Egypt - Sharm-el-Sheikh & Cairo (01.-15.03.2009)

"Welcome to Egypt!" These well-known words will follow us during our whole trip through Egypt. Everybody seems to know these words, even those who don’t speak English. After the time-consuming and complicated immigration procedure we are finally on our way to Sharm el Sheikh, the main touristic area on the Sinai Peninsula. The drive through the mountains in the morning light is breathtaking and we notice that a lot of money has been spent to improve the roads. After all these long weeks in the tent we have planned to stay at the Hilton Sharks Bay resort, a very nice hotel where we have been before.

We enjoy the very nice hotel and our wonderful suite and get a lot of things done in the town like washing our clothes, taking care of our blog, calling all our Egyptian friends, just relaxing at the wonderful pool and enjoying the delicious food. After driving 8000 km it’s also time to do the service for the Toyota. “Welcome to Egypt” – this also means our first flat tire since 8000 km, but it turns out to be a loose valve, which is quickly fixed and the tire is inflated with our compressor.

After 5 relaxing days (unfortunately 3 of them have been very windy and cold), we leave for Cairo. Saying good bye to Sharm is not easy. We have enjoyed the great hotel with the extremely nice and helpful staff as well as the fact to have great food without sand in it. Nevertheless, our blog is called “through Africa” and after 6 weeks on tour, we are eager to leave Asia and cross to Africa which we do through the tunnel under the Suez Channel.

Cairo welcomes us with light traffic due to the fact that it’s Friday. Quickly we find our way to Marianne Morsi in Maadi, a very nice German lady who rents a room in her flat. We enjoy her warm hospitality and really can recommend this nice accommodation. Maadi is a lovely suburb of Cairo close to the Nile. This is not the real Cairo, since it is very clean, green, organized and quiet. A lot of beautiful shops and restaurants etc. can be reached by foot. It turns out to be also the perfect place for Thomas to reach his former dentist since after eating delicious peanuts, he lost a part of a tooth due to cavity and has to see him a couple of times. Delicious peanuts, but expensive!! This incidence is unbelievable, since he had been to the dentist in Dubai on the 24^th of December 2008 for a final check-up to prevent exactly this from happening during the trip. “Welcome to Dubai”.

We thought there should be no Cairo Blog without some pictures from the Giza Pyramids.

We spend a lovely time in Cairo seeing a lot of friends and visiting touristic sites in Cairo which we had never visited before or for a long time. We have an exceptional view over the city from the Cairo Tower.

But the real highlight is a visit to the old Islamic Cairo around Khan el Khalili, the historic bazaar in Cairo. During our many previous visits to it, while living in Cairo, we noticed that renovations of old buildings had started, now we see that a very good job has been done. We are happy that our friends bring us there at night, and we are overwhelmed by the beauty. A part of this area has become a pedestrian area and everything has been not only renovated, but is also very nicely illuminated. We walk for a couple of hours, enjoying the feeling how beautiful Cairo must have been in the past. We are the only tourists, lucky to have these wonderful friends who know this place and show us around. A delicious dinner in the excellent traditional Naguib Mahfouz restaurant makes this night perfect and unforgettable. Thanks a lot to our dearest friends Nasser and Hala for this extraordinary night we surely will never forget.

Unfortunately, the plans for our trip are getting upside down. Our container from Dubai seems to be lost between the oceans. We have to extend our Egyptian visa and the temporary car licence now, which seems to be a real challenge. We have to go to the “Mogamma”, the huge government building that even plays a role in the cartoon “Asterix and Obelix”. Thanks god we don’t have to carry big stones like Obelix while being sent from window to window, until, after 3 hours, we are told to come back in 4 days! We decide to use the waiting time to make a trip to the desert. The evening before leaving we have a nice dinner in Helwan, in the Tata restaurant we know from our old times. It’s a small and simple restaurant with the best shrimps and calamari one can imagine. We even meet Claudia’s friends from Helwan and spend a lovely time with them talking about the good old days.