The Road back to Cairo

OK, early this morning I caught a plane back to Cairo. I figured I have done most of what I wanted to do in Luxor, the Valley of the Kings would have been good to explore a bit further, but it is too damned hot there, so I have moved back to (relatively) cooler climes. The weather is pleasantly warm (low 30s), but not boiling like it was in Luxor.

Upon landing I headed straight for my hotel room at the Nile Hilton. I am really lucky, the room I have allows me to see both the Nile from my balcony and the Egyptian museum (where Tutankhamun's death mask et al. is all kept.

The view of the Nile from my balcony

Egyptian museum by day as viewd from my balcony........

...and by night

All in all, I have really not done much today, I walked over to the Egyptian museum (I am so close to it, noone could get lost trying to find this place (with maybe one exception, who shall remain nameless ;) ) but by the time I got there, I was informed that it was closing (shops close early here for Ramadan), so I just snapped a couple of exterior shots of the building.

The first thing you notice about Cairo is that you are not getting constantly pestered on the streets like you would find in Luxor or Aswan. People are too busy going about their daily lives. Don't get me wrong, there are a few taxi drivers trying to get some business, but nothing like on the scale of Luxor.

The second thing you notice about Cairo is that the preferred method of communication appears to be the blowing of a car horn. The laws of the road here are a mystery to me and it seems funny, but they use our road signs. However, in what appears to be a act of defiance against their old imperial masters, these signs are religiously ignored. More than once on the journey from the airport did I think we were going to get dinked by another car that just didn't see us, but the taxi driver knew the dimensions of his car were and somehow managed to carve a path through the chaos, beeping as he went.

The third thing I noticed about Cairo (and more generally, Egypt) is that the main employer must be the police force, as there are so many uniformed men out on the streets. I appreciate and welcome the fact that Egypt is somewhat paranoid of any terrorist threats damaging their tourist economy, and so take a heavy-handed approach to this. Having said that, I walked past a policeman in his car earlier, and he had the seat right back and was fast asleep, with his walkie-talkie blaring out what seemed to be exasperated calls for someone to answer.

Anyway, here I am, safe and sound, enjoying the view of the Nile (again). Tomorrow opens up a range of possibilities. I will probably pop over to the Egyptian museum and have a gawp at some of the trinkets over there, then who knows? Maybe I will pop over and say hello to the pyramids in the afternoon, or perhaps catch one of the evening light shows. I need to speak to my Cairo contact to find out their prices for trips to Jordan. It might be more worthwhile if I spent a couple of days over there, as I don’t want to travel all that way only to have a Karnak-esque experience of a 1 hour whirlwind tour!!

Stay tuned for the next exciting instalment........