Egypt-Cairo

Early in the morning we met our shore excursion group at 6:35am. Immigration was on the ship just like they were on the ship fro Jerusalem. We had a small breakfast before we left.

It was another hot day, like all the others. We were so very happy to see that there was an onboard toilet. They knew that the bathrooms in Egypt are not very clean, rarely have toilet paper and there is usually a tip needed to use a toilet. The tours have specific shopping stops that have very nice bathrooms so we didn't have to worry much. I still don't know how a bus load of 35 people rarely used the toilet. I used it once, but I was using Immodium D so I wouldn't embarrass myself. Was I the only one with that problem? But after driving for about an hour the bus took on a very bad smell, like a chemical toilet. So we kept driving in our police escorted convoy when we pulled over to get on a backup bus. The security was there at our door holding a weapon when we exchanged buses. Pulled back over into traffic and back into our convoy. No more smell!!!

Well driving through Cairo was an experience and I was so glad I wasn't driving. Some drivers ride the white line never really making up their minds which lane they want, or they were telling us they want the whole road. Sometimes they stop for red lights and sometimes it is a slow crawl. And I never once saw anyone stop for people in crosswalks. I didn't see them stop for crosswalks in Italy either. So the people had to move into the traffic to cross. Kind of scary when we had to do it. There are some countries that do not want to wait for anything, Italy and Egypt are two of those countries. They do not know how to stay in a line, because they all want to be first so they honk their horns constantly and try to pass constantly. I closed my eyes a lot!

There is lots of garbage on the streets of Egypt. They just dump it in any place, culvert, street, ditch, by buildings, in parks, just any where and people do not seem to mind. They sit right there with it and visit with one another. Many buildings were only partially built and people just covered the doors and windows woth sheets or colored blankets and lived in it. I sometimes felt that the people are depressed and that makes them not care. Or it is a cultural thing and the men do not seem to think it is their problem. And most of the women cannot make decisions because they have to demurely defer to the husband. It would be so nice if the people in the neighborhoods got together every so often and started cleaning their area that soon it would be cleared of all the mess.

Cairo is a bright and colorful city but the garbage and empty buildings made out of the same gray cement one after another, distract from the beauty that could be Cairo!
I am sure there are better neighborhoods that are clean, I hope anyway! We stopped once in Cairo and had lunch at a nice hotel and the food was delicious!