Egypt 1
Trip Start
Jun 24, 2007
1
30
46
Trip End
Jan 15, 2008
Lower Egypt - Cairo and Alexandria, Egypt
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Well Egypt was as amazing as it was awful!
Flew from Munich to Cairo, arriving just after midnight to face temperatures of 35 degrees and a thick wall of air pollution. Don't know how people breathe long-term in Cairo - home to 19 million people! However, one soon overlooks the latter to marvel at the incredible history of this place which takes one back to 4000BC and one of the greatest civilisations of ancient times.
Fantastic meeting up with Petrina at breakfast the next morning who flew over to join us from S.Africa for our tour of Egypt. So good to see a familiar face again and to have some female company! Also met our tour guide Mostafa who was to be our personal guide for the next 2 weeks. An Egyptian guy, with a good command of the English language, very clued up on the history and general knowledge of Egypt, a devout Muslim with a good sense of humour, and some really odd ways!! Anyway, we were incredibly lucky to have him all to ourselves for 2 weeks - just a group of five - no big buses, crowds or queues to contend with.
We spent the first 3 days in and around Cairo and the sea port of Alexandria visiting all the amazing sights of Lower Egypt all connected somehow to the mighty River Nile. The great pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx were quite breathtaking - the more you found out about them, the more you marvelled at it all. The ancient step pyramids at Sakara and the Egyptian Museum (not normally too keen on museums), both worth every minute, especially seeing the open faced mummies of great pharaohs including Ramses 2nd, and the lavish contents of the tomb of Tutankhamun etc. - really transports you back in time - quite eerie. The markets of Cairo were a buzzing nightmare - hot, dusty, noisy, chaotic and one is continually hassled and touched by eager vendors.
Managed to watch the World Cup Rugby final at the Nile Hilton Hotel, and were delighted with the outcome sitting amongst a room full of Poms. Caught a very hair-raising taxi ride back to our hotel just before midnight - didn't know whether to laugh or cry, it was that frightening. There seem to be no road rules, traffic lights, stop streets, lines or any order whatsoever on the roads. Each driver (mainly of unroadworthy cars) is a law until himself with his hand continually on the hooter, trying to avoid other vehicles, donkeys carts, pedestrians and debris - Petrina and I ended up laughing hysterically in the back seat - better to die laughing they say!
Alexandria was a lovely old historical city (home of Cleopatra!) where we visited the catacombs, the Roman amphitheatre and the enormous Pompey's Pillar made of pink granite. Part of the day's itinerary was to have lunch at the top seafood restaurant in the city, overlooking the Bay - quite special and very tasty.
Stopped en route to Alexandria at a traditional Egyptian tea house where we sampled local food and drinks. Boys got to cuddle a lion cub in their arms, (came out of nowhere!) and was the highlight of their day - they don't enjoy seafood much!
Left Cairo and headed south to Aswan, meant to travel by overnight sleeper train, but were upgraded to a flight instead - lucky us!
Enjoy the pictures - got really snap-happy in Egypt I'm afraid!
A few more entries to follow.
Comments
So Jealous
I think you are all having far too much fun!!!!Having said that I am thoroughly enjoying the armchaor world tour.
Love to you all
S
From Mandie
The photo of Cairo with the beautiful old (ancient) buildings in the foreground absolutly took my breath away and those markets! Wow. They look like something else and would definately bring fear to the men in my family. Kate would LOVE it! A must on my list of things to do before I die.
Miss you all.
M xxx