Here we go again... from Day 185 to Day 1.... well, I needed somewhere to record my thoughts, and why not on a two year old blog that nobody reads anymore...
First up....Cairo! While the main destination was ultimately a safari in Tanzania (the other choice was Botswana), it turns out getting to The East side of Africa is not as easy as it sounds....actually....it doesn't even sound easy. We could have gone through Europe, with an all day airport transfer, or Abu Dhabi, but any way you sliced it, it was a little complex to go "direct". So why not do a whirlwind weekend in Cairo....direct flight, pyramids, pool.
There was zero traffic as it was so early. The sky was really hazy but soon cleared up a bit. Along the way we could see countless hundred, five-hundred, thousand year old buildings and monuments. Mustapha gave a nice little connecting story to each borough we passed through. Cairo, while boasting some say a population of 25 million plus, seemed mostly to be a sprawling, relatively low rise, sand coloured city.
It seems weird to be back to Day 1. Our adventure is much shorter this time, and more crowded - in a good way. We are off to Africa with the Versly family (we don't use their real name any more). We had such a good, compatible time with Alex, Kim, Jeff and Matt when we travelled for 3 weeks with them in Borneo back in 2015, that we thought we'd jump back in the saddle again.
Egypt Air was pretty nice. The food was pretty good (we're not sure why, but they kept throwing sandwiches our way after the main meal was served...so Alex ended up with about 7 in his lap before long.
I discovered a little 'seat-to-seat' chat tool so we could all chime in and it would show up on our little TV screen...which was fun....then annoying.
At the break of dawn-ish....we touched down in Cairo (4:45am local time...already 26 degrees!). We had arranged a tour and transport through Tailor Made tours, and so far so good. Our escort, Mustapha, picked us up inside security, sped us through getting on-the-spot visas, then accompanied us all the way through to pick up our bags. Before we knew it we were loaded into a big van and Mustapha and the driver were speeding the 22km into town to our hotel.
Our hotel was on an island in the middle of the Nile, which essentially separates Cairo and Giza (separate cities in name only). We were way too early to check in, so we ditched the bags and took to the streets.
The Nile is fantastic; the whole scene along the Nile looked like Ho Chi Minh City, only 20 years ago. Most of the buildings looked pretty worn, and the city was still waking up (on rest day Friday) so it was pretty dead at...Jesus...it was only 7:30am! I was reminded of a time at a party when we all drunkenly looked at a clock amongst cries of "more frozen drinks!" to realize that it was only 6:30pm!
We eventually made our way to... lunch? at a local place across the river that Mustapha had recommended. He was spot on...falafel, amazing babaghanouj, chicken shawarma....oh man.
We just seemed to beat the heat after that, walking back and jumping in the pool at the hotel. We didn't get our rooms, which they upgraded to a suite which was nice, until 2pm. Different people are adapting to the time change in different ways...
I was determined to try and get a ride in so I headed to the rooftop gym. Robin, on the other end of the scale, was so dead we had to peel her of her chair in the lobby, drag her up to her room and drop her on a bed where she collapsed.
Ah, Robin. The little Frick. For some reason, every time we've mentioned Africa, we kind of chuckle. One of Robin's nicknames is the little Frick. When she was about 3, she showed early prowess with toeing the line with her "adaptive language skills". She would do something that crossed the line, and I would chuck her on her bed, pin her down and threaten to tickle her to death if she didn't apologize, and she would look at me with a smile and say..."so....soo...soooapy" and burst out laughing. She wouldn't say sorry, but got as close as possible to it...the little $h!t! She was THREE! Lol.
Since then, she's been, let's just say, pushing the envelope. On language...on just about everything. She's been known to use Frick as a replacement for the F word quite frequently (I'm quite sure only when amongst adults!), but really, when you say "Frick no!", or "who the Frick..."., you'd me hard pressed not to know what word she's replacing it with! So...she's our little Frick. And we're putting the Frick in Africa...
