Trip of a Lifetime Our 10 month journey around the world.

Cairo Egypt  April 13 - 16

We’ll were back to the crazy 3rd world honking, heat, and cheap abandoned buildings of a hostel.  We arrived in Cairo once again with our cab driver awaiting like promised by the hostel.  He whisked us away at more than double the speed limit though rush our traffic.  Good thing our seatbelt don’t work and there are no road rules. :P    We arrived at our hostel aka abandoned building. Well that is what we thought until our cabbie insisted that we were in the right place. So off we went in a rickety old 4 person elevator to the 6th floor and sure enough the doors opened to hostel Cecilia.  We were welcomed with a smile and shown our room.  The room was again two single beds with a bathroom/closet stuck in one corner.  At first glance no bugs to be found so that was good.  Well except one pesky fly that I just couldn’t catch.  We decided to take a walk around the lock to see what was close and to get something to eat as we just had traveled for 20 hours. There was a few nice coffee shops, a KFC, Pizza hut, and of course a McDonalds.  Lots of local shops as well that we would most like contract some sort of rare or life threatening disease from as well, so we will avoid them at al costs.  We had to also book a train to Luxor so we headed off to the metro to see if we could navigate our way to the Ramsis Train station.  We however forgot that some of the train were women only and I got grabbed off by a local and in the panic I had to try to hold the doors open and once I had escaped Holly also jumped off almost loosing her leg in the process.  Her shoe was jammed in the closed door.  We though for sure she was going for a ride on the outside of the train but a couple local girls pull her free just in time.  We were very careful about what train we got on from here out.  We did manage the purchase of the tickets after the usual story that the train was sold out.  A little Backeesh (tip) goes a long way LOL.  After a crap sleep from the neighbour blasting music and the non stop horns and yelling all night we headed to the Egypt Museum to see all of the artefacts from the Giza Pyramids.  There was an amazingly huge collection of gold jewellery, masks, mummies, and caskets. We tried to read all the note cards so we had some idea of what they all meant but it was impossible so we stuck to the major pharaoh’s.    The next morning we arranged a cab to drive us all day for $60 and take us to the Giza Pyramids, Citadel, and Cryptic Cairo.  We had an AC car so the ride was ok but the temp was still in the mid 40’s walking around the Pyramids.  We went inside a few to see the burial chambers and the tunnels and passages.  Snapped a few funny pics of the Sphynx. Then we were off to the Mosk of Mohammad Ali, and Citadel.  Our last stop would be old Cairo to walk around the old city walls and churches.  We headed back to the hostel for dinner and catching up on some rest (At least the AC in the room worked).  We had one more day to kill so we decided an AC mall was the ticket.  More haggling with cabbies and heat.  We can’t figure out why but they all seem to have AC but no one uses it. Done as me????  We ended up at Star City mall and decided to watch a movie.  After 45 minutes of previews the hole theatre gasped with relief that the show was about to start. We were thinking we would be cutting it close to get back for our train when all of the suddenly right in the middle of the movie …Intermission…  We looked at each other in disbelief, luckily it was only for 5 minutes. Still it was very odd..  The show ended with us having an hour and half to get back down town a 45 minute drive and then on the Metro to the Rail station.  I of course had to open my big mouth and tell the cabbie “How fast can you get there”  LOL  the next 22 minutes was right out of a Grand Turismo race car game..  Through the Opera tunnel at 160km, weaving, honking, cursing bad (slow) drives, and eventually getting us to our hotel I think what was a record time for Egyptian cabbie standards, Amazingly without so much as a scratch. I’m not going to say there wasn’t some close calls as I am pretty sure his breaks were at the wear limit squealing every time he touched them witch wasn’t very often L.  We rushed up the rickety elevator and grabbed our bags.  Off to the Metro.  We made it with 20 minutes to spare.  We were sure glad we rushed and got there early as we eventually found out that the train was two hours late.  Arrrr.   A nice local family was going on the same train and they told us they would help us find our car as all the train # were in Arabic.  It did eventual show up and they showed us to our cabin..  Sleep at last, we’ll a quick diner provided by the train and then off the slumber land..  I mean rattle, crash, squeak, lurch land.  I got about 20 minutes sleep on what ended up being a  twelve hour train ride that should have been eight.  When the sun came up they nocked on our door and to our surprise breakfast was included too. Scones jam tea and cake was all quite good.  We stepped off the platform a little weary thinking that was no way the cabbie waited 5 hours past our arrival time, but what do you know there he was with the Nile Valley Hotel sign. AMAZING.