Well, up early this morning for our early start to Cairo. We had breakfast at The Pavilion - they start the earliest at 6am. Got ourselves organised and up to the grand lounge only to find that the Egyptian authorities have not organised the ships in front of us, so we can't move in to the inner harbour. We are in the outer harbour, at anchor, and there are 30 knot winds which will make it difficult, if not impossible, for the tenders to operate. Will we make it ashore for the pyramids??

Well, yes we did! Out 7.30am tour started at about 10.30am. Our tends took us to shore where ladies were geven a rose each and we were met by Egyptian music and dancing. We were feeling rather weary and didn't take any photos. There were many coaches and the tours were organised by Abercrombie and Kent - they made sure we still had the full tour, just rearranged a bit.

Each coach had a tour guide and a security officer. The coaches had to travel in convoy, with police cars front and back with flashing lights. There were lots of police, all armed with submachine guns. We were taken straight to the Cairo Hilton on the Nile for our lunch. It was lovely. We had to leave our cameras on the coach because we couldn't take them in to the museum, so we couldn't take any photographs at the Hilton either. We did a tour of the museum - Iman was a wonderful guide, the exhibits were incredible. It was awesome. Armed police everywhere outside. One of the Egyptian guards in the museum - the one outside the jewellry collection with his submachine gun - asked where we were from and then commented "Australian woman is very beautiful" - what a sweet talker!!!

We then drove to Giza and saw the pyramids. They usually close at 4pm but Cunard paid 4times the normal amount to have it kept open. The tourist police were everywhere, ensuring our safety, some were even on white camels. Tom climbed down the inside of one of the pyramids. I bought (bargained) some fun souvenirs for 50 Egyptian pound. After driving around the pyramids and exploring their bases we were taken to view the Sphinx, which is so much smaller. The guy who had the sphinx built for his pyramid did it so that on his birthday the sun shines on its left shoulder for 3 minutes before shining directly into the centre of his pyramid.

We were then take to an extraordinary souvenir shop. Very nice but awfully dear. We bought 10 scarab beetles for 20 Egyptian pound!! These people also make Kartoushes, made to order, but gold ones were 150-200 US dollars!

After the jewellry store/gift shop we boarded the coach for our 2 hour trip back to Port Tufik. Our coach driver was barrelling down the highway, not far out of Suez, when a woman in a car pulled out in front of us. He couldn't stope, he tried to avoid her, but clipped the rear corner of her car as we crossed on to the shoulder. The bus swerved a little way, but didn't tip over! We eventually made it back to the ship at about 10.30pm, for a late dinner in the Lido.