© Richard Randall

We usually walked everywhere or took a taxi but whilst we were in Cairo we wanted to use the Metro (the first in the Arab world), just to see what it was like compared to other cities in the world. Obviously as with any city it was busy, but not excessively so as most Cairenes cannot afford the fares, but surprisingly clean and efficient. As with many modes of transport in Egypt there were separate carriages for women passengers. The Metro was supposedly non smoking, but we noticed that people smoked everywhere in Egypt. We were happy standing up, but almost as soon as we left the station we were offered seats by nearby passengers, we politely declined as we were not travelling far. Overall I think the Cairo Metro was a perfectly good way to get around, possibly nicer than the London underground - which isn't saying much I know! As neither of us are bothered by the heat, in fact for us the warmer the better, we did walk a lot during our stay in Cairo building up a thirst, any excuse for us to pop into Pub 28! We also thought we would take a ride on a River Taxi (water bus) which we did. We went from Old Cairo to Roda Island and back again. It was a lovely relaxing ride with both of us causing quite a deal of excitement from the other passengers, especially the children. They kept trying to touch our skin, and were chatting away and giggling, there were no other 'foreigners' on the trips we took so I guess we were a bit of a novelty. In fact almost everywhere we went in Egypt we attracted a lot of attention from the younger generation, especially Richard, his hair was very blonde at the time, they seemed fascinated by him.

OLD CAIRO ~ COPTIC CAIRO

Old Cairo (Masr al-Qadima), is where the Holy Family were thought to have taken refuge in the fortress town of Babylon. There were medieval churches, the Coptic Museum and a synagogue. The Coptic Museum is between the Hanging church and the Roman towers of Babylon. It has a collection of Coptic artefacts, beautiful stained glass domes inside its mashrabiya'd wings. The museum traces the transformation of Coptic art from Greco-Roman times into the Islamic era 300AD-1000AD. You can enter the courtyard of the Hanging Church via the cafe in the museum grounds. The Hanging Church's claim to fame is that it once owned an olive stone chewed by the Virgin mary?

HELIOPOLIS (Masr al-Gadida) and MOHANDISEEN

Both Heliopolis and Mohandiseen are wealthy areas on the outskirts of Cairo. We knew that they were both full of shops and restaurants, (many fast food joints due to the vast number of American workers), so we thought we may as well go and have a look round. Heliopolis was born thanks to a Belgian entrepremeur, when due to a population boom in Cairo there was a great need for housing. Baron Empain wanted to create a garden city in the desert. Heliopolis was set out in a grid system by Sir Reginald Oakes, originally the wide roads were lined with apartment blocks, and there were all the modern facilities such as schools, churches and even a racecourse. Later on in the 1970's, as poorer quarters began growing around Heliopolis, unfortunately the racecourse was turned in to a fun park and the burger joints took over. Mohandiseen was laid out in the 1960's to house the growing number of media workers. One evening in a bar somewhere in Zamalek we got chatting to a bunch of American guys who were living and working in Mohandiseen. The area really did feel like a small slice of America, with roads full of boutiques and as in Heliopolis lots of junk food joints. Everywhere very clean with lovely wide marble pavements, which made a change from walking in the road in the area near our hotel.

It was time for us to say goodbye to Cairo for a while as we headed off to Aswan. We decided that we would leave most of our belongings at our hotel in Zamalek, taking only what we needed with us. The people at our hotel were more than happy for us to leave our stuff behind the reception desk. I joked to Richard that that would probably be the last time we saw any of it, naughty me, on our return everything was exactly where we had left it it had not been moved an inch. We knew this because all of our bags were thick with dust!

ASWAN

We took an overnight train down to Aswan, spending most of the journey surrounded by sleeping soldiers. Poor Richard was particularly unwell during this journey, just before we boarded the train I suggested that maybe we should go another day. But Richard felt that it would be best to just get moving, and after having quite a lot of trouble when purchasing the tickets I wasn't going to argue. There were a few other gringoes in the queue wanting to buy train tickets, and each time any of us got to the window we were told that we couldn't buy any. There were various reasons, from the train being full to there not actually being a train to Aswan. Each time we were told to come back later and ask again. Richard was sitting on the station floor resembling a corpse and I was obviously worried about him, so I decided enough was enough. I spoke to all of the other 'foreigners' I could find and arranged for us to all queue up together, forming a barrier right across the ticket window, we were definitely going to be buying tickets. Once we were at the window we were once again fobbed off with reasons why we couldn't purchase any tickets. It wasn't until all of the local people behind us, who we had stopped from getting in front of us, started shouting that we were finally sold tickets for the overnight train to Aswan ... Hooray! As I have said before they do like to mess with you, it's all part of the fun of travelling in Egypt! Once we were onboard the train we made ourselves as comfortable as possible, settling in to surprisingly comfortable seats for the night. I was willing the time to pass quickly as Richard was not looking too good. After what felt like days not hours we finally arrived in Aswan. It can get very warm with temperatures of 23c-30c in the winter and 38c-54c during the summer. If memory serves me we were in Aswan in March, and most days were around 40c. As I have said before the heat doesn't bother us at all, but hummidity is another thing. It was very hummid the whole time we were there, and there was no respite in the evenings. In fact they often felt worse than the days, because the heat would come up from the roads and pavements hitting us in the face and burning our skin. When we went out to eat in the evenings it was quite difficult to breath easily, once again this was the perfect excuse for a cold beer! We stayed at the Oscar hotel, and although we are not that keen on air conditioning we were happy that our room had it. The Oscar was pleasant, friendly staff, clean room, with a very popular bar downstairs, apparently the cheapest place to drink in Aswan. The bar was a particluar favourite with the Felucca captains, who would come in sober, drink lots of the local date wine in a very short space of time and then stagger out very much the worse for wear! Our hotel was considered mid-range, and whilst we were in Aswan we went for a look round at the more upmarket Old Cataract hotel. The security at this place was quite severe, it wasn't just a case of wandering in through reception as you do at most hotels. There was a barrier and security men who asked us exactly who we were and why we wanted to enter the premises. We must have looked like undesirables! The hotel is an Edwardian Moorish relic, which has undergone sympathetic refurbishment. Made famous by Agatha Christie, there was even a suite named after her, the hotel was featured in the film Death on the Nile. As we were not guests we just stopped in the bar to enjoy a drink. Being regarded as rich khawaga (Egyptian term for foreigner), we were asked for baksheesh in Aswan more forcibly and more often than anywhere else in Egypt. There are many different views on this, some people say that tipping is expected and they are happy to do it, and they are happy to give baksheesh when asked to help nessecitate certain procedures, and they feel that it is okay to give money to people begging in the street. Other people say that by giving to everyone that asks it encourages dependency on foreigners, and can cause some people especially lone women travellers to feel threatened. I guess everybody answers to their own conscience. There were quite a lot of organised tour groups wandering round Aswan whilst we were there, particularly in the bazaar. Though quite why you need to be guided round a market I don't know, could it be so that the tour guide can get you to linger at certain stalls belonging to his friends or relatives? Or am I just too cynical! I don't blame them if they can earn something extra, good luck to them. We did find it funny watching as many of these tourists bought various things that they obviously didn't want or need, it's a funny old game! The bazaar was selling traditional items, spices, baskets, rugs and ebony (or pine covered in thick boot polish), there didn't seem to be any tourist tat places, but I guess that has probably changed by now. Walking along the corniche at night was very pleasant even with the hassle from the boatmen trying to sell you felucca trips. We told them we were definitely not interested, but they were quite relentless going lower and lower in price, obviously thinking that we were just trying to get a good deal. We found a good restaurant, the Aswan Moon on the Corniche near the Horus. It had a floating extension and was lively at night with Nubian music. The food was better than the service which was eratic and we were always short changed, along with most of the other patrons. We kept going back though because the food was good, especially the Nubian dish of okra in a spicy tomato sauce, if it ain't broke don't fix it!

Caribbean

Sundries

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