First day in Egypt (#9)

Cairo is large, noisy, and suprisingly chaotic (cross the street if you dare). Nonetheless, it is peppered with a myriad of fascinating sights, including various mosques, coptic churches, museums, and market places. All of us arrived at different times of the night (Danny from Spain and us from Turkey) and believe it or not, were able to locate our hostel.
After a few hours of sleep, we decided to start off our trip with the non plus ultra of Egyptian tourist hotspots- the Pyramids!
Wanting to do the real deal, we opted for Sketch Tours (we found out this was its real name later on :) ) which took us to the Pyramids through the back gate. Before embarking on the tour, the owner wanted us to try some of his wife's cooking and ushered us in to their living room. It was obvious that the meal was not meant for guests, as we ate off the table and although we do not speak arabic we could tell that she was just as surprised as we were (making our intrusion all the more akward).

One of our more akward moments

Of course, what would a trip through the desert be like without camels? Answer: A trip without blisters, sore legs, back pains, and a raw ridden bum. Nonetheless, we managed to make friends with the camels, who gave us quite a ride for our money.

Make way.... here comes Heidi

Lawrence of Alemania

Camels have a will of their own

Cleopatra prepares for embalming

Happy to be off the camels

The three knights of Camel-lot

Since we had hired a driver for the day, he took us to see many other sights including the "Papyrus Museum" (which is merely a hotel lobby store), some market places, and to the Coptic area. Our driver was very personable and when we mentioned that we were hungry he treated us to Egyptian fastfood, known as "Kosheri".... we think it's just kosher food with an "i" added. It's cheap and good!

Our dinner was "Kosheri"....tastes better than it looks

Danny in the Coptic Area

Finally our last stop was Carrefoure where we purchased masses of Egyptian pastries, quite to the delight of Katharina. We then returned to our hostel and spent the evening munching on our "sweeties" and catching up on the last two weeks.

First day in Egypt (#9)

Cairo, Egypt