This morning I met Vicki, who is on the tour and from Sydney, Australia. The three of us decide to go to the museum in Cairo, because with the tour tomorrow, we'll only have about an hour or so to see things.
After battling traffic for about 45 minutes or so , we finally arrive at the museum. (to see some of the exhibits in the museum, click on the photo below)
After exploring the museum, we had to find a ride back to the hotel. Out in the front of the museum are taxi drivers trying to get people to hire them. We were approached by one man who wanted way too much for a lift back. We haggled with him for about 5 minutes...well actually, Vicki did. She has a talent for negotiating and usually ends up paying half of what everybody else ends up spending. She saved me money in more than a few situations. This guy doesn't go for it and we end up getting another driver. His name is Sayed Mahmoud Ahmed. He wants a little more than we're prepared to pay, but he says he'll also take us for a drive around the pyramids to get a few nice pictures on the way. We agree and off we go. We tour around and get a few nice pictures of the pyramids off in the distance.
His next tour takes us through little side streets in the city and a closer look at life in Cairo away from the craziness of downtown. I'm sure that most foreigners don't go through these areas, because as we pass through the tiny one-way streets, people stop and stare or say hello and wave. The people all over in Egypt are very nice and always say hi or wave wherever we go. I was surprised by that. Cairo is probably one of the safest cities in the world. Even more than Toronto. I think that the reason for this is because of the Muslim religion and the strict laws governing the country.
After that little tour, Sayed takes us to a "papyrus institute" to show us the technique the ancient Egyptians used to make paper. It was fairly interesting, but the "institute" was actually a "shop" where they could persuade us to spend our money. There were a lot of nice papyrus paintings of scenes from famous hieroglyphs. I ended up buying one. It was clear that most of the taxi drivers get a commission for bringing tourists into certain stores. He was nice to us and helped us out, so we didn't mind. He also stopped to buy us a bag of oranges from a street vendor on the way back as a gift. they were delicious, and lasted several days.
Back at the Hotel that night, we met the rest of our tour group. There are only ten of us. Eight Australians, one American, and myself. The guy that is running the trip is named Wayne. He is Australian also.
