Day 4: 'Rondloop en opskop'

Place:  209 Nile Season Hotel, Cairo
Time:  17:43pm


Soundtrack for the day:
'Where the streets have no name' -  U2


With a very sore 'saddle area' and back from galavanting on horses and camels yesterday, Craig and I smashed a yummy breakfast of falafals, egg and pita's and set out to explore the city.

It didn't take long for the novelty of the bustling city to wear off.
The roads are hectic and almost impossible to cross the road without the help of a few 'good egyptian samaritans' who pretty much grabbed our hands and guided us to safety.

We walked for hours along the Nile where we saw young local boys swimming and playing in the Nile and were hounded by locals to take a 'cruise' along the Nile on what looked like a party boat.

We were warned about how the arab men remark and look at foreign woman, but I never thought that it would bother me as much. I was absolutely exhausted and degraded after our walk and now understand why it is that woman would want to be covered from head to toe. It is very hard to be a woman in this country and I am so glad that we live in a community where our men see us as 'treasures' and treat us with the respect that every woman should be. On a lighter side...Craig was offered 5 million camels for me, but Craig declined saying that he is travelling for 6 months and that the camels would make the trip alot more difficult :)
If you ever have any doubts about the disregard that the men have toward the woman in this country, take a look at the picture below - how sad :(

We then made our way back to the hotel where Craig was trying to arrange the next stage of our visit in Egypt. Ideally we would have wanted to travel down to Aswan where we would cruise along the Nile to Luxor for 3 days, however due to budget and time constraints, we have decided to get on a 7hr bus ride through the country to Sham el Sheik tomorrow where we are going to experience the wonders of the Red Sea before heading to Nuweiba to catch the ferry to Akaba in Jordan.

Once my amazing travel companion finalised hotels and transport details, we set off again in a search for food :). In what should have taken us 5-10minutes to get to a little lebanese place down the road, ended up being an exploration 'around the sun to get to the moon'. We used our highly skilled expertise in charades to ask for directions and after about 35minutes we finally found 'Tabbouleh' (Tabbouleh is a Levantine Arab salad traditionally made of bulgur, tomato,and finely chopped parsley and mint, often including onion and garlic, seasoned with olive oil, lemon juice and salt).

This scavenger hunt was worth every minute. Craig and I indulged in a starter of the most delicious hummus with fresh hot pita's, followed by kofta's soaked in spicy tomatoes and parsley and we finished this amazing meal with a heavenly desert called Kushta with banana, nuts and honey. (kushta is an arabian cream). We dragged ourselves out where we rolled our way home.

So we say goodbye to Cairo early tomorrow morning and head to the sunny beaches of Sham El Sheik for some much needed R&R :)