Day 4

Today was technically day 1 of the Nile and Sinai Odyssey Tour and we were to meet who we thought would be our tour leader later that night, but today was a free day.

I woke up early (again) and waited to Ange to wake (for some reason she would wake when I had a shower at this stage). We wondered down to breakfast and was introduced to what was our first boiled egg, but not our last :) Carrie was sitting at the other table but we didn't know her then.

After breakfast we organised a day trip through the King Hotel to see Saqqara, Memphis and the Egyptian Museum.

So Ange and I head of to Saqqara in a taxi. The Taxi driver was rather talkative and first took us to a Papyrus place where they showed us how to make the paper and then sold us quite a few of their pieces for probably a lot more than they are worth, but by this stage we hadn't really got used to haggling. They did give us a chip and salad sandwich, which angela fed to the dogs at Saqqara, I ate it.

After an hour or so of people selling us papyrus we finally started to head off to what was our first really really old monument...Saqqara or the Step Pyramid (please correct me if I am wrong). As we were rather fresh at all this we were snap happy and I think I have more pictures of Saqarra than anything else. We were shocked that a) there were dogs b) rubbish c) a complete lack of bins (ok I did find one) at the monument site. But I think the awe of just being in a place with thousands of years history overcloaded those things listed. And we did have a very friendly puppy following us around.



Once we had exhausted all photo opportunities there we got back into the taxi and the driver tells us that Memphis is boring and takes us straight to the Museum, of which he gives us ONE, I repeat, ONE hour to look around. Needless to say I would go back to Egypt just to see the rest of the place but I would give the mummy room a skip second time round.

So after our ONE hour we go back to the hotel, and I think this is were we actually introduced ourselves to Carrie (sorry guys if this is wrong...memories already fading although I have a feeling it was earlier than this..could have been in the morning) and a phone call from Chrissy who I had prior contact through emails.

I can't remember what we did up until the time we met Hassan must have been boring...all I know is that we were waiting on the wrong level for him. After that was all sorted and names, flights etc exchanged, Hassan showed us an easier ATM to access (only 2 roads to cross!!) and an internet cafe which was 2LE an hour when it was open.

I believe Carrie, Chrissy, Angela and I had dinner at Chicken Tikka that night (next door to KFC that is run by deaf and speech impaired people) as Hassan had a birthday party to go to. Had an earlyish night cause we were off to see the Pyramids the next day.