Day 34

A change of itinerary for us....A planned 24 hour strike in Athens was due to take place on our scheduled day. This meant that everything would be closed down so The Captain is changing things around so we can still visit Athens. This will happen tomorrow.

A relatively lazy day today as we are still tired from the last couple of days. We are supposed to be getting some compensation for missing Safaga. We are not expecting anything to replace seeing the Valley of the Kings. After the Pyramids it just makes us realise what we did miss but we can't dwell on what might have been.

Day 33 Pyramids

A dream of a lifetime today!! Up at 5 a.m., quick brekkie and off to Giza and the Pyramids. A convoy of 44 buses, all with a security guard onboard and empty back up buses, all left around 7.30 a.m. Port Said was closed down to allow the buses to go straight through. The bus was equipped with a toilet as the drive to Cairo and Giza is 3.5 hours. The scenery was incredible, old and new cultures abound. We each received a lunch box snack, a nice touch. Our onboard guide was very knowledgeable. The thought of seeing the Pyramids and The Spynx was so surreal. As we arrived at Cairo, it was a fascinating sight. The houses resemble bland lego style building. All are unfinished as this way the people avoid paying housing tax, so its basically a red brick rectangle with random spaces for windows which are put in later, therefore none actually fit properly. As we looked between the mass of buildings, the laneways are piled high with more rubbish, animals and god knows what else. The traffic is unbelievable! Five lane roads that actually become 7 lanes, horns beeping constantly. We were lucky not to be involved in a crash!!

Day 33 Continued

Suddenly our guide told us to look to the left and lo and behold the pyramids were in sight!! I just could not believe this was happening. They stood tall above the city of Cairo. A few blocks more and it changed to Giza and then we were at the Pyramids and dessert. I can't remember the drive up towards the Pyramids as I was dumbstruck (and teary, I might add) at this sight. Our bus driver took us to the top of the hill to look down on the incredible sight. Hundreds of people, and camels and hawkers but I only had eyes for the Pyramids. Its really hard to put into words the sight of them. We took lots of photographs. Our onboard security guard became our personal guide, he was lovely and the machine gun he displayed meant that no one harrassed us!! We only had about 1 hour in total then back onboard to The Sphynx. Oh so much to take in. Absolutely magical sight. Our security man led us through some ruins so we could get closer to The Sphynx. To look down on this and be so close, its something we will always remember.

We headed off for lunch on a boat on The Nile. Lovely lunch, belly dancer entertained the men while the ladies all queued for the toilets!! The Nile is really dirty, very disappointing. We arrived back onboard around 7.30 p.m. so a very long day. The best day for us on this trip, we have decided that we have to do this again!!

Day 32 update

We are a day behind in our blog as its difficult to find the time to write, just having too much fun!! We entered the Suez Canal around 4.30 a.m., we were ship No. 1 in the procession. To be honest, we didn't expect much at all from this as many people had told us that there was nothing much to see. Well all I can say now is that they must have had their eyes closed!! Its amazing. We sat from 5 a.m. till we arrived at Port said at 4 p.m. Apart from toilet breaks, doing a bit some washing we were transfixed the whole way. One side is desert, the other is buildings, houses, farms and lots of small sentry boxes containing soldiers with rifles. To have this enormous ship so close to all of this is awesome. People were waving, whistling and running along the road as we passed by. We were initially to arrive in Port said at 6 p.m. however we were moving along well and arrived at 4 p.m. After 8 days at sea everyone was looking forward to walking on land again. We had been given a quick trip pass to go ashore in Port Said. A group of us, 10 in total, took off for a stroll along the streets. My first impression was CATS, everywhere! Skinny too. Lots of stalls near the ship but nothing caught my eye. The people were very friendly, usually tourists arrive and go straight to the Pyramids, therefore nearly 2000 people converging on the streets made them very happy. I still find the sight of rubbish and dirt everywhere hard to comprehend. We were tired after our long day on Suez Canal watch and the anticipation of our big day at the Pyramids forced to have a relatively early night, 11 p.m.!!!