TRIP ONE: Egypt Day 2

Day two started out with a 5am wakeup call thanks to our local mosque and its call to prayer followed by a nice warm shower and a quick packing of bags.  Everyone headed downstairs to grab some breakfast and check out.  Before we got on our tour bus, everyone decided upon which optional tours we wanted to go on.  Genevieve and I decided to do just about everything because, as the kids say, when in Egypt!  Or is it Rome?  Whatever.

Everyone hopped on the bus and we headed toward The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities.  It turns out that this museum is located in the very heart of Tahrir Square, which happens to be where all the protests began on January 25th, 2011.  We proceeded to tour the museum, learning about Egyptian sculptures and the different Egyptian gods they depicted.  When we got upstairs in the museum, we went into the King Tut room and saw the actual gold mask that sat on his coffin 3500 years ago!  Once the shock wore off, Genevieve and I headed off to find the room of mummified animals -- I KNOW, RIGHT!?  We saw everything from mummified cattle organs to mummified 14' long crocodiles.  It was absolutely incredible.

After we left the museum, we all proceeded to the bus -- except for Liv and Ben, but they like to live dangerously.  We drove through central Cairo on the way to Giza, which is just over the Nile.  As we were passing over the bridge, Genevieve took a picture of one of the lion statues that guards the bridge.  These lions have been seen all over the news during the Egyptian protests because this area of the city acted as a rallying point.

Once we passed over the bridge, we drove down Pyramid Avenue toward Giza.  After a few minutes driving down the strip, we came upon the pyramids.  Wow.  This is the view that we had from the bus as we drove up to the entrance gate.

I could go on about day two of our trip for pages, but I'll try and keep it short.  So I'm going to just put up a slew of pictures and let you guys pour over them because my words won't be able to do any of it justice.  For the record, YES, we were allowed to climb on the pyramids because there was awful security due to the recent political instability.  There's always a silver lining!

After climbing on the pyramids and taking the pictures of a lifetime, we all hopped on some camels and took a camel tour out into the desert to some more pyramid pictures.  I would be lying if I said riding a camel wasn't the scariest thing I've ever done in my life.  That being said, if you ever get the chance to ride a camel, DO IT!  It was so exciting and may have been my favourite part of the entire trip.

After spending all day around the pyramids, Sherif brought us to a traditional Egyptian restaurant for dinner where we had a four course dinner full of falafel, hummus, pickled vegetables, grilled chicken, rice, and a myriad of other food that I can't remember.  Oh, and we had the most delicious fresh mango juice!  After dinner, Sherif spent a few minutes smoking sheesha and a few people on the tour found bumper cars around the restaurant and decided to give them a shot.  Once everyone was full, finished smoking, and finished bumping cars, we all boarded the tour bus and headed off to the train stop.

Not too long after arriving at the train station did we board the train.  I was absolutely exhausted, so once we got on the train, I just wanted to go to bed.  However, after bringing our bags to our car, some bellhop walked into our cabin and threw Genevieve's bag up in an overhead storage space.  Immediately after, we saw that upturned palm and heard "money?"  WE DIDN'T WANT OUR BAG UP THERE.  PLEASE LEAVE US ALONE.  But we were too polite and hadn't become numb to the whole "give me money" culture yet, so we ended up tipping him and I immediately took Genevieve' bag back down so she could get her pajamas.

I just wanted to turn the couch into a bed and go to sleep.  But I couldn't, because we had to let the cabin crew come through and serve us dinner, which Sheriff told us we weren't allowed to eat.  After we didn't eat our dinner, we had to wait for the cabin crew to come by and take away our dinner trays.  About a half hour after our dinner was taken away, the cabin crew came through and turned our couch into bunk beds so we had more room for activities!  I don't remember much else from that night because I passed out immediately once I climbed into the top bunk.  I slept like a baby, which was good because we had a big ahead of us tomorrow!

TRIP ONE: Egypt Day 1

Contiki: Egypt and the Nile.

Day one was exhausting.  Genevieve and I disembarked from JFK at 6:30pm on Friday and arrived in Cairo at 12:30pm on Saturday.  We were guided through the airport by our Contiki representative who was extremely helpful.  We had to purchase our visas in the airport, which turned out to effectively be a way for the Egyptian government to generate income more than anything else.  Once we got our visas and picked up our bags, we hopped in the shuttle bus and headed off to our first hotel, the Victoria.

Once we arrived at the hotel, we got our room key and hopped in the elevator.  The bellhop grabbed our bags and showed us to our room.  He felt the need to turn on and off each light in the room, as if to teach us how they worked.  This was our first introduction to the overused open upturned palm followed by "money?"  As I'm sure I will talk about later, tipping is a way of life in Egypt and no one is shy about asking for money.

Once we gave the bellhop some cash, we both immediately fell asleep for about four hours.  I slept for about an hour on the plane and Genevieve did not sleep at all, so we were running on fumes.  We then woke up and ran downstairs to meet the rest of the tour group and our tour guide, Sherif.  First, let me not overstate how incredible Sherif was.  He did everything from tell us where to eat, what to buy, where to buy it, and how much to pay.  He was amazing!  Anyway, back to the first night.  Sherif made us all introduce ourselves and gave us the option of four different places to eat that night.  Nine of us went to Gad, which is similar to an Arabian fast food diner.  I was the only male, which made for an interesting walk home through the busy streets of Cairo.

On the walk back, we decided to stop off at a gas station grocery market.  However, the walk there was filled of loud horns, near hit-and-runs, and cat calls at the eight girls I was walking with.  Welcome to Egypt!  We all ended up getting bits and bobs from the grocery market and miraculously found our way back to the hotel.  Genevieve and I went directly to sleep because Sunday's wakeup was 6am!

BRIEF INTRODUCTION

This is me.

I'm normally not on camelback or in Egypt, but I recently was and said time spent in Egypt inspired me to make a travel blog for that trip and any future trips I may take.  I hope you enjoy reading about my travels and if you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to comment below any post and I'll be sure to respond.

All the best,

Liam