Am finally coming out of the exhaustion that followed the adrenalin high of leaving London. Woke at the sensible time of 7am this morning finally feeling rested. Breakfast in Cairo is an interesting smorgasboard of things that I would not necessarily think would go together. Egypt so far is a carbohydrate high, which for those who know me can sympathise that yes, I am struggling!

We decided to go today to explore the Old Islamic and Coptic region of Cairo. Planned to leave the hotel at 10.15am, by 11.15am we just had to make a move. Organising a group without a tour leader and everyone trying to be ever so nice and 'yes of course we will wait' and 'yes just pop upstairs again to do x, y and z' did get a little frustrating after a while. We jumped in 3 cabs all bound for the same spot and had 3 very different days because we were all dropped in 3 different parts of the old town and that was the last we saw of each other until we returned to the hotel.

So my day was spent with Brian (Alaskan), Clare and Jess. We jumped out of the cab and went for a very short wander down a local street near a market and ran into an ever so helpful Egyptian. Brian decided it was best to go with British when asked where he was from - even though he has a distinct American accent. A local asked what we were going to see, he said what should we see and tah dah - we had a tour leader. Alli decided that we should go and see the Blue Mosque. We thought he was just showing us there but he decided that our education should include another mosque and to climb a minaret prior to the blue mosque visit. When we got to the first mosque, we said, hmmm doesn't look very blue... he responded, well of course not, this is not the blue one. Patience. We then knew we had him for quite some more time. We went up a minaret which after yesterdays pyramid climb and some sore leg muscles in the group Jess decided to sit out of. We had a fantastic view of the old town and the layers of dust and broken furniture on roof tops was a world away from London and NY rooftop uses.

We were taken to a private mosque that is apparently not yet open to the public, but 20 Egyptian pounds soon sorted that out - oh and who could forget Alli's local knowledge. We even went to the oldest university in the world where they now teach the Koran and bible studies. Going into the mosque area of the university we were presented with the need to put head scarves on - luckily we had come prepared. The shoe collector then decided that was not quite enough and demanded that we wear a long gown type robe to cover us from head to toe and down to our fingers. Man it was HOT under there and we were not best pleased when Brian pointed out how he was loving being a man in his t'shirt and shorts. But it was also a really beautiful mosque area with 3 different areas so it was ok being covered for that brief time. The mosque was being used a bit like a cinema or shopping centre would be in a western hot country and there were a lot of men just lying around having a nap in the cool interior.

We then caught a cab to downtown and went for some food. Cairo has not presented itself to be an easy city to find lunch in. There is certainly not an abundance of cafe's or restaurants to be found, especially around lunch time when it would be useful. We finally found a restaurant and had a lunch of bread roll with meat and some sort of sauce. Quite delicious but again so much bread.

Tonight Julie, Cheese, Mayka, Lotte, Brian (Danish), Laura and I went to a local Egyptian restaurant. We had meze to share to start and then shared 5 main courses all of which we did not come close to finishing and a beer each all for the bargain price of £10 each. We had an interesting cab ride there and back, but we are now back in our hotel safe, so we can say a little prayer of thanks as at times it was not looking likely that we would be safe.

Tour officially starts tomorrow and alliances are starting to be formed. I get along really well with Julie and Cheese, so definitely think they will be in my posse going forward. Off to see the pyramids of Giza tomorrow. We leave Cairo on Thursday and that is when the daily updates may also become a lot more like weekly updates, but we will see. Egypt seems to be rather civalised. Sudan - not so sure....