Nile Adventure

2008-04-02

Summary

- Arrival in Cairo

- Check-in at hotel

- Snooze, then shop

We managed to snooze for a while on our flight, arriving in Cairo at about 6am; watching the sun rising from the plane. Our experience at the airport is the swiftest we’ve ever encountered. We’d booked an arrival transfer and found the guy there waiting for us in the terminal. He sent us to the bank to collect our visas, which cost us US$15 instead of the US$50 we’d been told; I dunno if there was some dodgy deals going on, but I wasn’t going to ask. We zipped through passport control, then waited a few minutes for our bags, and then the guy rushed us outside to a waiting vehicle which took us to our hotel. Check in time was not until 1 or 2pm so we figured we had a long wait ahead of us just like in Dubai. To our surprise we checked in around 7:30am. Back to badays in the toilets and the lifts here don’t have automatic doors, you have to open the door outwards yourself… can’t say I’ve ever seen lifts like that before. We went up to our room and had a nap for a few hours.

When we got up, we went to the hotel restaurant for lunch and then went to look for a bank to get the US money we needed for local payment for our tour; we couldn’t find a bank. We went back to our hotel and asked for a map and directions. The shop owner for the hotel’s shop raked us in and told us to look in his shop. We ended up in there for over an hour, but he was really good; going through all the stories that are depicted in the papyrus paintings he had. The papyrus paper is made from the same papyrus we’d seen in the Okavango Delta, Botswana. The papyrus I had eaten was the root. The top is stripped and then cut into thin strips; these strips are crispy and crack when bent, but when the water and sugar is squeezes out of them (via the use of a hammer and/or rolling pin) they become flexible and durable. The papyrus is then soaked in water for 6 days (or 12 days to obtain brown papyrus paper) and is then meshed together horizontally and vertically and then placed in a press. Anyway, we picked out favourites and of course Skye had different favourites to myself. The shop owner insisted that he gives the best price, but we’d heard that one before. We said we’d go away and think about it and decided after going to the museum tomorrow.

By this time we figured the bank was closed, so we went to an ATM to get some local dosh, then picked up some stuff from the supermarket. We had dinner at the hotel restaurant, not having scoped out somewhere else to eat yet. Then we went back to our rooms to watch TV… yes TV! And then slept in beds… yes BEDS! And enjoyed our nice cold drinks from the fridge… yes the FRIDGE! Now we’re living the life of luxury

 

2008-04-03

Summary

- Egyptian Museum

- Papyrus purchasing

On Thursday morning we headed down for breakfast at the hotel restaurant and then walked to the bank at the Sheraton hotel. We encountered a few of the guys we’d read about who claim they’ve met you before or claim they know your tour leader or whatever and try to get you to go to their shop so they can rip you off. We weren’t having a bar of it. This guy followed us all the way form our hotel for about 15 mins until we’d almost reached the Sheraton where he told us we should come and look at his shop on our way back after I insisted that I was going to the Sheraton now and not to his shop. When we left the Sheraton we decided to go a different way to avoid the annoying guy. Another guy approached us claiming he’d met us in the Sheraton hotel reception, I just laughed and shook my head at him “No you didn’t see me mate… and you don’t know me”; knowing too well that I was never in the Sheraton reception, he’d just assumed we were staying at the Sheraton when he saw us come out. They use a common line of saying that you walk like an Egyptian… whatever that’s supposed to mean… I assume their way of trying to be funny. So anyway, we got to a point where I thought the hotel was left and Skye thought right; we went right. Right was wrong, left was right; so we ended up going around in a circle and the originally annoying guy ran into us again with an ‘ayyyy, lucky a found you guys again, you come and look at my shop now’. I made it clear we were not going to his shop and insisted to him that we weren’t lost. I found our way back in the end after finding a familiar building from earlier.

We decided to walk to the Egyptian Museum as it wasn’t a really long way and this gave us a chance to check things out as we went. The museum was not at all marked as being a museum, but we figured we were at the right place due to the number of tourists everywhere. We had lunch at the shop there before buying tickets for 50 LE and entering the museum. The place was HUGE, two stories and over 100 halls filled with historical Egyptian gear. We started with the Old Kingdom, then through to the Middle Kingdom and New Kingdom. The captions started off pretty good, but got slacker and slacker until there were basically no more captions at all. We’d started the first floor quite slow, but after going upstairs and seeing how much was still left, we had to start rushing to make sure we got to see it all. Skye’s favourite was the dung beetle (scarab beetle) coffins. The Egyptians believed that the gods would come to earth in the form of animals, which would be marked by a symbol such as a triangle on their forehead or the key of life on their tongue. These animals that were believed to be gods were mummified and/or placed into coffins and also some animals were mummified as a sacrificial offering to the gods. Mummified animals in the museum included cats, dogs, birds, crocs and cows. There was heaps in the museum so I’m not going to go into it all here. One of the main attractions of the museum (apart from the royal mummies, which cost an extra 100 LE to see) was the Tutankhaman section, which had all the artefacts that were found it his tomb. His burial mask was made of solid gold weighing 12kg. His inner and outer coffins were also solid gold, covered in markings; mainly feathers of the gods. He had so many amulets, necklaces, bracelets, rings, etc… it was insane. Apparently he wasn’t a very old, powerful and popular king either, so it’s hard to imagine what some of the other kings’ tombs looked like (as yet no other tombs have been found containing as much as Tutankhaman’s tomb as thieves had stolen all the treasures from them).

We spent about 3.5 hours in the museum, which still wasn’t really enough; we hadn’t looked at the second floor properly. We walked back to our hotel and kept our promise; we went into the hotel shop and decided we’d buy two papyrus paintings; the judgement and the offering. Then we walked to a different supermarket in search of more backup dvds (I still hadn’t caught up with backups, I had been so far behind). We found some dvds and upon leaving the supermarket who was waiting outside… that same annoying guy, although this time he didn’t really hassle us about his shop again so was no longer annoying. We asked him if there were any good restaurants nearby. He recommended a couple, we found one of them but continued looking around. We ended up eating at the Tout Express; having Sherwamens (sp?) which are pretty much like yiros. We took the long way back to the hotel after going down the wrong street at one point.

 

2008-04-04

Summary

- Saqqara & Imhotep

- Memphis: Mit-Rahina

- Dahshur

- Buffet Lunch

- Papyrus factory

- Pre-departure meeting

On Friday morning, after breakfast, we didn’t want to sit around bored so we asked reception about going out to see Memphis, Saqqara and Dahshur. They ordered a taxi for us for 200 LE (Egyptian pounds… about $40) and said it’d be there in about 10 minutes; an hour later it arrived. We went to Saqqara first, which was just over an hour’s drive. The entrance fee was 50 LE each… this was going to add up to an expensive day at this rate! When we entered a temple (I think it was a temple?) a guy asked to see our ticket, we showed him and he said ‘ok, I will show you around to the left first, then you come through here’. We followed him around and he showed us some hieroglyphics (ancient Egyptian writing) carved in the stone of the tombs. We entered one of the tombs, which had a huge false door inside amongst a load of hieroglyphics (we found out the following day from a real tour guide that the buried deceased’s soul/spirit is able to penetrate and pass through these false doors). Some other guy came into the tomb and start yelling at the guy we’d been following. We didn’t really know what was going on, but figured something dodgy was going on. From what we figured the guy leading us around wasn’t supposed to be doing so and he’d been busted by this other guy, obviously some sort of official. Anyway, when we came out the guy was back over to us and asking for a tip. I gave him 1 LE to which he scoffed and gave it back, so I gave him US$1 instead, to which he replied ‘not enough’. The same official then came back and told me not to pay the guy and then yelled some more Arabic, so we just walked off. We were looking at the step pyramid when the guy came back over again, I just gave him 10 LE as I walked off so that he’d piss off. We didn’t really know what we were looking at or where we were supposed to go, it was all a bit unorganized. There was graffiti over the stones, not surprising with the lack of organisation and the allowance of anyone to walk anywhere. We spent about an hour there and then left, not having learnt much, just having looked at a big 6-step pyramid and some ruins of what I thought was probably a temple.

We went onto Memphis, where we paid 30 LE each for entry. There were several statues of King Ramses II; huge statues and there was a large sphinx also (not as large as the most well known sphinx of Egypt). From here we went onto Dahshur, which was 30 LE each plus 5 LE for the taxi. There were 2 pyramids; one was off in the distance, the black pyramid, and we walked partway up the other pyramid to enter it. The ‘stairs’ lead down a 45 degree corridor that was about a metre high and a metre wide… not for the claustrophobic. The tunnel/passage continued this way for at least 100m, a good few minutes. At the bottom, inside the tomb (inside the pyramid), the ceilings were at least 20 to 30 metres high with a step fashion such that the highest point of the ceiling was in the centre of the room. There were 3 rooms like this, connected via metre by metre holes. The air down there was pretty stale and manky, and it was bloody hot down there. We climbed back up the steep corridor and were absolutely knackered when we came back out. When climbing down and up you had to hunch forward a long way and have your knees bent, hence the reason it was such hard work.

We headed off and I asked if we could stop off somewhere for lunch. The taxi driver took us to a buffet lunch which cost us 50 LE each (it turns out the official price is usually 35 LE each, but the driver gets a commission for taking us there, hence the increased price). He then took us to a papyrus factory, where we were stunned at the prices. The woman working there, who had given us a demonstration of how the papyrus is used to make the paper, was pretty pissed off with us when we left empty handed … as was the taxi driver no doubt; he missed out on his commission The taxi driver asked why we hadn’t bought anything; we told him we found one we liked but it was too expensive (500 LE). He asked how much we’d expected to pay and I said 100 LE… he shook his head and so I said to him that the shop at our hotel was around that price. Shortly afterwards he was on the phone, and I thought he may have been ringing the hotel shop about the papyrus. He suggested to us that when we get back to the hotel, we should look at the papyrus in the shop there.

When we arrived back at the hotel, the taxi driver came in with us; I paid him the 200 LE and gave him a 20 LE tip, then went over to the elevators. He looked a bit lost, but he then left. I poked my head around the corner and the shop owner was laughing at me. I went over and he told me what had happened. The taxi driver had called him and said he was bringing a couple in to look at papyrus and wanted commission for anything we bought. The shop owner said that when we had arrived the taxi driver had said ‘talk to them’ (in Arabic obviously so we couldn’t understand) and the shop owner had shaken his head. The taxi driver repeated ‘talk to them, talk to them’ and he kept saying no, then said that we’d already bought from him. Hehehe, the taxi driver must have been cut up They’re all dodgy bastards over here, looking to rip you off.

At 7:30pm we went down for our pre-departure meeting, the first one we’ve actually been present for! The meeting went for like 2 hours; the tour leader took down all our details and then went through the itinerary and various optional activities available. There are actually 3 different tour groups; 1 group only does the Nile, the other does the Nile & Alexandria, and the other does the Nile, Alexandria & Jordan; so we all start together and then people will drop out as their tour finishes. Of 13 ppl, 9 are doing the full tour.  A big bug interrupted the meeting and Skye and I found it funny the way everyone reacted. We weren’t bothered by it at all after having encountered hundreds of the buggers in Africa, but the others, especially the girls, were freaking out. Andrew, one of the guys on our tour, caught it in his hand and it bit/stung him… that wasn’t the best idea! It ended up being pancaked on the tour leader’s map, which he was very distraught about. After the meeting, most of us hadn’t eaten, so had dinner in the hotel restaurant. When Skye and I had finished eating we went back to our rooms to get all our gear packed up ready for the following day, before going to bed.

 

2008-04-05

Summary

- Pyramids

- Sphinx

- Overnight recliner train

On Saturday morning, we had breakfast before heading off to the pyramids. One of the girls from our tour stayed behind as she was already sick. There are 13 in the group; all are Aussies except for 1 who is American. We are the only couple again on this tour. The pyramids come into view amongst the busy city. The city goes right up about 1km (maximum) from the pyramids. The first pyramid, the largest pyramid has had a small portion collapse at the very peak. From a distance, the stone blocks don’t look very big, but up close they are huge! Each block weighs about 1 ton! We went inside one of the Queen’s pyramids (much smaller pyramids), which was the same 45 degree metre passage as Dahshur, except this one only went for about 20 metres. It is actually quite boring in the tombs as all you see is a stone room. All of the treasures have been cleared out for the museum, except the case where they’d been stolen by thieves first. We saw many more hieroglyphics and this is where the guide explained the function of the false doors for allowing the soul to pass through. A lot of info we were told really makes movies like The Mummy and Stargate make more sense. Everyone took a whole bunch of photos before we moved onto the sphinx. There are guys on camels everywhere asking you to take their photo, then they expect to be paid for it. I didn’t want a photo of any of them… with their Ray Ban sunnies and caps on… hardly fits the part!

The sphinx is very much deteriorated; the lower parts have been reconstructed and I imagine the face may have had some work done also. We also looked in the Valley Temple and Sphinx Temple; made of granite and limestone. There is a Pizza Hut just over 100m from the sphinx! Skye and I are getting the hang of avoiding the hawkers, whereas a lot of the others were getting hassled by them. The guide then took us to a papyrus factory, but nobody in the group bought anything there; I think everyone’s already bought their papyrus souvenirs. We went to some take away place for lunch, which was absolutely packed so took over half an hour… it would have been quicker to dine in somewhere! Then we headed back to the hotel. We had the option of continuing to the Egyptian Museum, which would have been good to have a guide to explain things… but since we’d just been we weren’t going to pay to go again. We had coped all right with the museum as we’d visited the Egypt exhibition in Adelaide last year when they shipped a bunch of artefacts over for a few months; that gave the general gist of things.

We went back to the hotel and got our rooms all packed up and ready to go, then had a snooze for an hour or so before going down for dinner. After dinner, we grabbed our bags from our rooms and got on a bus that took us to the train station. At about 10:30pm the train came and picked us up. My seat did not really decline much, although some seemed to recline back to about 45 degrees… Luck of the draw I think; at least we weren’t too close to the toilet this time. The luggage was stored overhead; the guy 2 seats in front of me had a whole (20kg or so) backpack fall off of the shelf and land on his head… ouch. The lights on the train do not go off, so a face mask was a necessity (unless you can sleep in brightness). The toilet was pretty gross, but being a guy it was still usable for me.

 

2008-04-06

Summary

- Luxor

- Karnak Temple

I managed a few hours of sleep before the sun came up, I’m sure Skye slept more than me. We arrived in Luxor at around 10ish. Apparently someone in the carriage behind us had their passport, wallet and a whole bunch of other stuff stolen from their luggage. We hopped on another bus which took us to our hotel. After waiting in reception for about a half hour, we checked in to our rooms. We didn’t have long to chill, as we headed off for lunch early in the afternoon. I did manage to squeeze in a shower before we left for lunch. A lot of the guys had pigeon, but I was feeling like some veg as most of the meals here come without veg, so I ordered the only thing on the menu that mentioned vegetables; grilled chicken with fresh vegetables… plus the choice of rice or fries… I chose rice. My meal came… it was two small pieces of chicken, rice and fries. The ‘fresh vegetables’ consisted of one slice of cucumber, one slice of tomato and a few pieces of uncooked cabbage… not quite what I was hoping for! Skye went with her usual margarita pizza; always a safe option really.

After lunch we rode via horse carriage to the ? Temple (the horses were quite skinny). The temple was lined with small sphinxes (by small I mean human-sized) that had a lion’s body with a ram’s head (the lion symbolising power and the ram symbolising fertility). As usual there was hieroglyphics over all the walls. One wall was quite… interesting; showing an Egyptian guy with a bona…. yes that’s right, I do mean an erection. I couldn’t hear everything the tour guide said but it was something about this Egyptian guy spanking the monkey until he had 9 nights of sexual pleasure from all the women. Apparently this guy pops up in a lot of the hieroglyphics around Egypt. There are tons of pillars in the temple; once holding up a stone roof, however there is no longer a stone roof. These pillars were made from jagged rocks, which were then smoothed down to make a circular pillar. It took 8 of us joining hands to fit around the base of the pillar, and the pillars would have been about 20 metres high… pretty impressive. You could still see the original colours that had been used on the pillars and other areas of the temple. The obelisks were also impressive, made out of a single piece of granite and placed vertically, rising around 15-20m towards the sky. There were more huge statues within the temple, and plenty of smaller ones about 5 metres high. Most of the statues show signs of deterioration or have rock segments missing/broken off. Skye stacked it at one point; giving herself a nasty bruise on her knee and a graze on her foot. Another girl on our tour managed to fracture a toe when she misjudged one of the steps.

Leaving the temple, we rode via horse carriage again before briefly walking through the streets of Luxor exploring the city. Once back at the hotel, we chilled for an hour (Skye had a shower) before going out for dinner, crossing the Nile via motorised felucca. There was a bit of a sand storm going on outside, so the air was thick with dust/sand. We ate a set menu, consisting of some traditional Egyptian dishes. TD finally caught up with me tonight; I thought it may happen in Egypt as Matt from our previous tour had said that when he’d done the Egypt tour, every single person ended up getting ill. I must admit we had gotten a bit lax towards the end of the last tour, so it was time to harden up again on being on the cautious side. When we got back to the hotel, everyone went to bed ready for the very early morning.

 

2008-04-07

Summary

- Hot air balloon cancelled

- Valley of the Kings; donkey ride

- Nile cruise

We got up at 3:45am on Monday as we had booked a hot air balloon ride for sunrise (11 of the 13 on our tour had also paid for this option). We left the hotel at 4:30am to the docks, where we boarded a motorised felucca and waited… waited and waited… there were about 60 or so people there waiting.. for the last 2 people, who arrived just before 5:15am. We crossed the Nile then transferred into vans, which drove us to the hot air balloon spot. On arrival, none of the balloons were setup; the sun had already risen… not that the sun was seen visible through the thick smog/fog/dust… whatever you claim that it is. We waited, and waited; apparently we were waiting for a weather report from the Luxor tower. The balloons organisers tried to entertain us with a piece of rope; used as a skipping rope (managing 1 participant) then for tug of war (managing 0 participants)…. Dude it’s before 6am… I don’t think anyone can be bothered! Just after 6am, the balloon ride was called off… what a waste of a morning. We were taken back to the booking office and waited… and waited… until our tour leader arrived just before 7:30am.

We headed to our donkey start point, where we were matched up with our donkeys to ride into the Valley of the Kings. It was quite different to riding a horse in that your feet just dangle; there is no thingamy-bob to slip your feet into. We went with another tour group at the same time; both the tour leaders rode quad bikes while we rode the donkeys. The other tour leader was trying to show off and race past and ended up clipping one of the girls from our tour then hit the donkey of another girl on the other tour, knocking her off the donkey. Nothing but a few bruises, but it could’ve been worse! The donkey ride went for about an hour. My donkey, I named him Speedy Gonzales (sp?), liked to be at the front of the pack; whenever another donkey came up beside him, he’d speed up to keep in front. In the last 15 mins he gunned it, leaving the rest of the donkeys out of sight.

When I’d stopped at the gate and waited for the rest of the donkeys to catch up, we dismounted; my inner legs like jelly. My donkey was mounted by another randy donkey; these are all male donkeys… We walked the rest of the way into the Valley of the Kings. We visited three tombs; the first one was IMO the best one. Deep in the tombs, the original colours were all still present in the hieroglyphics and Egyptian carvings. Leaving the Valley of the Kings I picked up 3 small statues for 100 LE; I thought I’d done well until I found out from our tour leader that I should’ve paid only 20 LE…. nevermind.

We got the bus from the Valley of the Kings to a riverboat on the Nile. The boat has four decks; the top one being the bar/dance area, the third being rooms and the restaurant; and the bottom two being more rooms and the reception on the bottom floor. Our room was on the third deck of the boat. The boat cruised along the Nile for the day until we reached the lock. I hung out on the sun deck having a yarn with the rest of the group while Skye had a snooze in our room. At the lock the river steps up about 5 metres, so the boat goes in the lock which fills up with water lifting the boat to the right level to continue. When we arrived at the lock, there were heaps of small row boats swarming the cruise ships trying to sell stuff. They would throw things up to onto the cruise ships for people to look at; and then you’d either throw it back or throw them down the money for it. Skye and I bought a galabeya (robe) each for the galabeya party the following night. We had dinner and then chilled for a while before going to bed.

 

2008-04-08

Summary

 

- Edfu temple

- Komombo temple

On Tuesday morning, breakfast was at 7am and then we headed off to Edfu temple; the cruise boat had docked at Edfu. Edfu temple was built during the Greco Roman period, so is different from the original Egyptian temples. Same deal though really; big statues, lots of hieroglyphics and big ass columns. The roof on the temple was still present, although had been blackened from the fires that had been used within the temple (for warmth and for cooking).

We went back to the cruise ship at 10:30am and chilled until lunch, then I had a nap after lunch. The boat cruised down the Nile to Komombo Temple. Upon reaching Komombo Temple a about 5pm, we got off the boat and entered the temple. There was no roof on the temple and a lot of the walls were collapsed. The temple was much smaller than Edfu, but still impressive. We watched as the sun set and then I went down to the markets and bought a hat.

We got back on the cruise ship and Skye was quite unwell, throwing up. I went down for dinner at 8pm, while Skye was laying down in bed. After dinner I checked on Skye and then changed into my galabaya and went to the bar for the party. The party is only us and the other group from the donkey trek; the other groups (all Europeans) were not part of the party. A few people from the other group didn’t participate, but everyone from our group got dressed up. I had a few beers; Stellas, they didn’t have any local brews on board. Skye came down for a while a little later on. I hit the dance floor for a while for a few Arabic tunes as well as some old familiars. We went back to our room at about 3am, while some of the others got off the cruise boat and went into the town.

 

2008-04-09

Summary

- Aswan

- Sunset camel ride

We skipped breakfast Wednesday morning, sleeping in til just after 10am, although Skye snoozed for longer after I got up. We chilled on the sundeck until lunch time, when we chowed down as we were bloody starving by that stage. The boat docked at Aswan; we bummed around for the rest of the arvo until 5pm when we caught a motorboat across the Nile to go on a camel ride in the desert. Skye and I both had lazy camels that kept stopping along the way. The camels were quite a nut-cracker for the males in the group. The sun set as we rode the camels. After dismounting; there were no falls fortunately; we caught the motorboat back to the cruise ship and packed up our gear ready for checking out in the early hours of the morning. We went down for dinner at 8pm and then finished packing everything up and settled our drinks tab/bill. Then off to bed for an early night, although there was a Nubian show on in the main room of the boat involving drums, so we basically lied there listening to that until it finished.

 

2008-04-10

Summary

- Abu Simbel

- Crap lunch at Nile Hotel

- Nubian dinner

Our wake-up call on Thursday morning was at 3:30am. We cleared our stuff out of the room and got our passports from the safe deposit boxes before catching a bus at 4am, which took us to where the police convoy started. The only way to get to Abu Simbel by road is with a police convoy (there is an option to fly but it costs more than twice as much). The bus ride to Abu Simbel took about 3 hours; the sun rising along the way. We went down to the Abu Simbel temple. The 4 statues of Ramses II were huge. There was a line of baboon statues above it and beside Ramses’s legs were statues of his wives and daughters… 38 wives I think it was that he had and about 120 children. We entered the temple, which was in very good condition; most of the pictures graffiti-free and still maintaining the original colouration. In the end room of the temple sat 4 statues; 3 gods and 1 of Ramses II. Two days a year; in Feb and in Oct; the morning light shines all the way through the temple onto the forehead of the Ramses II statue, while the rest of the temple remains in the dark. My camera cops a pounding in these temples with all of the pushy tourists. In this end room, one of the many pushy French tourists knocked a button on my camera making a sound, so I looked down at the camera to figure out what had happened and some dude comes running over yelling at me ‘no photos, no photos’ and tries to grab my camera. I yanked it from him and told him I hadn’t taken a photo, I’d just knocked a button and showed him the last photo (which was taken outside the temple).

We went onto the next temple, which was the smaller temple for the queen. After going through both temples we waited around until we were supposed to meet our tour guide again; I took a few snaps of the exteriors of the temples at this point since the crowds had cleared a lot since when we’d first got there. When I went to the toilet, paying a pound to get in, there were more females in the male’s toilets than males… I thought I’d gone in the wrong one at first. We headed off on the bus for the 3 hour ride back to Aswan. Along the way, you could see plenty of mirages. I was surprised how much they actually do look like a body of water; even reflecting the mountains in the background. We passed by the High Dam, one of the world’s largest dams. When we got to our Aswan hotel, Nile Hotel, we checked in and had lunch at the hotel restaurant. The lunch was quite frankly crap. Most of the food was cold and my chicken schnitzel was very poor quality, still containing bone and really crappy chicken. When we went back upstairs, I found that the toilet had leaked all over my camera bag, which I left locked up in the bathroom. After removing everything from my bag to let it dry out, I updated my daily happenings and backed up my photos, while Skye had a nap.

We went out for dinner in a Nubian home, visiting a Nubian school along the way, where our tour leader Mohamed gave us a history lesson on Egypt. We had dinner sitting on carpets and cushions in an open concrete room. After dinner we headed back to our hotel where most of the group hung out for a few hours in Mohamed’s room. I wasn’t feeling brilliant though, so I went to bed early.

 

2008-04-11

Summary

- Bazaar / markets

- Nubian restaurant

We slept in on Friday morning until about 9:30am. We went downstairs for breakfast at the hotel restaurant… which didn’t improve since lunch time yesterday… breakfast was only a hard boiled egg, some bread and a small pancake. We decided that we would definitely not be eating lunch and dinner at the Nile Hotel today! We went for a walk through the Bazaars and markets; I’m actually starting to enjoy stirring up the store owners. I started telling them I was from China when they ask where I’m from. One guy laughed at me and asked again and I said China again and then he stopped laughing and wasn’t sure whether I was serious or not; it was pretty funny, one of those had to be there moments I think. So many of them have big signs here that say ‘no hassle’, yet the shop owners are calling out to you ‘come and look in my shop, no hassling, come and look inside’… errr isn’t that hassling already?… Anyway Skye haggled her way to a 10 LE purchase, and we headed back to the hotel. We caught a motorboat across the Nile to El Dokka Restaurant (or something like that anyway) for lunch. Lunch was expensive, but the food was quite good for a change. I had a Nubian cocktail (technically a mocktail though as they didn’t serve alcohol there), which was a mix of guava, mango and strawberry juice; quite tasty.

Back to the hotel, the others headed off on a felucca cruise. Skye and I had been umm-ing and arr-ing about whether to go as we’ve been on so many felucca cruises already; but when I asked Mohammed whether there was a canopy or any shade on the felucca and he said no, then we decided we’d give it a pass as it was bloody hot outside! Instead we chilled out in the air conditioned hotel room.

We had dinner at the hotel restaurant again as it had already been paid for. After dinner we finished packing up our gear and then got the bus to the train station for the overnight recliner train back to Cairo. Nate and Skye both got seats that reclined all the way back to lying position, but they both ended up with people sitting behind them anyway so couldn’t recline the seats all of the way.