Arriving in Cairo, Egypt

This morning was a little sombre as the news in the apartment block all seemed to be a little bit doom and gloom, with news of my friends visa added to this being my last morning here.

As a nice finishing touch I downloaded some photos for them before I had to pack up all my stuff and once again head of towards yet another airport, but at least this time my friend was taking me there.

Once I got to the airport it was the perfect arrival time of just a fraction longer than two hours before flight time, so ideal for check in and then boarding. Or at least it would have been if the flight was not moved to a different gate twice and delayed twice, making it a much more hectic time and meant that a mini trip to see the pyramids today was out of the question.

However in the line up queue in front of me were two very friendly teachers from the states and once we heard the news that our flight was delayed we got bored and went off for a coffee.

As luck would have it the second time the flight gate was moved to it ended up right outside our coffee shop, which sort of made sence to us, and so we just sat, drank tea and talked til everyone else had already boarded the flight and then joined the back of the line.

The flight was further delayed by standing on the tarmac and unfortunately I wasn't sat anywhere near my two new friends A' & B' but at the least we had arranged to meet up again on the other side and clear customs together.

Once customs was cleared, at the expense of 85 LE sticky visa stamp, I pulled off a bit of a coup as I managed to ride with them in their privately arranged taxi paid for by the hotel for guests staying longer than 6 nights, complete with an old battered meter that is easily twice as old as I am.

By the time we reached out hotel it was still daytime just, but the location was in such a weird and hard to find location that we all had reservations about if we or even a taxi driver could ever find it again, especially late at night.

Once in the hotel there turned out to be no spare rooms for me, so I was bowled over when A' & B' said that I could stay in their room, which had a whopping 4 beds inside it, and that we could just split the bill three ways for the two nights I was there. This was great for me, as it saved me a lot of time and money, not to mention it gave us all more time to chat and get to know each other and within minutes we were plotting and planning where we could go and what we could do.

Just at that moment one of the guys from the next room came in and told us that he had arrived yesterday and that the taxi driver had stolen his passport and wallet while he was rubber necking his way from the airport. However far being a very bad story, the next day ( being today ) he was sent for by the police as they had caught the theif working over yet another tourist while he still had our guys wallet and passport on him. The thief was forced to give back our guys money and then he was given a bit of a beating, right then and there in from on teh guest, before being taken away and thrown into jail. So for him he has what I think amounts to a nice story already and he has yet to visit anyplace.

My friends A' & B' then found out that a few of their other teacher colleagues were also staying here in the same little hotel, so we all arranged to go have dinner and then maybe even stroll through one of the nighttime bazarres if we got time.

For the meal we went to a place called La Bodega, which was a very funky place to visit ... done up like the 1920's and 30's all Toulouse La Trek with the decorations and the prices were very reasonable. For the next few hours we all just sat around the table and swapped stories and travel hints. Although I had done more of South America than most of the group, they sure had me down cold for visiting places like Africa or the Middle East, with the Far East and Europe being about equal.

My experiences travelling had always been either to visit friends or sighseing but with their overseas teaching, aid work and peace keeping efforts where they had worked and lived for two or three years in plenty of places and so had a real chance to get to know the locals, find the good haunts and chance upon discovering some terrific stories and urban legends, which I feel should be written up.

After some good company and scrummy food we then went for a trip down memory lane for some of us while other wandered anew as we went to a few restaurants, antique shops and such all looking for just things that looked shiney and even had fun practicing haggle with the locals just for fun.

My best tip learned ws not to bother arguing with the local taxi drivers, but to first fix a price and anything more than 20 pounds while inside cairo city centre is being over generous, and for anyone who forgets this then the best advice is then to get out without paying at the other end and then just pass through around 10 or 15 pounds, to which they will all say is not enough but then they would say that if you gave them 50 or even 150 it would still be "no no, a little more, is not enough !!!"

Finally with a very early start train ride to Alexandria tomorrow morning we all figured it would be best to go back and try to get some sleep, so my opportunity to see Belly Dancing or smoke shisha and not to mention that I will be try to visit the Pyramids early morning the next day before leaving for an early afternoon flight to Athens.