Saturday, November 6, 2010

November 6 - Egypt reflections

Here I sit in Cairo airport, just outside the Business class lounge, where the internet connection is super fast.  I've been up since 4am.  Apparently lots of muslim men congregate in the market street outside our hotel window to visit loudly while waiting for the call to prayer at 4:30 am.  After their prayers, the street was quiet, but our wake up call was coming at 5:15 am, so there was no point in more sleep.  Our flight to Cairo was delayed due to weather, which had us all wondering what weather they could have, it's always sunny and rarely rains.  Turns out it was fog.   The flight left at 9am, took an hour and our connection is not until 3:35pm.

For all the hassles from the sellers, etc, I would not say that Egypt is unsafe.  Women travellers cover up to avoid hassles, not to respect customs.

Egypt is very inexpensive.  Yesterday I bought a pita with potatoes and beans and veggies inside - super yummy.  It was 40 cents canadian!  Camel skin sandals for $10 CDN, beautiful scarves are $5 CDN.  I got a 200 page hard cover book about Egypt with photos and history, etc.  I paid $16 CDN.

The children here are super cute.  They wave at us in the streets, calling out "ha-llooow".

Yesterday at the Luxor temple I saw a sign for the bathroom.  It was spelt Toiwlet.

In a previous blog I mentioned the dirtiness of Egypt.  Even in the largest cities, there are streets & alleys that are not paved but are sand.  So everything is dusty, sandy.  And with sheep, horses, donkeys, etc right in the middle of the city, animal feces are common as well. I've also mentioned the garbage lying around.  With that I've not seen one mouse or rat, the surplus of cats seems to take care of that.

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