Home » Egypt » EGYPT ADVENTURE 1999, part 1

The trip was from Jan. 28th to Feb. 10th, 1999. I was with a Contiki tour for 9 days and on my own for 5 days.

EGYPT ADVENTURE 1999, part 1

Kevin55
2004-04-05 10:53:26

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Day 1

The day is Jan. 29th. I flew from Pearson International in Toronto to Frankfurt, Germany. The flight was delayed in Toronto for about an hour or two, due to ice and snow. It took approximately 7 or 8 hours to get fom Toronto to Frankfurt. Because of the delay, I missed my connecting flight to Cairo by about an hour. I finally managed to leave Germany 6 hours later. The flight to Cairo took about 5 hours.

When I finally got to the Oasis Hotel in Cairo, it was 12:30 at night. I paid for a single room, but got stuck with my roomate for the tour (Grant), who also paid for a single room for the night before the tour started. He was sleeping when I arrived. He wasn't amused and neither was I.

Day 2
This morning I met Vicki, who is on the tour and from Sydney, Australia. The three of us decide to go to the museum in Cairo, because with the tour tomorrow, we'll only have about an hour or so to see things.
We get our taxi out in front of the hotel. The driving in Egypt (especially Cairo) is chaotic to say the least. There seems to be no rules when driving in the city, hardly any traffic lights or stop signs. The ones that are there either don't work or are obscured by trees, and nobody obeys them anyway. It's survival of the fittest. Same goes with the pedestrians. You cross the road when you can and hope you don't get hit.

After battling traffic for about 45 minutes or so , we finally arrive at the museum.

After exploring the museum, we had to find a ride back to the hotel. Out in the front of the museum are taxi drivers trying to get people to hire them. We were approached by one man who wanted way too much for a lift back. We haggled with him for about 5 minutes...well actually, Vicki did. She has a talent for negotiating and usually ends up paying half of what everybody else ends up spending. She saved me money in more than a few situations. This guy doesn't ...