Saturday 24th October
As its before 5am when we land in Cairo, it is no surprise that getting through the airport is pretty easy. It would have been nicer had Egyptair let us sleep, but they insisted on feeding people during the flight, and basically didn't turn out the lights. I can't understand why, no matter which timezone, London or Cairo, you are in, it is still the middle of the night.
Anyway getting out to the taxi rank I head for my hotel out near the Pyramids, but get the bright idea of heading down to see if I can see them at dawn. Of course telling that to the taxi driver means that he hurtles off at 120k. Now I thought Cairo was a 24/7 city, but at 5am the roads seem pretty empty.
Anyway even with the speed, it turned out I didn't make the Pyramids quite in time, and also it was closed off for a visit by dignitaries. I actually thought it was the local lads trying to do a version of the your hotel is closed scam, in this case the Pyramids are closed because of a visit by the President as they told me, it turned out that later when I looked it up it was actually some Breast Cancer thing with the Presidents wife.
You could of course hire a horse or camel and ride to a hill that overlooks the Pyramids, but because of the smog that hangs over Cairo, you can't see anything. Still I did get to see a pack of wild dogs eating a dead camel (and another pack eating a dead horse), which you don't get to see every day. It was pretty bizarre, but by the time I got my camera out only one dog was left.
The same guys who told me (correctly - I'm still amazed that it wasn't a scam) that I couldn't get in at that hour, did let me go up onto their roof to have a look. It was a great view, but the camera couldn't get it, because it turns out the smog in the air was pretty thick.
After all that it was time to head to the hotel. As it was about 9 now, and the traffic was pretty bad. When I got there I eventually convinced them to store my luggage (they wouldn't do it without a room number, trying to convince them that I had no room number until they let me check in later was the challenge), and I headed out to look around the city.
I decided to walk to the Metro station, as on the map it looked like it was only a 20 minute walk but in fact it turned out to be a 45 minute walk. In the heat (about 30 degrees) this felt a lot more. Still it was an interesting way to see a bit of the city that you normally wouldn't see. Eventually I got to the metro and here I think I suffered my first scam of the say. I'm fairly sure that I got the 50 cent note change instead of the 50 pound note. I wasn't 100% sure what I handed in but I am fairly sure they shortchanged me. From the official desks. I was not entirely happy.
The metro train turned up in a few seconds, they seem fairly frequent, but the Lonely Planet nearly got me in trouble at this point. The LP said that the first 2 carriages on the train were reserved for women, so I stood down the platform, but when the train arrived there were these symbols like those on women's toilets on the middle carriages. So I guessed these were the women's carriages, so I had to run back up the platform.
The metro got me into the centre of town fairly quickly, and then I had a wander around the downtown and the main markets. It wasn't very impressive, and it takes a good photographer to show how ordinary these areas are, and I'm not that good a photographer. While wandering around these places I didn't really see many more tourists, but the Egyptians seems quite polite and I didn't feel threatened at any point. I did once pick up a little posse, 2 kids started following me, but I put on a burst of speed and lost them.
After that I decided to walk to the Citadel, which is one of the main sights on the tourist trail, but when I got there it was closed. This was after quite a long walk, but I decided to continue on and look inside a mosque quite nearby. The guy at the door seemed quite friendly, and said the mosque was also used for Christians on a Sunday. There did seem to be some Christian influences in it. Anyway for a donation to the orphans fund, which he probably pilfered afterwards, I was allowed up the minaret where I got some good shots of the city.
After that instead of hanging around the Citadel I went up the nearby Mokattam hill which overlooks the whole city. This is supposed to give good views of the city, but with the haze it wasn't very clear. Still it was a bit cooler, and the restaurant I found had a nice cliff side view. And I could get a beer. Here I was joined by a local called Abdu, who insisted on giving me a load of advice about the city, even though I didn't ask. I think he was after a beer, which I offered and he accepted.
After that I headed back to the hotel to check in. I had planned to visit one or two other sites, but the whole not having sleep overnight because of the flight was beginning to catch up on me. And the fact that I was standing in the lobby for an hour checking in due to the bad reception staff. So when I got to my room and lay down for a second, I dropped off for a couple of hours.
I was woken by the arrival of James, me new roommate. As part of the group I will be continuing around Egypt with, he came with the information that he was the only person collected at the airport, and that there will only be 5 on the trip. Which is less than the 8 I was expecting. Obviously the quality of the trip will depend slightly on who they are. James met the guide, and I'll meet him and the others in the morning.
Anyway I had a chat with James, who seems sound, and then we headed out for a bit of a shopping trip, which turned into another exploration of the bits of Cairo off the tourist trail. The shops are actually quite similar to the ones at home. This was underscored by the fact that we saw a ketchup in the local supermarket that is a handmade ketchup made in Essex that isn't even very easy to get hold of in the UK.
