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I woke up yesterday, looked out of the bedroom window, and saw... nothing. The city of Cairo was enveloped in a thick smog. I got ready, and went down to my ride that was waiting for the office. The day went well, and a lot was covered.
At the end of the day we made our way back to the hotel, and went the scenic route. I was like a small child when I caught a glimpse of the pyramids in the distance. I couldn't quite believe they were there, and just how huge they looked from the distance we were. At the hotel I had something to eat with a guy from Palestine, and talked about his family, his life, how he had to get a Jordanian passport to travel anywhere, and his views on the conflicts, food and love. As always, I find this times the most interesting, and it always helps me to get a better handle on the world, and how I perceive it, and how others perceive us. I was fascinated with his life. After that we took a walk down to the banks of the Nile. Simply getting to the Nile was an adventure - crossing the roads involved taking huge risks with your life, diving into fast traffic, and hoping that the driver blinked - or rather didn't and saw you and stopped. We got to the banks we saw the pleasure boats waiting to take you on a trip up the Nile, for about 3 £EG you could have a half-hour ride. We boarded and waited... and waited... three quarters of an hour later the boat finally decided it had enough passengers and set off. We started up the Nile, got to the first bridge, then.... nothing. The boat started to slow and then started to drift. We turned, we slowly drifted, we collided with one of the pillars supporting the bridge, we narrowly avoided being hit by another boat. We'd run out of petrol. One of the guys running the boat had to go and get some petrol, in the way you'd guess when we were stranded. Thankfully it was not a cold night - about 20C, though the water looked a lot colder. It took a long while for him to come back, and when he did get back to us, the engine wasn't that happy with the petrol mixture and spluttered all the way back to the dock. OK, I expected more of a trip up the Nile, but I couldn't say it wasn't entertaining! My companion then got talking to a taxi driver, being a fellow Arab he was able to talk to him about stuff, and negotiated his services for Friday morning when we plan to go and take in the pyramids. This morning the sun rose and there wasn't as much smog. It looks like a beautiful day.  |
