World Adventure

Hello All, We didn't make it to Mt Sinai. Got a bus to Dahab and then ran into a common problem in Egypt. Liars. Lots of liars. When does the bus for St Katherines leave we asked at the bus station? there is no bus but you can take a taxi is the response. When is the next bus maybe tomorrow? there is no but but you can take a taxi. Yes they spoke english well and there is a bus so our frustrated response. When is the next bus to Cairo? So we got tickets and left for a 9hr journey to Cairo. Too bad as the monastery looked interesting and who knows maybe there were a few more commandments to find at the top of the mountain and maybe we needed the 3000+ steps of repentance to cleanse our souls. Met Jose, a mexican with spanish passport, who was catching our bus, and had just been to Mt Sinai from Dahab but on a tour bus. Bus journey was interesting along the red sea coast following the Sinai mountains. Security checks quite regularly and even a trip under the suez canal. No surprise with the armed security as the area had been bombed in 2004 and 2006. Cairo. Arrived after dark. Vanessa had to haggle hard with the taxi driver for a taxi into town. Showed him the price in the lonely planet but no match for him. Egyptians seem to always ask for their dream price on the first offer so one should never pay that price - and we don't. He took us to our first pick el cheapo hostel, which he said was a dump, but we looked anyway and it was a cockroach palace. Headed back down stairs intending to walk and here was the smug taxi driver waiting for us. Vanessa said how did you know i would be back? The taxi driver said again that it was a dump. He took us to another hotel which was a bit of a walk from town but had good metro and train access and cheap rooms with banana beds, HOT water and clean bathroom. Sold. Cairo is not good for your health. The air quality is bad. The great upturned ashtray and noisy. The car horns are only really going hard in peak hour. Which thankfully only lasts from 8am to midnight. Crossing the road is life threatening but we have learnt to follow the egyptians when crossing or better put - use them as shields - better them than us and they can somehow do it without looking. Egyptian museum. Overwhelming. So many exhibits -100,000 +. No photography unless you are a local or so it seems. I got busted by security taking a picture of Vanessa in a sunray and a few minutes later got told to go outside and put my camera in storage. Strange as you can touch but not photograph. hmmm. Minutes later the egyptian tourist were flashing away to their hearts content without any troubles. hmmm.The Tutankhamen exhibit was fantastic and worth the entry fee to the museum alone. Tiring. Booked a week tour to Aswan and Luxor. Felt a bit lazy and wanted someone else to think for us. We stated our objectives and the tour operator then went and completely ignored them but we didn't know until arriving at each location. The tours were subcontracted in each place. Tour also included transport to the step pyramid and pyramids of giza. First to step pyramid where plenty of digging was happening.A new tomb was found just after we visited. Welcome to tout heaven. Want a dokey? Want a camel? Want post card? all day they kept on coming. Made it difficult to really enjoy the pyramids and sphinx. The best time was walking out into the desert for a panaramic view and getting away from them. The site was amazing anyway but our driver lied to us about closing time of the pyramids and this was a trend also for the other operator at each site. The thing about stupid people is that they don't know they are stupid. We just asked when closing time was at the ticket office each time. The visit was a little rushed for my liking. Visited the coptic museum in the old city. Getting good on the metro system and it is easy to use once you figure the direction. Fantastic museum and again no pictures. Walked along the nile, after getting sidetracked for a while, and enjoyed watching the sunset. Sunsets are always red at the moment as there is so much polution in the air. Looks good. Bye. David & Vanessa