holidays in Egypt

Welcome to Egypt! ;)

Well, we are still in the centre of Cairo but the ‚holidays‘ are now over. It was a wonderful time! Tomorrow we want to pack and prepare our bikes for the next big challenge – the Sahara desert and ‚the real‘ Africa south of Egypt. It will be approximately another 6 – 7000 Kilometers to the coast of the Indian Ocean in Dar es Salam!

We arrived here in Cairo on a Sunday, almost 3 weeks ago, Frank, Thomas brother, from Switzerland on Monday, Denise from Berlin on Thursday in Luxor and Elisa on Friday the 29th. After the delicious birthday breakfast on Wednesday we brought our bikes to Ingy’s parents house, close to the Gizeh Pyramids. She is a friend of a friend from Elisas time in London. Thank you very much!

So our bikes and equipment were safe, when Frank and Tom went down to Luxor by Bus. Elisa and me stayed in Cairo for the New Years celebration before going south as well to meet Denise Frank and Tom. They also had visited Aswan in the meantime. We walked together to the Karnak temple, one of the most famous and also most impressive sights and relaxed with a glas of tea on the roof terrace of our Hostel.

Of course, the areas around Luxor and Aswan offer the main touristic attractions and so it is busy with tourists from all over the wealthy worlds and often also annoying, because you can not walk along the streets without beeing seen as a kind of ATM machine, where you just have to press the buttons over and over again to get the money. Some salesmen even ask you right away „Hello Sir, how can I get your money today“ or they tell you something about tourist prices when you want to buy bread, or just keep on walking next to you, talking…

Not only once I was about to get angry, but sometimes there are also moments to smile, for example when a young man started offering a tour with a ‚Feluka‘, the traditional sailing boats on the Nile river. He started his mantra: ‚Hello Sir, you want a Feluka? 1 hour 10 egyptian pounds’… Maybe I was just shaking my head when passing by with Elisa and sayed ‚No, thank you‘, when he started to continue ‚a helicopter?‘, ‚a submarine?‘ He was smiling too.

We also had a look at the Hatchepsut Temple and the tourists crowds there, before going back to Cairo with a night bus again. During this tiring trip we met a friendly young and interesting couple from the United States. They were on holidays too, coming from Amman, where they lived and worked for about a year now. He was writing his disertation about the situation in Palestina, she was working as English teacher. His parents are Cubans, who immigrated to Miami in the 70’s. She was born in Algeria and brought up in Michigan. Both are muslims and they seemed to enjoy to answer all our questions. It was fun for all of us. We exchanged our names and e-mails – more then just a polite gesture. Maybe we have the chance to meet again one day.

The last days in Cairo we visited Ingy again, who had invited us for a tea. She is a young egyptian fashion designer, who studied in Paris and started her own company/brand 3 years ago here in Cairo. She employes about 12 people by now. We also went to the German embassy for a letter of recommendation, which we needed for the Sudanese Visa. The Israel stamps were no problem. They were fine with the letter, 100 US $ and two passport pictures. Also we had to extend our egyptian Visa, which took some patience and another 2 days…

Elisa left on Wednesday night. She is back in Bogota now. I talked to her via msn this afternoon – again thousands of Kilometers away. As I mentioned above, it was a great time! A great present, that we had the chance to meet here! Next time will be propably in Mexico in September! Strange feeling! It is also strange, to think to leave Cairo tomorrow, after 3 weeks! A mixture of excitement, curiosity, happiness and sadness.

But not to forget – we met David again, or he met us, again, here in Cairo, just like that. He has spent Christmas with his family in Sharm el Sheik and New Years in the Sinai mountains. We could help him with the Visa procedures and we want to travel together to Sudan and Ethiopia, if it works out. We are sure now, that the Oasis route is the better choice for us and we actually looking forward to be out there in the desert, even if it means about 500 extra Kilometers to the route up the densly populated Nile Valley.

I feel, I could keep on writing – there are many more stories happening each day and thoughts appearing, worth to share, but I got to sleep a bit too. ;) It’s 2:00 am already! I have to continue another day and no worries, I did not forget the english part from Aqaba to Cairo. ;) Just to let you know, It will take us about 3 weeks to get to Aswan and I am not sure, if we will have the opportunity to post something during this time. So talk to you again in February the latest!

I hope you all had a good start into this wonderful New Year 2007! Happy New Year! to Germany, Colombia, Mexico, Gran Canaria, the United States, Switzerland, Japan, Thessaloniki, Buenos Aires and London! Happy Birthday to you Olli from here and congratulations for your wedding !! ;) Konichiwa! and Arigato gozaimasu! to you Seiki-san and Takami-san for your nice e-mail and Congratulations as well! ;) Thank you, everybody, for the Christmas, Birthday and New Years wishes, your motivating lines for the continuation of our tour, if as comments or e-mails!! Thank you!

Good night and all the best!

Maik

picture to this article: holidays in Egypt : pictures

13. Januar 2007 - Maik | english texts | Kommentare :: comments :: comentarios | Inhalt drucken