The other point of leaving a day spare, as any independent traveler knows, is to allow time for flight delays so there is the minimum of rebooking required!! See the system works!!
So by Thursday I am ready for a day off doing whatever I please and have a look around where I am staying, which is on Gezira Island looking east across the Nile. Very handy really because it is only a short walk across Kubri Qasr Al Nil Bridge and turn left to get to the Egyptian Museum and ''downtown'' Cairo, and not far from the Cairo Tower and Opera either. There is a metro station nearby but today I refer to walk.
Or I would do if the taxi drivers outside the hotel would let me! Ask the taxi driver how much it will be, and if you decide it is worth it then take a taxi.... In my case back to the souk for a bit of shopping to get one of these.
Well one of the things hanging up that is. It's a light fitting and it is not for me and I am not going to carry it around for the next two weeks, it is going in a box and being posted. After some serious bartering I got it for half the price the the man asked, (and don't ask me how much it was), and then I asked him if he could put it in a box because I had to send it by post. At this point three other people got involved, the end result was that I paid the price he asked in the first place and after that is was out of my hands because it was boxed, I addressed it and it disappeared on a scooter to be posted. Three weeks later it arrived at its destination in Florida.... Magic... Who needs a genie in a lamp? All you need is an Egyptian!
Needing to get back to my hotel I thought about getting trying on of these out. You see a lot of these buzzing around, this one is rather smart as mostly they seem to be very elderly Volkswagen camper vans, usually with the back engine flap open because they have an air cooled engine.
Just around the corner from my hotel is the Cairo Tower.... There is also a gardens here but it was closed for some reason, and there are various government offices, heavily guarded I might add. I think the Cairo Tower is well worth the effort just to get a few photos if nothing else, and to meet people of course. Particularly people wanting to get a visa to go to the UK, but I will not dwell on that......
Cairo is a bit hazy to say the least.. But you get the general idea, and meanwhile the horses are getting their lunch....Tomorrow is another busy day as I am off to Fayoum Oasis.
The trip out to Fayoum Oasis is, I think, something that not many people do, although, all in all, it is worthwhile if you have the time! My day did not get off to a good start when the guide got into the car and promptly went to sleep.....
Passing through several villages we pick up a police escort on the way, the only occasion during my stay when I had a police escort but there had been some ''troubles'' in the Western Desert so we had to have one. Indeed you have to have permission to go out this way! A bit of confusion came into play when the permit we had said I was Australian when I am not which is probably why when we stopped to pick up a bit of breakfast, I apparently bought breakfast for the police escort as well! Welcome to Egypt!
The sites out this way are clearly not visited by many as at Karanis the guide has to call the curator to come and open up for us, and at Qasr Qarun, the ancient city of Dionysis there was no curator at all, the settlements here are mainly Roman and it would appear that most of the reason for their existence is that they were on the caravan route.
Meanwhile the desert has reclaimed some of the excavations that were done in the past and little has been done in the way of restoration or preservation.
Interestingly the Temple of Sobek-Ra at Qasr Qarun is just about the only remaining temple with the roof still intact.
The nearby lake, which is below sea level is far smaller that is was in ancient times and has become so salty that marine shellfish can be farmed in it.
Above Karanis and right the Temple of Sobek Ra
Finally we reach the waterfalls at Fayoum, this is the place where people from Cairo come to have a splash about do a bit of sailing, sand boarding, and canoodling, which is frowned upon!! People have been arrested it seems and while we are wandering around I seem to have collected a ''minder''....
There is a large ''coffee house'' here and it is that time of day, and my guide is getting more and more fidgety by the minute because there is a small mosque here, and it is Friday... Before he has a chance to even say anything, I just say ''Go'' because I can already tell that he is one of the more devout and it the Holy Day of the week.
But we have one more stop to make before returning to Cairo. Fayoum is famous for its waterwheels, (which were invented by the Greeks), and we are going to see some of them. Well actually
we are not because the ones you normally see are being ''restored''.
So we are going to look at this one instead, in spite of the rubbish, (mainly plastic carrier bags I am sorry to say), everybody seems to be enjoying the fun of diving off into the canal.....
Above is one of the crops you see frequently here, it is a fast growing grass especially for feeding animals, so to the left is a donkey who has been to the supermarket and is carrying his dinner home with him.
Arriving back in Cairo we go to eat, and this time I insist the driver comes too.... After all he was a lot more responsive than the guide.....