Flew in from Istanbul in the evening. Weird flight. In the queue we were a definite minority - I was singing the Sesame Street song "Four of these things are not like the other ones...". Veils and bushy beards definitely the fashion choice on this flight. Yvonne drew the short straw - seated beside a devout follower. His ringtone was a call to prayers and it went off every couple of minutes while we sat after being boarded with great urgency an hour before takeoff. His mate wandered up from down the plane and commenced an intense discussion leaning all over Yvonne as if she wasn't there. He eventually disappeared down the back of the plane. Flight was 2.5 hours as we flew south over Turkey, over the sea and then the Sahara to Cairo. Fun began on the descent. Five minutes before landing the stewardess announces "Happy Ramadam- you can now have breakfast" (730pm). All the Muslims on board including the stewardesses start eating as the plane descends, as the sun has now set signaling the end of the fasting period for the day. I belatedly felt bad for chowing into my indeterminate meal while they all sat their staring hungrily having gone without food or water since 3am. As the plane descended a lady gets up and starts going through all the overhead lockers on behalf of her Aunty. As we land some dude carts his luggage up the aisle, dumps it in the passage and goes back for more. Then Yvonne goes to town on our behalf - beating the crap out of some bloke as she twisted and turned getting stuff down, going back for her bag with an elbow cocked. Poor b****** - don't get in the way of a worried woman. On the transfer bus the guy is cringing every time Yvonne twitched. Into the terminal and there is a sign - even before passport control- saying "Jeannie Ailene". He was a mountain of a pink-shirted man Osama, our tour coordinator. And he could talk. A lot. His trainee Mokbel got no word in at all. Dylan and Nathan turned up having just flown in from Moscow via Istanbul. Drivers name was Hassan but "you can call him Michael Schumakker". He definitely earned that nickname. As Osama talked about everything in the world including the tour, his veterinary surgeon fiancé, her fathers need for him to own a house, Egyptian politics including the "small" problem of the legitimate government's overthrow by the army recently, Hassan drove at speed through very congested and scary traffic (they have full day traffic jams) for an extended time including through some quite rough neighborhoods until we finally arrived at the luxurious Oberoi hotel Mena House - directly opposite the Giza Pyramids. In fact our balconies looked directly at two of the pyramids. Awe inspiring to be right there in the presence of 4,500 year old pyramids. Couldn't wait to see them in full daylight in the morning.