our fabulous time in Cairo!

Laura's post

So things didn't go as planned the other day. The plan was to see the pyramids the morning, but after I wrote, I went up to bed, set the alarm for 7 and attempted sleep. Well, both of us were jet lagged still. We slept for about 2 hours, and then woke up in the middle of the night and tossed and turned until about 5 in the morning. When the alarm went off, it got turned off and we slept until about 10:30.
We got up and went for breakfast. It comes included with our hotel. Good thing as there are barely any restaurants here and I'm not sure we would find anything so easily. We got 2 buns, a hard boiled egg, a fancy little bun thing with tomatoes on top, cheese, jam and tea with milk. A nice carb filled breakfast to keep us going for the day! We wandered around the congested crazy city for a while looking for the Egypt air office as Chris wants to change a flight for when he returns, and we searched for a bank to exchange travellers cheques. That was a huge mission in itself, as we got directed to many other places, getting incorrect directions along the way. We eventually found our way, cashed our cheques, and headed to the giant tourist Bazaar, Khan el Kahlili.
We decided to take the metro, and underground train station. The guidebook we are using told us which train would get us closest to the market but what it didn't tell us was it was a 2km or so walk to the market through local markets, and local everything. Very overwhelming as Cairo is a HUGE city, and the amount of people we walked through and traffic we had to avoid was crazy. I also feel as though I am being constantly stared at and it freaks me out. I am making sure I am wearing pants and long sleeves, but it gets HOT in the day!
Crossing the street is another thing. No one follows any kind of road rules while driving and people just cross the street whenever and where ever. We learned a good way to do it though. Stand close (like really close) to a local and when they go, you go. And you have to go fast, or for sure you will be run over.
Anyways, we walked though the streets and eventually found our way to the market where we were harassed by every vendor. They try to guess what language you speak and start talking in Spanish, Italian, English....anything to get your attention to buy from them. They also yell out comments to women, like nice hair (ha, nice try-i got that comment, greasy pony tail and all!), and other various awkward uncomfortable things. I'm not sure if they are all compliment to help with a sale, but they are just plain creepy. Chris usually just gets "lucky guy" as we walk by. Can't say I disagree with them there! haha We left empty handed, but got some good pictures. We eventually found our way back with a ride in a taxi! Much better way of transportation!
In the evening we took a taxi to the train station as we are heading to Luxor tonight. That again was a mission cause the cabbie first of didn't understand us and took us to the Ramses Hilton intead of the Ramses Station. Then he eventually got us to the station after sitting in traffic for 45 minutes. I guess in that case the cab wasn't the best option as the Metro got us back in 10 minutes! We also left the train station as the train was booked for Luxor until FEB 24th or something!!!!!!!!! Well, we will be in Kenya by then, so that didn't help us. But with the help of a travel agent, we got tickets for the 10 hour train ride tonight.
He also arranged for us to see the pyramids today. After another crappy sleep, (not sure if I am still jet lagged-didnt fall asleep until 3am) We got picked up at the hotel at 9am and headed off to the pyramids. How amazing!! We saw the spyinx and the pyramids of giza first. Very awesome sight. They are totally surrounded buy the city though which I never imagined. We spent about 2 hours there being bothered by camel dudes wanting to sell us crazy priced camel rides and horse rides etc. Chris almost got into a fist fight with one guy! not really, but he was sworn at! The man told him to take a picture for free of me and the camel, and then he told Chris to get in the picture and then after the picture demanded money. We said no cause he said it was free and then he started to yell, "I said free for your wife not you, you f'n shit tourist!!!! yikes, we got away from him fast, but we also have a nice picture! hahah
From there we went to Saqqara, another pyramid. It was not impressive after Giza, but it was different, and from there to Dahshur, where we were able to go into the Red Pyramid. We climed up the pyramid on steep steps and then down inside even steeper make shift steps. I got to the bottom and turned around and walked out as the air was so stale I could hardly breath. Yuck. Still a neat experience though!
We came back into town after that, wandered around for a bit, had some tea which slightly reminds me of Indian Chai, and now we are using the internet killing time before we catch the dreaded train to Luxor. NOT looking forward to the ride, but with a couple of gravol and some earplugs it should be OK! Just happy to leave this city. Neither of us like it here very much.

I would love to add some pictures from today and yesterday, but the computer is so ancient, I'm not sure I could figure it out. I will put some on as soon as I can though!


Chris's post

a cockroach just ran from out from under my keyboard what a nice way to start first email also keyboards have different keyboards so i'll try my best at correct typing bear with me well flight were okay aside from havinbg different course than laura but we met up in london before coming here so that was good i wasn't even in toronto yet and already i spilled sweet n sour red sause on my shirt that sucks as i was planning on wearing it a few days at least and here i looked like sloppy slob for other 2 flights laura is soo lucky to have me ain't she!!!!!!!!!!!

got to aiprot here and got taxi ride from guy at 85 lbs(1 egyptr lb is about .20) after first guy asked 120 so we were quitye proud then laura just read price should be 40 - 60 or around 80 for a limo.........................so guess our deal wasn't as good as we thought oh well interesteing driver that was so busy showing us pictures of his family on his cell phone that laura n i were both nervous and we just bout hit guardrail a few times...................trafic is absolutley crazy here waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too many people here 22 million in 1 city!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! crazy
checked into hotel it is okay but laura found a few hairs in the single bed i slept in so guess they just remade it n neve changed sheets she figures oh well i'm still alive ticks me off our room is okay i don't miond dirty sheets when room is 2.00 or 3.00 i just sleep in my clothes but we are paying almost 30.00/nioght then it sucks we have steaming hot water though so that is a rarity we both appreciate comes with free breakfest as well and good location

first day we went to egyptian museum amazing how many artivacts from tombs they had and actuall mummies n all sorts of things u couldn't imagine gold chairs n beds n horse chariots did more walking around weird being in muslum country seeign woman wearing veils over face showing only their eyes nd men in those robes that look like dreses walking arm in arm very overcrowded n pollution n dirty here

2'nd day we were up most of the night cuz of jet lag then fell asleep at round 7:00 am so slept in till 10:00 ish then did lots of walking went to this bazaar like a morroccan medina all sorts of narrow windy lil path with shops selling everything u could imagien for locals and a section aimed at tourists major hassle people trying to constantly call out to u and tell u every excuse under the stars to get u into their shop some grabbign your arm even laura totally got stared at actually every second we r out of hotel she is constantly stared at think she hates it i know she is hot but they r overboard n totally blatantly stare we both get stared at but her way more......................must be the sweet n sour stain on my shirt turning then off from my good looks

i have been told many times/day that i am lucky man and she gets many a cheesy compliments from men with really bad teeth wearing dresses...............................ah travelling gota love it

did lots of walking and agaiun last night trouble sleeping hopefully jet lag is over but we r just killing time as we have 10 or 13 hour train ride i think depending how far south we go took cab last night to train station rameses station with cab driver that didn't speak english 5 mintues into ride he stoped to get a man in a suit to interpreut for us where we wanted to go and we ended up at ramses suites fancy hotel then asked another person and we got stuck in traffic couldn't communicate at all both us thinking we were in cab waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long wondering were we would end up but we actually ended up at right statuion. his fingernails were long n dirty n teeth quite bad but he offered me a smoke...........smoking pooor laura out in the back seat while he drove and only charged us under 3.00 so he wasn't that bad a guy i laughed and shock his hand afetr almost an hour in cab 45 mins forsureat station we waited in lines , while locals rudely cut in front of us shoving in front, and spoke to different people only to find out after much time n frustration that tickets were sold oput !!!!!!!!!!!!!! tookj the crowsded underground subway back to centra of town and spoke to travel agebts to day trip to pyramids today found one waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay cheaper than all other qoutes like 1/3 cheaper than some about 18.00 for entire day 3 sites about 30 kms out of town sghitty sleep again last night still jet lag......................oh anoither cockroach here yuck i hate them.,anyways this guys price was soo cheap i joked to laura maybe he was gonna take us out to desert n rob us so i stashed money in my bag n underwear(heaven help anyone reaching in there for money they'd deserve it) anyways driver was funny guy and honestly i figured we'd be alrght was legitimate comapny arranged from gues everyone was trying to rip us off waaaaaaaaaay more n no doubt being tourists we still gopt ripped off by this guy but not soo much we even tipped driver 4.00 as he secretely brought us into one site and drove around the place we were t buy entrance tickets so he saved us 12.00 and i always love shifty kinda business that same business owner got us some kinda blackmarket, undergrouhd bought up train ticket so we are actually able to go now as lat night we were told train sold out now miracuosly this travel agent found us tickets see this is why i like shifty kinda business.................no doubt he got his cut be we aren't wasting another day here in this overcrowded ciuty
oh the 700.00 wallet just under 700.00 actually first morning front desk called to say the last guy prob the hairs in my bed were from him laura figues anyways he hid wallet under bed and they asked us to look.................i lifted up my matress and there was wallet i was expecting a few dollars and we counted 6 100.00 us bills plus egypt. pounds what a find!!!!!!!!!!!!! i would never keep it being human obviously crosed my mind for a second or two but it would be bad karma n if i lost my wallet i would want someone else to return it so i returned this one......................still 700.00 us wow i wonder if guy at fround desk took the money n said it was empty???????????????????????????????? i thought he mighta given us a lil reward u'd think he shoulda but maybe he gave it to guy at front desk n he kept it??????????????????????????? oh well glad todo good deed well crappy train ride ahead n we gotta eat n get food for the train gonna run off to luxor in 3 hours