Zander's 20th Birthday - last day in Egypt !
Trip Start
Apr 01, 2011
1
28
38
Trip End
May 27, 2011
Today is Zander's 20th Birthday, not too many presents as he has to wait till we get home, he did get some papyrus from the Brown's, a picture from Richard, and a kaffir from Sam & Kelly. Today is also our last day in Egypt - we were woken up around about 7am by the attendant on the train. Then the usual carbohydrate breakfast, unfortunately a lot of the food is also stale - so not a lot gets eaten. It consistent of a roll, a slice of bread, a crossiant, a piece of cake and some kind of scroll, 1 jam and some butter. I ended up leaving all this and opting for a banana and an orange. (we have not been able to eat much fruit while away - so even though it was pretty expensive we decided to buy some.) When we got to the station at Cairo we were a bit lost as to where we were supposed to be heading as we had come from a different direction - while we were sorting this out, Rhiannon was sick right in the walkway (she had been feeling sick all morning) - not much you can do about it in this kind of place, so we keep going, and found our taxi driver, luckily we had had him before so we recognised him. So back to the Juliana hostel, and we were fortunate that the rooms Cindy & Alvin were in were vacant so we could go straight in, so we sort of chilled out for awhile. We decided to go down the street so we could get the suitcases that the Brown's wanted, but they were not that great a quality (knock off - Samsonites) - so other than getting some donuts & Caleb having his shoes shined it was a fairly fruitless trip. We had some pizza for lunch, and afterwards Cindy & I and the older kids took a taxi to the markets, we all piled into the car which was a bit of a squash - but got there fine, the taxi driver was a bit of a rally driver. We wandered around the markets, and although I didn't buy alot, most of the others got some good bargains. Zander picked up a silver scarab beetle, and some ear rings for Samantha's birthday. We had a bit of an altercation with the taxi drivers on the way home as they kept trying to change the price on us. We eventually did get into one and another taxi driver hit him through the window. They are very aggressive here, and there seems to be a lot of anger just under the surface, which often comes out !! In the evening we had arranged to go on a river cruise - we were to be picked up by bus outside a hotel on the waterfront, there was a bit of confusion and we were picked up a bit late. Rhiannon was still feeling sick, and thought she was going to puck in the car, luckily she didn't. The driver had the heater on full, and was wondering why the airconditioner was not working. The heater was under my seat and was burning my leg, so after lots of fiddling around he turned it off, and we could all breathe again. There was heaps of traffic as usual, so it was a slow trip. When we got there they had us on split tables - so Cindy asked them to put the 12 of us together. The had a belly dancer and a whirly dervish dancer, these were both good - but the music was so loud, most of us ended up leaving and going on top. The meal was pretty average, and the service was almost non existent. They did have a cake for Zander - although we only got a few pieces of it, goodness knows what happens with the rest. When we got back to the hostel Ahmed and Kalim the two guys from there, had organised a little party. They had a huge cake which was half vanilla and half chocolate, and they had drinks, balloons etc. They have really made us feel welcome, if anyone is ever going to visit Egypt, I would highly recommend staying here. So after being once again full of cake, we went outside and flew some Helicopter things that the Brown's had bought in France - Samantha gave one to Abi for her soon coming birthday. Two ended up on balconies in the building. They light up and fly down in lovely patterns. The older kids all then went to watch a movie together, while the younger ones went to bed, and Caleb & I finished packing. I was really annoyed because I seemed to have lost mine & Abi's star of David's - last seen on the train this morning.
