Alexandria
Well we made it safely to Cairo on Monday night and got picked up from the airport and taken to our hotel. Getting our visa at the airport was interesting but not difficult – at least not for us!!! There were plenty of people getting a bit of a hard time and sent to the back of the queue. The hotel was pretty good and in a quiet area called Zamalek – an island in the middle of the Nile in Cairo. Met Callan at the hotel, he had arrived earlier that day from Dubai.
Caught the train up to Alexandria on the Mediterranean Coast Tuesday morning. We got 1st class tickets and I was pleasantly surprised at how nice the train was. Got a room that overlooked the bay area. Wandered around the bay for quite a while, checking out a Fort and the library which has a giant ball thing out the front that apparently looks like a death star from Star Wars. Popped in to a cafe for some apple sheesha and then had dinner near the Fort overlooking the bay.
The fort, the library and the "Death Star"
Have had quite a few weird looks so far with my clothes - at least that's what I think it is... Had a t-shirt on today in Alexandria and got a lot of stares and dirty looks from the women and then some little boys decided to run over and touch my arms. Will be making sure to wear longer sleeves from now on, cannot see how arms are that exciting.
Wednesday morning we decided to take a private taxi out to El Alamein and check out the WWII cemetery and memorial to the Commonwealth troops who fought in Egypt. Nearby was a small war museum which had a bunch of tanks and army vehicles and quite a bit of information about the Germans and Italians in WWII but not much about the others. The taxi was a good idea - except when it came to paying! We had agreed a rate before we left but what do you know that changed once we were back in town and trying to pay, not a huge difference and Callan did try to work out why but in the end it was easier to pay and keep moving as the driver had almost non existent English. Headed back down to Cairo staying at the same place again.
Photos at the Commonwealth War Memorial
Bahariya Oasis
Decided to take ourselves out to Bahariya Oasis on Thursday. Took the bus out to the Oasis from Cairo which was supposed to take us 3-4 hours. Or so we thought, 5 ½ hours later we had arrived. The drive was so boring, there was just nothing to see, the scene outside the window didn't change the whole time, a long straight road and sand. To make it worse, I was not feeling the best so wasn't a pretty drive, particularly for Daniel sitting beside me. Upside was we did get to see the tops of the pyramids as we drove out of Cairo.
Took an afternoon 4WD trip around the Oasis, walking up a few mountains, saw the lake nearby and went for a swim in one of the hot springs. Nothing like what I had been expecting!!! I had assumed it would be a spring in a nice green NATURAL setting, with some palms trees, etc around it. Not exactly...it was actually a concrete square pool away from the trees with a pipe just pumping the water into it. Not exotic at all and the water was really hot. The few locals near it at the time disappeared and so we all hopped in briefly, hopefully I didn't offend anyone.
The hot springs and me at the top of English Mountain
Friday morning saw us rising early to watch the sunrise, only to notice when we started driving that the guy had got the times wrong and the sun was already up. Another 4WD tour, this one taking us to the black and white deserts. The black desert is really just a normal desert with black rocks on top of the sand but the white desert was cool to see. Had some spots with different sand formations and shapes which we were taken to as well as a lone tree... We weren't exactly sure why we were taken to see a tree but oh well. That afternoon we did the painful return bus journey and then met up with Kel and Jo in Cairo.
In the Black and White Deserts
The 5 of us caught a taxi out to Giza to see the pyramids and the sphinx on Saturday morning. After haggling with the driver we were taken to his mates shop near the pyramids not the front entrance and ended up doing a camel/horse ride through the area with the pyramids. It was pretty cool riding a camel and reaching the pyramids from the sand dunes at the back. The weather wasn't quite so kind though, Callan jinxed us the day before by saying if it couldn't be blue sky the next best thing would be to see them in rain. It rained while we were there, not too bad but we did have to hop under one of the camel blankets to keep dry. Spent a few hours riding around the area, climbed a few steps up on one of the smaller pyramids, got close to the second one (which Callan and Daniel went into) and then visited the sphinx.
Around the pyramids!!!
Although it was great to see them in real life and pretty amazing to see how big they were and stuff, the people we did the camel trip with were dodgy and so it kind of spoilt it a little (we didn't get to go close to the Great Pyramid and had to fight with the guide to get down close to the Sphinx to take photos).
Also went down to the markets and tried our hand at haggling for a few things, enjoyed some Egyptian pancakes (much like a pizza) and sheesha. On the way back to the hotel, we decided to spoil ourselves and so went into the Marriott for a quick cocktail and to use the schmancy facilities.
The markets, some sheesha and enjoying drinks at the Marriott
Sunday we said goodbye to Kel and went to the Egyptian Museum. There were lots of things in there though not really set out the best or labelled. Saw the Tutankhamen area, a bunch of statues and figures, mummy cases, manuscripts and just a heap of stuff out of the tombs. Also had a look at the mummies which was a bit weird, particularly the area with animal mummies – there were mummies of pet baboons, birds, cats, dogs, crocodiles, sheep and other parts of animals. Ventured down to the Downtown area for a snack and then a drink on the river before we caught the sleeper train to Aswan.
Little tip - never catch a taxi if the driver is from Sudan!!! We got a crazy driver when going to the train station - he didn't know where it was, drove all over the place, yelled at everyone and then broke down on the way, even some locals gave us hand signals not to get back in the car.
