Cairo Day 1

Yesterday we traveled from Jordan to Cairo on a noon flight via Royal Jordanian airlines. We had booked regular economy seats, and boarded as normal. A gentleman looking like a security guard was going up and down the plane looking for someone. He eventually stopped at our row, pointed to Geoff, said in a very stern voice “Give me your boarding pass, collect your luggage and come with me”. I thought they were throwing him off the plane. When Geoff looked surprised he said “you are moving to business class”. That was nice, even if it was a short flight.

We arrived in Cairo on time and met up with our new tour guide who is also named George. George is a very uncommon name in the Middle East so it was unusual they are both named George.

We checked into our Hotel, Hilton Ramses, located next to the Nile River. After getting settled We met up with Kim,Denis, Ian and Erika at the pool. We also met their friend Sammy who is an Iraqi who moved to Canada for several years, who recently moved to Egypt as a teacher at an International school. Great evening meeting some other Canadians who had moved from to Egypt. While there Karen tried out smoking out of a shisha.

We had a chance to experience taking an Uber to the British Club for dinner. Scary! There appear to be no rules of the road here. It is every vehicle for themselves. Horns are constantly going, not to

signal anger but to let others know they are there.

Today we finally got to see something that has been on the bucket list for many years. The Giza Pyramids and the Sphinx! It truly is mind boggling how they were ever built. We also took a group camel ride in the desert beside the pyramids with spectacular views of the three pyramids. They were built for the Kings, the largest for the Father, then the Son and then the Grandson. They would start to build them when the King first came to power. Their bodies were mummified because they believed the spirit would eventually come back to occupy the body.

We went to visit 2 “Government” run shops. One to share about aromatherapy essences that are created in Egypt. These oils are then exported to France to make perfumes where water and oil is added to the essences. They each have different properties to help with things such as calming (lavender), focus (orange blossom) and skin ailments (Lupin), which Karen got to calm a myriad of insect bites all over her legs (typical for her - seems to be a common occurrence when traveling).

After an interesting Egyptian lunch we headed to Saqqara where there were more pyramids, these ones created differently from the Giza pyramids. From there we could see dozens of pyramids in all directions.

For dinner we went out on a Faloca boat for a sunset cruise on the Nile. It was a perfect way to end a wonderful day.