Why Egypt?
Egypt may not be considered the typical honeymoon
destination for most, but when my fiancé and I were planning our big summertime
trip, no other location even came close. We had found a 21-day tour with Fez Travel, the
same company that had guided us so expertly around the Turkish countryside and
left us with scores of unforgettable memories. One of the best things about
that tour, apart from the amazing Turkish people, food, nature and monuments,
was the limited tour group size. As we both generally despise escorted tours, we
figured if we had to do one, this was the one we wanted!
When we finally arrived in Cairo, bleary-eyed and achy from
an overnight flight and a 2-hour delayed one from Frankfurt, our tour rep --
the first of many Mohammeds we would meet -- briefed us on our itinerary. We
asked Khalifa (all the Mohammeds we met had nicknames to distinguish themselves
from one another) when we would meet the other members of our tour. Well, we
had signed up with this company for their small size groups and were quickly
told that we WERE the group. No one else had signed up. WOW. Many positives and
negatives to that scenario. But, we were far too tired to think too much about
it at that point. So after our not-so-brief briefing, we headed upstairs to our
room on a rickety little elevator that could hold no more than 3 people for
some much-needed rest.
We slept in. The early morning call to prayer did not even
wake us. I peeled back the window curtains and threw open the window for our
first view of daylight Cairo. The air was warm and a sweet flowery fragrance
hung in the air. There was the sound of birds chirping from the manicured
garden below us. And something that looked like mutant mushrooms growing on the
sides of the buildings -- dozens and dozens of satellite dishes.
After a light breakfast of eggs, fresh fruits, sweet breads
and some amazingly refreshing pineapple juice, we rested up a bit on our tour
guide's recommendation, given the long breakneck speed of our upcoming travels.
But finally we succumbed to our wanderlust and headed outside to explore.
And in less than half an hour, we managed to lose our way,
despite having both a map and some verbal directions from the concierge. It turned out our garden did not make the
best landmark, since there were TWO of them and we had made it back to the
wrong one. After a few minutes of backtracking, we finally found the hotel
again. We sheepishly returned to our hotel, our travelers' pride ruined in the
first day, and literally chilled out with some AC and cold water.
But once again, our desire to explore was too much and we
ventured out in search of lunch. We found a cute, very Westernized café that
sold fruit smoothies and played ridiculous music, including "Proud to be
an American" -- a song I would not have expected to hear in the Middle
East. The smoothies were out-of-this-world! Jon got strawberry and I ordered
mango. They were actually made with REAL FRUIT. The stringy mango flesh stuck to
my chin as I drank it. It more than hit the spot on the toasty summer day. I didn’t
realize how warm I was until we stopped to cool down!
Not wanting to tempt heat exhaustion before the Sphinx and
Pyramid Light Show we were going to later that night, we once again retreated
to the air-conditioned comfort of our hotel for a siesta and prepared ourselves
for our first glimpse of the only remaining Wonder of the ancient world.
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