such about.Cairo is hugely overpopulated, there are like 20million people living in a space more suited to half that (its the most densely populated city on earth!). I had lunch at a tiny cafe in the Coptic area - shish kebabs which consisted of 3 plates - one with pita (a bit tough), rice and the other spicy sausages on a bed of parsley. Sounds weird but was quite tasty. Compared to what i later had for dinner though it was a comlete rip off.
On getting back to the Dahab I read for awhile and was invited to go see a free Sufi dancing performance (like the whirling dervishes of turkey) with a group of people. There were a couple of Australians, a Mongolian and two Scottish people who have cycled here from scotland! We took taxis down to the Khan el Khalili - it was a bit of a squish, and then had an hour to kill before the show. I went with the Scottish couple for dinner. We had koshari which is an utterly bizzare combination of lentils, pasta, rice, and fried onions which you then add tomato puree/sauce, spicy sauce and lemon juice to. It actually tastes pretty good, and whats more its is soooo cheap, LE2 a dish - and really filling.
The sufi show was absolutely amazing, the main dancers spun for ages, it would have taken incredible fitness and mental strength (they must have been soo dizzy!) They had brightly coloured skirt things on which they then took off while spinning. The musicians where great too, one in particular (played the symbols/castenets) was a really great performer - loved himself and the crowd loved him!
After the performance we went to a tea house near the New Mosque and sat talking, drinking tea and smoking shisha for a couple of hours. I tried the strawberry one. Am back at the Dahab now. There is a big group outside but i'm exhausted and want to be fresh for the pyramids tomorrow.
Thursday 23rd March Got woken up by the prayers broadcast over loadspeakers from a nearby mosque this morning, very annoying but I managed to get back to sleep with my earplugs in.I had a very unappetising breakfast of stale bread rolls and fig jam this morning - it filled me up but that was about it. I managed to find my way to the Bostan hotel to meet Paul and Anna and our tour guide for the day. The pyramids themselves were huge and awesome, although I was a little dissapointed at their proximity to the city. I had them pictured in the middle of the desert. We saw the Great Pyramid built by Cheops and the second pyramid built by his son. We went into the burial chamber of the second, it was a really stepp narrow tunnel and the roof was so low that you had to bend over double. The air was really thick and hot, but the chamber itself was quite cool. It was a weird feeling to think that we had several tonnes of stone resting above us! We then went to the Sphinx which wasnt as big as I thought, but still amazingly detailed for something carved out of one stone.
After the sphinx we went to a purfume place where we had lunch (koshari) and were plied with purfume essences and oils. I didn't buy any and neither did Anna and Paul, we felt a little guilty. We then headed back in to downtown Cairo to finish up. I was really tired from the heat and slept for a bit before going over to the Khan El Khalili souq (market/bizarre). I bought a couple of long sleeved tunic/shirts to cover up with and a pashmina scarf. After a dinner of felafel sandwhich and guava juice I went back to the hotel. I joined a group of people sitting in the courtyard and we ended up drinking and talking well into the night. You can get this really cheap and volatile egyptian brandy (tastes more like vodka though) for LE10 a bottle (thats like .$2.50!) so we consumed quite a bit of that.
I have to say the Dahab certainly attracts a particular type of traveller - the long term, off the beaten track sort. So many people here have travelled to remote and slightly dangerous places - (Sudan, Ethiopia, Syria, Israel, Libya etc) and lots stay in Cairo for ages too. They're certainly very interesting.
Friday 24th March: I had to get up at 5.30am this morning (not fun after last night) to get the bus to Alexandria at 7am. In addition to myself and Paul and Anna, there were two other Aussies who are doing an organised tour that starts on Sunday. After meeting them (they were both really nice and have lived and worked in London) I feel that I am a relatively brave traveller. The girl hadn't even left her hotel room to look around after being here fuor at least a full day!
It was a 3hr drive to Alex and on arrival the English couple and I were deposited outside the library and told to be back at 3pm (the Aussie were doing a tour). I decided not to join Paul and Anna - they're nice enough, but pretty conservative and quiet and a bit boring really. So I headed off to the Catacombs, which are underground cemetaries. I met this guy there, a French sailor from a ship moored in the harbour (Alex is Egypts naval base) - anyway Frederik was looking around by himself too so we decided to go together. We walked to Pompey's Pillar and then took the tram to the castle/citadel, and necropolis. It was alot of the same - tombs and catacombs which were great and very interesting, but I did get a bit sick of them. Still we did have fun, especially at thi aquarium - well we thought it was an aquarium but it turned out to be dispays of fake plastic fish suspended in tanks with crepe paper seeweed and painted backdrops! It was so bad that we were hysterical. We walked through a fish market and a seccondhand market too which was quite interesting (the things some people will buy!). I wouldn't ahve done it on my own as it was a dodgy slum area, but everybody assumed that Frederik was my husband and consequently gave me no hassle. Also I think that Alex is a much friendlier city than Cairo. The people are all happy and smiling, and there are heaps of children and when the people say hello they really don't want anything else!
We split up at 2.30pm, I wanted to eat before heading back to the bus. I didn't have time for breakfast and hadn't eaten all day. I couldn't find much other than a tiny bakery. There was the sweetest little lady inside, she didn't know a word of English so I was pointing to what I wanted. She wanted me to sit with her to eat but I didn't have time which was a shame. he was so nice though, even after I had paid she kept trying to give me more little sweet pastries.
I made it back to the bus with plenty of time (I wasn't the last back -yay!). We got stuck in traffic for like an hour, and even though I slept for most of the time it was quite annoying. Am going to head out now for some food seeing all i've had still is thoe pastries! Felafel or pizza...tough choice!
Monday 27th March Well, to pick up where I left off...I had a pretty early night Friday, I was exhausted after the day in Alex.
On SaturdayI went to the Citadel with Tony (a Hong Kong/Canadian guy staying at the Dahab who has cycled from Cape town to here!) We took the metro to Attaba Square and then walked. It was a far longer walk than either of us had anticipated - I ended up with blisters. To be honest the Citadel wasn't really worth it. The mosque is no longer in use, just full of tourist. The police museum was really bad (just photos of all the police commisioners or something) and the military museum was a farce. It kind of re-wrote hitory so that Egypt did favourably everywhere, and also once you'd gone in you had to go past every single exhibit because of some weird one-way system. Some of the exhibits were ridiculous - wooden painted model of Russian missile - go figure?
We decided to go and eat and look through Khan el Khalili - on the way we got lost but our route took us through a whole back community which was really interesting and in the end it turned out to be a shorter way to the souq.
Well, Saturday night at the Dahab...what can I say, it was great fun! The two German guys from downstair and a couple of us had planned to go to the cinema at 9.30pm, but then we started on the beer and Egyptian brandy and that was forgotten. Adam, the American guy who live at the Dahab got out his laptop and speakers and I plugged my Mp3 player into it so we had music and we talked and drank the night away. There wa a girl from NZ who was possibly the most annoying peron i've ever met (everybody else thought so too.) She was arguing with and insulting everyone and lecturing us on how we shouldn't eat chicken or meat for a year or so because otherwise we would be reponsible for spreading the bird flu! She was very odd. We ended up staying out until sunrise, 6am so as you might imagine I wan't happy when i was evicted from my room at 12! I had to pack in the biggest hurry!
I stored my luggage at the Dahab and whiled away Sunday on the rooftop in the sun. People came and went - I got breakfast at 2pm with Tom, the guy from Devon and then we read the paper, drank tea and did suduko puzzles. I had to go pick up my train tickets from the Zayed Hotel across town at 8pm (train wa at 10pm), thi was a major hassle as the taxi driver got completely lost! The trip which should have taken 15min max ended up taking 45min! I did get there in the end and met up with Paul and Anna, and we all shared a taxi to the station. We were in 2nd clas which was just reclinging chairs. Unfortunately I got stuck next to this old Egyptian guy who smelt bad and insisted on keeping hi toilet paper shoved between out two seats!
