Day 238 – Cairo
Today we woke up to a massive tray with an equally filling breakfast delivered directly to our room, at City Hostel. The staff appeared to be quiet surprised about the fact that we didn’t finish the mountain of bread!
We walked around 45 minutes towards the Cairo Tower. Along the way we made our first contact with the iconic Nile River. The river splits the city in two and the numerous bridges to cross, appeared to be always full of bumper to bumper traffic.
We then arrived at the towering Cairo Tower, which is a 187m tall view point. Entrance tickets are 200 EGP / $17.22 AUD for tourists. The building was completed in the 60s, and you can tell from the small and slow lift. Despite having to wait a while to go up/down, you are rewarded with uninterrupted 360 degree views. It was stunning, and the city is massive. Fun fact, the population of Cairo is around 20 million. The entire population of Australia is around 25 million.
Pyramids…from a distance
We then made our way towards Tahrir Square, which I had previously heard about during the 2011 Egyptian Revolution protests. The square is right next to the Egyptian Museum.
Here we met a “friendly” local who talked to us for a while. Then he was like, come to my daughter’s wedding tomorrow. Stupidly, after meeting all these friendly people in Alexandria, we said maybe, and he told us to follow him to a close-by store. It was just a sales tacit and once we were in the shop, he disappeared and the salesmen tried to work his magic on us to sell expensive souvenirs.
We were really shocked to find a local who would lie to us. But in retrospect, our friends in Alexandria told us to watch out for things like this…also common sense should have been used.
After this, we went out for an authentic Egyptian dinner of KFC. The chicken was actually delicious and more spicy than the standard we get back home.
