As we were only meeting up in the evening, I had the option
of hiring a driver for the day to see a few of the sights in Cairo, but after a
manic week at work and very little sleep on Friday night I decided to take it
easy that day. I would have plenty of time to see the city on our tour and
didn’t see the need to pay more money to some random driver to take me to all
his friends’ & families’ houses where I would be expected to contribute
towards their income as well (as happened with one of the other people in the
group who chose to do the tour).
After a lazy day I woke up from an afternoon nap (hey I’m on
holiday!) to knocking on my door. Unfortunately, although I was conscious I
couldn’t move yet due to a weird sort of waking paralysis I’ve inherited from my
father, so the poor girl had to be let in by the maid and I felt like a right
idiot. Turns out my roommate Jen, is an Aussie from Melbourne traveling with another girl for a
year, and they’re being joined by another friend for a month’s travel through
the middle east. I was immediately jealous.
We headed down to the lobby to meet
the rest of the group. Carly & Jo were the other two Aussies, and we were
joined by 2 American girls, Aly & Jackie, from California. Our guide, Hossam, or “Sam” as
he told us to call him so that we wouldn’t get the pronunciation of his name
wrong and inadvertently call him “horse” in Arabic, is a very talkative, very
cheeky Cairo resident who never tires of teaching us new words or telling us
stories of previous trips, in between picking play fights like an annoying
little brother. Couldn’t have asked for a better, more relaxed guide really. We
didn’t meet our final group member, Shaun, another Aussie from Melbourne (what are the
chances!) until 9pm – AFTER our meet and greet. Apparently he’d done a day-trip
which had tired him out so he decided to have a quick lie-down before the
meeting, only to wake up at 9pm! With a laid-back Aussie attitude and a
penchant for wandering off on his own, the coming days would see us using the
term “Where’s Shaun?” at least once a day.
After our meeting to discuss the itinerary, Sam took us out
on a quick tour of the area to see where the shops and banks were, before
taking us to a nearby restaurant for a delicious and very cheap local dinner.
So much for losing weight while I’m here! And so it begins…
