Egypt Encompassed

Well I just arrived in Luxor last night and spent the night chilling out in the pool, literal translation here... I think that the last time I left you I was in Dahab and preparing to head out to Cairo that night on the night bus that the pension manager organized for me. I arrived in Cairo at about 6am on the Monday morning ready to scoot round the capital picking up and dropping off visa and passport information. Firstly I seemed to get dropped off on the wrong side of the city in what could only be described as the dodgiest part of Cairo that exists, here I got asked to come and stay in at least 10 different hotels that probably looked as decrepit as their promoters. So I swiftly got into a taxi and sped off to the suburb of Mohandessen where the hotel was that I was staying at, I dumped my bags and got straight back into another taxi to head off to the Irish embassy which was closed. At this stage I had had enough... I was tired from the bus ride, my stomach still wouldn't stop turning over and the first embassy was closed. But I pressed on and taxied over to the Ethiopian embassy which was also closed to my utmost frustration and it was at this point I gave up and went back to the hotel to sleep which only after I returned decided to inform me of the fact that this Monday in Egypt was a holiday and everything was closed. Sleep was calling and I headed upstairs for a long coming snooze....

The next week in Cairo went pretty smoothly, I met the group I am now camping with and spent the week wandering around the finer parts of Cairo and got some great pictures. The Sunday later we went onto the pyramids and headed out to the western desert where we spent our first free camp of the trip. Desert for as far as the eye can see in all directions, it was a great way to start the trip and I have to say that free camping is much more interesting than using campsites in the various towns we visit, though obviously they do lack the shower and toilet facilities of the campsites, which in most places are pretty awful anyhow. So we spent the next few nights visiting the oasises scattered around the western desert and did a bit of a jeep safari through what the egyptians call the black and white deserts. This was cool cause we spent the night out in the desert with some of the bedouin people from the local area. I have to meintion that this method of transportation is really different cause the group gets spilt up into cook groups whose responsibility it is to shop in the local markets and produce a meal for all 24 people on the trip, this means that shopping in the local markets for things like chicken involves firstly choosing the live chickens you want and then having them slaughtered and chopped up in the right way.


So anyway we then moved onto Luxor where the valley of the kings is and did a donkey ride from town up to the valley, which by the way was pointless because we could have walked faster but anyhow it was an experience. Then the next morning we went for a balloon ride up over the valley before heading off to Aswan where we are preparing to cross the border into Sudan...

Also its getting harder to write this blog (or that holiday atmosphere is really kicking in) so photos are located at ... http://picasaweb.google.com/hegsie and are under 'Cairo and the western desert' and 'Luxor and Aswan', just bear with me as I am still figuring out the best way of posting this stuff out here...