Egyptian Touring
Greetings from Alexandria!
We had a great 12 days with the GET tour. From our last post we left Aswan and headed downstream back to Luxor, stopping at Kom Ombo along the way to see the temple we missed on the way down. Once back in Luxor we spent the night and then flew back to Cairo.
Back at the lovely Semiramis we finally actually toured the pyramids at Giza and the Sphinx. Truly amazing sights and the evening sound and light show was great as well. However, there we had a very strange turn of events. It never rains in Egypt, and I mean never as in 10minutes every 7 years or so. So, what happens, we’re getting seated for the sound and light show and a wind starts blowing in that is cold enough that we all rented the blankets they have available there and then it started to rain! Yep, rain. And, the beginning of the show there were bagpipes playing. It was completely surreal, sitting wrapped in blankets with the pyramids lit up, in the rain, with bagpipes around us. You just never know what might happen when you travel!
After the tour ended Jim and I took the train to Alexandria. 1st class was quite comfortable with reclining seats and footrests and plenty of room for our backpacks. After getting used to India’s very timely system, however, we weren’t expecting the 2 1/2 hr train to take 4hrs 15min. No worries though as we had no agenda for the day. We had received our sleeping bags and pads for the safari in Cairo, courtesy of my boss Kathy and our Egypt office so we had that extra baggage and really needed a DHL. Lucky for us, we met 2 great ladies from Seattle on the tour, Val and Ashley. Ashley agreed to take a 2nd checked bag home with her and just send it by ground to mom & dad in Salem, thus saving us big bucks from DHL as well as opening up room in our backpacks for the sleeping bags and pads. It was all good! Thanks again Ashley!!!!!
In Alexandria we got a cab to the hotel and thus started our hassles with traveling in Egypt on our own. It’s a tough country if you veer off the main tourist path because very few signs have any english lettering. Sameh had been good enough to help us find a decent hotel in our price range so we were good there, but, the driver didn’t pay attention when we gave him the name, drove us to a different hotel, and then wanted more money than agreed upon. No dice buddy since Sameh had even written the name down in Arabic for us!
The Kaoud Sporting Hotel is ok, room is oceanfront on the mediterranean with a balcony and the staff is all friendly. It’s a bit far from the main downtown area but we need some serious walking after all that food on the boat anyway! The first day we , quite honestly, spent most of the day just reading, napping, and watching TV with one long 4 mile walk thrown in. We aren’t used to this touring business and were tired from having a schedule! I know, I know, you’re all feeling really sorry for us..not!
Yesterday proved to be challenging. We had asked the hotel if there was a direct bus from Alexandria to Hurghada rather than taking the train back to Cairo and then the bus to Hurghada and said we needed a morning bus. Due to some communication issues they ended up booking us on a night bus (thus we would miss the first night we have booked at the timeshare) and gave away the tickets we had been holding from Cairo to Hurghada on the bus. We were not happy! Luckily, she realized it had been her error and today was able to get everything fixed and we are back to taking a train to Cairo Friday morning and then taking the afternoon bus to Hurghada on the Red Sea for the 7 nights in the condo. We ended up being out $40 but, at least we got things resolved because we had few other options for that travel day and were stressing it a bit!
In the course of last night we also managed to completely break our adapter. When we were in New Zealand I managed to blow up our original converter. So, we were forced to not only get a new converter but also new adapters to reverse the power to work with our US appliances. Now, we had managed to irreparably mess up the prongs on the adapter that works for Asia, India and most of Africa. Once again Randa (pronounced just like my name..we found out Rhonda is of Turkish/ Egyptian origin..who knew!) came through and sent out one of the men from the front desk and in 10minutes had a new adapter for us. Very good!
We spent a few hours at the Green Plaza mall this afternoon, stocking up on some needed toilitries and catching a movie. It was our first english language movie since Australia so a good time. We saw There Will be Blood with Daniel Day Lewis..not at all what we were expecting but he certainly deserved to win the oscar for that performance! Of course, per usual we had a run in with the taxi driver who brought us back to the hotel. We showed him our room key (with the name in Arabic) and agreed on 10egyptian pounds ($2us). So, he isn’t really sure where it is, even though he said he did, had to stop for directions, etc and when we get to the hotel actually gets out of the car to follow us into the hotel again to demand more money. Then, even gets the front desk involved. They first agreed the price is normally 20pounds (even though it only cost us 10 to get there!) but when we said we’d showed him our key and he agreed they sympathized with us but said if we just gave him another 5pounds he’d go away. We did very unwillingly and let them know we though it was crap that the cab drivers all pull this crap. Totally pissed us off.
Tomorrow we’re doing the city walking tour and spending some time downtown and then, once again time to repack and move out. We’re not looking forward to our travel day on Friday which starts with our 8am train departure from Alexandria and will end around 9pm in Hurghada but, we have no options really:)
Looks like spring has officially hit the NW and we hope everyone is safe & sound. Living the dream (the good, the bad and the ugly!!!!!!!!), Love you all, Jim & Rhonda
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We miss you! We are both still sick and are going to the Dr. for stool samples-yay!!! I am fantasizing about being at the Red Sea….how is it?