Alone in Cairo

Everyone else was catching a morning plane to Aswan. Martin and I had booked separately and weren't flying down until later that night. We missed breakfast with everyone. Martin made a filled roll just quietly but was spotted by a waitress who basically told him it was a great idea. Funny. We checked out and stowed our luggage for the day. Then we caught another dodgy cab up to the Citadel on the hill.

To get there, we went past the slum areas. It was a real eye opener for me. The piles of rubbish with people scavenging, the undernourished work animals and carts stacked high with I don't know what. It was really sad. We arrived at the citadel to find dozens of school groups waiting for their dodgy bus rides home. They all called 'hello, hello!' and 'how are you?' It was kind of cheeky and cute. They seemed to run wild.

The citadel was another un tourist friendly attraction, but still rather interesting. We had to tip a guard to let us over a rope to a lookout of the city. Honestly, everyone wants a piece of you in Cairo, or a piece of your wallet that is. Then we went wandering into the museum up there. It was where Mohammad Ali had his offices and home. No labels and an old man in an oversized guide jacket followed us into the courtyard insisting on telling us what was around the run down place. Then of course we had to tip him. Apparantly we didn't tip him enough. We went inside and it wasn't that interesting unfortunately. Mostly cos we didn't really know what we were looking at. On the way out the guard from the lookout was waiting for us as we had failed to tip him earlier. Gees Louise.

The mosque was pretty cool. It was designed beautifully and the highlight of the Citadel visit. We left after eating our packed lunch on a grassy patch. I think Cairo could do well if they put a bit more into their attractions. Though, they should probably take care of their people first I think.

We jumped in another cab and were returned wearily to our hotel. We had a few hours to kill so got a coffee and soda on the roof terrace. It was hilarious. There was cigarette ash in my glass and floating on top of Martin's cappuccino. Gross and funny. It just highlighted how much smoking is a part of the culture here. They smoke everywhere and anywhere. Then we went and chilled on some couches and waited for an appropriate time to enter the bar. Following this, we had dinner at the restaurant and then headed to the airport for our flight to Aswan. I should mention that on the way in our dodgy cab we were dinged into by another car. Our cabby got out, shrugged his shoulders and continued on his way. Crazy. All the cars have dings in them unsurprisingly.

Arriving in Aswan with a bit more experience, we were able to haggle our own taxi cab into the city. We were dropped right outside our hotel. It was really late by this time. The hotel was directly opposite the Movenpick which we were booked into the following night with the family. So that was handy. Pretty crazy hotel the Isis. It was outdoors with the rooms opening onto paths winding around the river banks. Pretty cool and very basic.