We found our car safe and sound at the hotel, none the worse for wear for standing still for 3 weeks, just very dusty (which helps it to blend in a bit better anyway). We loved the 3 nights back in the big hotel and the amazing breakfasts. We seemed to be the only guests with kids and the only guests that made any kind of conversation with the staff – we were quickly rewarded. The chap at the egg counter at breakfast (in charge of making omelettes to order, scrambled eggs, boiled eggs, pancakes etc) disappeared off to the back kitchen to find a hidden stash of Nutella for Pieter (every morning); the kids were allowed a daily swim in the 15m Jacuzzi in the spa, which was officially out of bounds to anyone under 16; the Assistant Manager phoned us every day in the room to check we were fine and having a good time; the door porter would spend hours pushing the kids around the grounds on the luggage trolley; we all got to meet the Egyptian Soccer Team’s goalie (the team were training and staying at the hotel); the boys watched the Egypt and Sudan football teams train at the hotel and kicked around a bit with one of the spare balls.
Outside of hotel we took deep breaths and ventured into the constant fleecing – went to the Egyptian Museum and saw all the contents of the pyramids (this is us outside the museum) ...
, including all the gold items from the tomb of Tutankhamun (and the famous gold mask); went to the pyramids and marvelled at the sprawling city all around them, the camel touts, photo touts, even the official ticket guys were touts.
Then to a papyrus “museum” - more shop than museum. 2 minutes spent having the history and techniques of papyrus explained, then the hope is you will buy one of their many papyrus paintings. It was everything we had been expecting through the Middle East but hadn’t found in Syria or Jordan. Constant constant hassle, in the eyes of Cairo we are simply 2 wallets walking around waiting to be emptied. Draining....then to add into the joys we had to find our way to the Sudanese Embassy. We had a quick visit to the UK Embassy first to get a letter for the Sudanese Embassy. Then we handed in our paperwork and sat patiently in one room with stray cats running across the floor and tried to entertain the kids for 4 ½ hours, only to have the man behind the desk tell us at 4pm that actually they wouldn’t be ready today and we should return the next morning.
On leaving the hotel we returned to Fiona and her lovely family, who we had visited briefly on our way to the airport back in December. We ended up staying 3 nights with them, enjoying the life of a family in Cairo – Pieter went off and sorted the passports while I remained behind in a lovely top floor apartment and the kids were in heaven with other kids to play with and toys and games. Staying with Fiona and Mohamed was a great way to have all our questions answered about life in Cairo and things we had seen. On the one hand there are so many elements of any huge modern capital city (like being able to order in bagels and lattes) and then on the other hand Fiona explained that the reason that every restaurant and take away delivers (even MacDonald’s) is that traditionally women cannot leave their home without their husbands. Of course Cairo has many very westernised women; however the bulk of the community is still very traditional with woman staying at home (literally) with the children. Mohamed helped us enormously with technology things we needed to sort out and Pieter and he spent hours holed up in his workshop and loving every minute! We were very sad to say goodbye to them – Mara had made huge chums with their wee girl Sara who is the same age, and our 2 boys had developed total infatuation with their 2 older boys who let them play on their laptops, stay up late and use their Wii, and Pieter and I felt we had made new friends.
From Cairo we headed west into the desert rather than the more common routes directly South to Luxor or South on the coast of the Red Sea. Once again we are feeling that as we are here with our own car we should make the most of it and explore out of the way places. We are also ready to try and get away from the hustle and bustle a bit and see if away from the tourist crowds the local people are more agreeable. So we headed first to the Bahariya Oasis. From here we picked up a guide and drove off-road into the heart of the Western Desert, first through the Black Desert and then immediately into the jaw dropping White Desert.
Sharif was our guide for 24hrs, travelling with us in our car. We drove quickly around the dusty Oasis village collecting the supplies we needed – one dead chicken, Bedouin tea, vegetables and rice from the “Supermarket” – actually room the size of the Beechwood downstairs cloakroom which sells one of nearly everything (and the same as all such wee shops through Africa, except in South Africa whites don’t shop in them!). The two shops near the front left of the picture are where we bought everything..
The car handled the desert brilliantly, the trailer was a disaster and thanks to it we got stuck twice.
We then stopped trying to race up sand dunes for amazing views and took more sedate routes and ended up camping in the midst of the amazing rock formations in the White Desert.
Sharif, our guide,was a lovely chap, married to a local artist, but proved a little rusty and forgetful – having forgotten tomatoes to make salad, onions to make soup, mint to make Bedouin tea, a torch, his gas bottle was broken and he drank beer nonstop (apparently to help his gallstones). However we are resilient and prepared and apart from the fresh produce were carrying everything else he needed. We loved sitting around the campfire with the amazing stars and we played noughts and crosses in the sand and chatted. The 5 of us slept in our one roof top tent and cocooned ourselves in our sleeping bags as it was really cold.
Sharif slept on rugs and mats and blankets outside, which afforded amazing views of the night sky. Next morning we were up and had broken our part of the camp quite early, we made coffee and breakfast and finally had to wake Sharif – something we found rather funny as traditionally the guide is supposed to get up early and have breakfast waiting. We finally made it back to the village in the early afternoon and drank tea with Sharif before saying goodbye. We went off to a local hot spring (which provides the water for the oasis) to let the children splash around, however it was too hot and we disturbed a wee man on his motorbike who was bathing. Next day we headed further south, now completely off the tourist trail, through the next Oasis and onto Dakhla, the 3rd oasis out in the western desert. We are back to the basics again – pide (form of pita bread) bread, water, boiled eggs and fuul (local hot dish of beans).
Onwards again to El Kharga the next day, where instead of just passing through all the Police check points we found that at the entrance to this town the police got into their van and followed us – about 4 uniformed guys and one in plain clothes. When we pulled over for me to hop out and go and buy some snacks at a street stall i was followed by the plain clothes guy and the police van covered Pieter. Then we stopped at a cafe to drink a cup of black tea and the van dutifully followed, pulled over and a uniformed guy sat at the front of the cafe waiting for us to finish. They didn;t speak a word of English and we couldn;t understand why they were following us. At one point i ran into a wee street shop and asked the person in there if they spoke any English. They replied “yes, some”. So i asked if they could tell me why the police were following us and they quickly answered “sorry, no speak Eengleesh”. As we left the town the finally stopped following us as the next police check point, leaving us feeing a big weird. We decided that night to wild camp out in the desert by ourselves. It was too far to drive all the way to Aswan, our next stop and the deset was still beautiful inviting and very quiet. About 4pm we pulled off the road and drove behind a rocky sand dune and set up tent.
We ate early (our last packet of stuffed pasta from Lidl....sniff.....) and after it was dark we jumped into the car and all watched a movie together - we hadn’t found any fire wood to make a fire and it was too cold to sit outside without it. By 8pm we were all squished into the 2-man roof top tent once more and slept for 11hrs cocooned right inside our sleeping bags to stay warm.
Next morning we had breakfast and finally managed to persuade Euan that it was ok to use a pit loo which Pieter had dug. He had been quite determined that i should drive him to a sit down toilet and then we could drive back to finish breakfast. Not quite grasping the concept of the Western Desert it seems! Anyway, on reaching the point of sheer desperation he caved in and discovered that a desert pit loo is actually far easier than a filthy squat toilet.
We drove on and discovered a whole new road all the way to Aswan - not on any maps we had - but a pleasure all the same! After driving around following our GPS for a couple of hours we discovered that all campsites (there were 2) have closed down and thus the only option was to drive into the centre of the town and find another budget hotel. We have found one – a real cheapie costing £18 a night for the 5 of us including breakfast (you guess it – hard boiled eggs and pide bread again) – the sheets seem clean though and we try not to think about why we appear to have a rug on top of the sheet and then old mangy blankets on top of that. The kids have had military training now in how NOT to let anything other than the sheet touch your skin!
Aswan is kind of crazy – tons and tons of tourists, most staying in posh resort hotels or on the luxury cruise liners which line the banks of the Nile which flows through. There are caleche’s everywhere (horse drawn carriages – although horse is a stretch to describe the poor boney nags and carriage would exaggerate the quality of the transportation) who shout out at us non stop all the time, hoping for business. Then there are all the felucca guys standing around (feluccas being the sail boats which meander around the river rather romantically, but only romantic once you have gone through the hassle of picking a reliable guy and enduring the harsh negotiation over price) everywhere asking you constantly to take a felucca ride and they promise “best price”, “best captain”, “best journey” etc. We negotiated one last night with a guy named Mohamed Ali (got to be kidding right?) – 55LP (about £6) for a whole morning sailing around the various islands in the vicinity. He made us shake his hand repeatedly to make us promise that we would hold to this deal, he even made the kids promise, which was unnecessary. We got there this morning at the agreed time and he couldn’t remember our names and was adamant that we agreed 50LP per hour for the morning. ARGH. By this time we were already sitting on the boat and about to push off. A heated discussion ensued and finally we paid 60LP for 2 hours. Once in the middle of the Nile and having cooled off from the attempted rip off AGAIN Pieter and i really enjoyed it.
Without an engine you are at the whim of the wind and it is slow and peaceful and a welcome break from the constant traffic, horns, hassling of the river bank. We sailed around Elephantine Island which homes a huge and luxurious Movenpick resort, along with Nubian tombs. Then around Kitchener Island where Lord Kitchener built himself a botanical garden which sort of remains. On the furthest river bank are tombs built into the mud caked mountainside, mausoleums, and an ancient Coptic Christian monastery. As we enjoyed lazily watching it all from a peaceful distance and referring every few moments to our guide book our “enthralled” children wrestled on deck, made dens out of the seat cushions and munched on wafer biscuits. Some things never change.
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