Cairo

6th & 7th June

MoMo managed to get us an early check in back at the same hotel we stayed at at the beginning of the trip. Dan and I were fortunate to get the mega huge suite. It had room to sleep about 9 people, with 2 separate bedrooms, a massive lounge room and sitting area, and kitchen!

We dropped our bags off, and instead of saying goodbye to MoMo (As he was now officially finished work and could head home) he decided to take us out and about in Cairo.

First stop was about an hour away at a local perfumery. One of Egypt's big trading items is the oil for perfume. They send their oils to France and all the big name companies, for them to add the water and alcohol and sell at highly inflated prices.MoMo surprised us all again with another delicious Koshari lunch which we enjoyed on the cushions at the perfumery, while we were highly entertained by Adel, the perfume man. He was chain smoking cigarettes (although I'm not sure that they actually contained tobacco) and telling tales about what he gets up to when he's on the hubbly bubbly. We spent the next 1.5 hours smelling all the beautiful perfumes (all the expensive, fancy named stuff) before making a few purchases and back on the bus.

The next stop was at the massive bizarre in Cairo's city centre. We spent almost 2 hours wandering through the tiny laneways being hassled by every single shop owner in site. The usual haggle is "Oh you're so beautiful, how many camels??" Or "How can I help you spend your money today??". I can't believe that I never actually bought anything. It was all pretty tacky anyway. While we waited for everyone to return from the jungle of the markets I enjoyed another fresh mango juice, while Dan had another refreshing hibiscus tea!

The evening was spent with most of the group gathered in our suite (as it was by far the biggest) drinking cheap beers and eating take away pizza. Around 9pm MoMo turned up again (He just loved us so much he couldn't say goodbye) and picked us up and took us to a nearby bar. We went and had a beer but most of the group called it an early night with us and headed back to the hotel, while others stayed out far too late, drinking too much, and getting up to silly business… Most of our farewells were said that evening as some in the group were continuing on to the beaches in Dahab, while the rest of us were flying out to different places at different times.

The next morning Dan and I had a bit of time to kill before our afternoon flight back to London, so we decided that we wanted to go and check out Saladin's Citadel (Castle), and also the Mohamed Ali Mosque, which is inside. Maddy wasn't leaving until the next day so she decided to come along for the ride too. We negotiated catching the right sort of taxis (The black ones don't have boxes and are renowned for ripping tourists off) and were at the castle in no time. Dan tells me that the castle was built in the 1100's to defend the 1st lost of crusaders. We spent a bit of time wandering through that and the mosque (Which is a replica, from the outside, of Istanbul's Blue Mosque). It was when we were in the highly interesting (No sarcasm - surprised??) Military Museum that the Egypt belly finally struck me down. After a mad dash to a toilet of sorts, and a small AE (Arse explosion) I felt a little better, well enough to continue through the rest of the museum, which is housed in the Palace built by Turk King, Ibrahim Pasha. We hailed another cab, who got completely lost, but we arrived back safely (surprisingly enough) in time to say another farewell to MoMo, who was still hanging around chatting to our group, and jump in our transfer bus back to the airport.

Phew, Egypt's done, finally. And I will just add that I loved Egypt so much that I think I will go far enough to say that it was definitely the best place that I've visited. Loved it.