Drive like an Egyptian

Finally out of port said taking a little less than 2 days from getting of the ferry. Our fixer Eslam seem to be worth his fee making  the process very easy, apart from 1 morning with a couple of trips to a shipping company office and a few hours waiting in a cafe with wifi where he picked up the bill we didnt have to do much (he covered most of our taxis to) And due to our taxi getting lost on the final day we missed handing over our keys for a customs inspection so no one ever checked inside, i had read some people had every last bit inventoried down to the linen. £3000 egyptian for anyone who is intrested although we went with a couple of other cars for a "better" price. That was everyting only $15 paid on the boat for a visa was extra.

After the delights of port said, im sure there must be something?  We headed down to cairo hoping the motorway would get us there in 2/3 hours. Somehow even though the toll was only £0.40 stirling I feel robbed, it was hardly an expressway and took a while to adjust to the oncoming trucks using the wrong side, often without lights.

The fuel is cheap here at £1.10  Egyptian or £0.11 Stirling. However most fuel stations didnt have any as we had heard in advance, so as soon as we found one we filled up. With only a 45 min wait, not bad as I had heard of it being hours.

Cairo ring road at night, mental, leading our little convoy of brits, irish and dutch. 6 lanes in 3 all intermingling often without lights and masive horn usage. We found the safest place was in the what in the uk would be the fast lane (often the slowest here) preferably behind a semi or bus to clear the way for you. And a few plies of rubble scattered about to swerve around. Finally found the campsite we were heading for down many potholed, rubble strewn and unpaved dirt streets in neighbourhoods you wernt quite sure about. But it turned out to be a little haven of coolness and cleanliness from the heat, dirt and rubbish outside. And the pool was most welcome!
A great rooftop terrace as well for night views of the pyramids.

Last few days we have battled with cairos traffic from downtown to the pyramids. Ticking of the excellent museum, pyramids/sphyinx and a letter of invitation from the uk embassy for the Sudanese visa. The actual visa we will try and get in aswan as apparently $50 cheaper per person than cairo. Although some people have reported issues getting it. Hopefully no round trip to cairo from aswan.

We are now just waiting to meet Yasser one of Elenas freinds who has invited us up to the coast at alexandria for a couple of days. So we will put visiting the desert on hold and head north again. He is driving so it should be relaxing.......hopefully.

Now just once mord across cairo to meet him.