De Nile is a river in Egypt - who knew

I am going to try and do this in bite size pieces, but then again, I can eat a lot sometimes. If you made it through my primer to Egypt you probably want to know exactly what I did. Or maybe you don't, but then why are you still reading?… So here is the first part of the day by day account of the trip.

Day 1 (20/12)
Fight with London Tube to get to my flight. The line I usually take was down due to "signal" failure - at 5am… So I managed to jump two different trains to get me in the general direction of the airport and then took a very expensive early morning taxi to get there in time. My flight connected via Geneva and arrived in Cairo in the evening. I was picked up at the airport by a tour rep and driven to the hotel. That was a hell of an introductory to driving in Egypt, magnified by my driver's complete lack of English… Like I described, imagine driving on 485 around Charlotte during rush hour but about 6 cars wide. Add in the amble use of flashing headlights (they didn't keep them on, just flashed 'em) and car horns. Also realise that taxis and other cars were apt to stop anywhere, in any lane, with whatever traffic around to either pickup or drop off a fare… Like I said, hell of an intro to Cairo. I did get to see some awesome views of Cairo at night, boats on the Nile all lit up and a surprisingly impressive skyline. However my hotel was less than impressive. My tour was a "budget" tour using "tourist" class hotels… HA. The hotel might have been nice once upon a time, but not so much any more. The easiest way to describe it (and the majority of the ones we stayed in) as on par with the cheap hotels that you booked in college when you planned a last minute trip to Myrtle in the middle of the high season. Not great but you can stand it. However, I ain't in college no more but I don't mind slumming it a bit. The funniest thing was the elevator that didn't have an interior door… so yea you could touch each floor as you went by and you had to be a little careful not to get caught on it. Otherwise the most noticeable thing was that it seemed as though nothing was plum in there… all the walls seemed to be just less than straight, all the rooms not quite square… But it worked (well, not the water the first night, but they fixed it by the morning). I also found a KFC around the corner where most (if not all) of the employees were deaf. They were really fast and funny. Yup - a KFC. Hay a snack pack was about 12LE (about £1.50) and you got fries, 2 pieces of chicken and a roll. Not bad.

Day 2 (21/12)
I would be remiss right now if I didn't stop and comment on Egypt and my group. First off my tour - we started as about 25 (mainly Aussies and Kiwis, with a pair of Malaysians, a pair of Columbian, an English and a Canadian). However the majority of our tour were couples or friends with a trio of Kiwi guys travelling together and a couple of solo Kiwi travellers. I mention this only because you will see a lot of my pictures including the other solo travellers or the Krazy Kiwi trio. The couples were off and all couply a lot. I am sure I don't have to mention it, but my accent(s) still confused the tour group and definitely dumbfounded the Egyptians. Our tour leader was an Egyptian guy named Hamada. He was actually really laid back and funny. He is from Luxor and has been doing tours for about 8 years, so he definitely knew people in each town. Sometimes they knew were with him before we even said anything. So it was a good group, no one really complained too much.

Egypt was well crazy. It is a third world country so things are going to be different. But between that, the regional, Islamic, old Coptic Christian and general Western influences it was definitely amazing at times. The people were generally really nice and friendly. I was never worried about my safety or anything (see entry about Luxor… sometimes I should be). It was definitely an awesome place and I am glad I went. Anyway…

We loaded up our bus and went to the Cairo Museum, Giza (Pyramids and Sphinx) and a papyrus museum/store/tourist trap. The Cairo Museum was cool but you can't take your camera in. There are all kinds of statues, 100s of sarcophagi, two rooms of mummies (I didn't bother with those. Figure excavating a 300 yr old burial back in school was cool enough and I've seen a mummy before). There was also the Tutankhamen room. His tomb is really only famous because it is the only one that has been found that wasn't robbed. So it had his massive golden mask and sarcophagi as well as loads of other goodies. There was also a really cool jewellery room. Its incredible to see the level detail that there were able to make items at so long ago. Especially using different stones, loads of gold and other metals. They say that there are so many artefacts, that if you stop for 1 minute at each one, you would be in the museum for over 3 months (or was it years). Either way there were tons of things to look at and of all kinds (jewellery, sarcophagi, furniture, statues, all manner of everyday objects and anything you could imagine… ok almost.)

Then we pack off and drove out to Giza. Giza is really just a neighbourhood/borough/whatever in Cairo. It just happens that that is where the Pyramids and Sphinx are. The city would have expanded past it by now but they are not allowed to build there so as to protect the site. The city is literally right across the street, something I never realised before. So we walked around the pyramids and sphinx, took some stupid pictures, watched the camels go by. And saw the best/worst cop ever - cop on a camel. Made me laugh for ages, not sure why, just did. Then we trekked over to a papyrus shop and looked around. I didn't buy any there but I bought some at the end of the trip, probably not as good quality but loads cheaper and I didn't have to carry it around for the whole 2 weeks.

Then we were supposed to take a harrowing overnight train 14ish hrs to Aswan. But the train was on Egyptian time and was already running 6 hours late. So they arranged for us to take the tour bus all the way. That was a good thing and a bad one. I don't sleep too much most days and even less on buses/trains/planes. I got to see a lot of the countryside, from dusk to midmorning from the bus windows. It was actually pretty cool. We got to a long stretch where the left hand side of the road was desolate desert and the right was lush palm trees and Nile irrigated farm land. Plus we had stopped at the Sheraton to purchase duty free… it was a long bus ride, we needed some drinks. And maybe some bad karaoke and alcohol fuelled bus shenanigans. But all in all it was a good way to get to know people. We also stopped at a shopping centre, where 2 others and I decided it would be a good idea to buy Santa hats that played Christmas carols and had blinky lights whenever you pressed the button… sounded like a great idea really, I mean no one will get annoyed with us playing them continuously over the next three days… will they??