Back to Africa

January 9^th, 2010.

The day finally came for Joe and I to begin our travels to South Africa. We had two tickets on Egypt Air leaving from JFK international airport in New York City. We got dropped off by my uncle and said a final good-bye to home. The flight was just about 10 hours long to Cairo non-stop. We played some scrabble before boarding the plane and waited over an hour to get into the sky. They fed us a choice of chicken, fish, or beef and after eating we fell asleep.

In no time we arrived in Cairo just before 13:00 or 1 pm. Because we had a 12 hour layover in Cairo we decided to take a quick tour of the city. Conveniently Egypt Air is affiliated with a tour company – Karnak – that specializes in just such things. So I handed over all our documentation to the Egypt Air officials in order to go on the tour. At first when going to the Karnak office it seemed like there would be four people going on the tour of the pyramids and the sphinx – myself, Joe, and two young ladies who were flying from Tel Aviv. Then another couple headed to Kuala Lampur popped up. It didn’t seem like a bad deal the more people the cheaper the tour. However, the more people the bigger the delay. Long story short the tour ended up being 12 people and to get all the documentation ready took two hours.

Patiently, we all watched the officials walk back and forth at least 10-15 times with our tickets and passports. Finally, at quarter to 3 everything was ready. Unfortunately, we were told the pyramids and Sphinx close at 3 so instead of a tour there we would see the Nile, a famous bazaar in Cairo, and some museum. The good news was that we would still get to see the pyramids, just from a distance.

So off we all went. All twelve of us followed the official through customs and into an air conditioned Karnak van. After waiting around for about 15 minutes we were off into the hectic Cairo traffic. The van swerved, stopped short, sped up and slowed down while we gasped and prayed not to get hit. Traffic was horrendous. In any case we made a quick stop at the side of the highway to pick up our tour guide who instantly began spouting information about Cairo and the city of Giza. Soon after we made it to our first stop – The Nile! How exciting. Again the driver stopped the van on the side of the highway allowing all twelve of us to hop out and take pictures.

When we were done watching the ferry man take people across the river and water flow we jumped back in the van and sped off into the traffic to see the pyramids. We drove about 10 more minutes before the pyramids made their first appearance amidst the contemporary Giza high rises, satellite dishes, laundry, and traffic. For a third time we stopped on the side of the highway to take pictures. “I hope we get closer!” was my comment to Joe. Indeed we did. After turning off on a smaller road next to a canal filled with trash fed by the Nile and the millions of residents we got right outside the pyramid gates.

Tourists were all around, busses and busses of them. Young and old men led and rode camels for visitors’ pleasures. Stores abounded with all sorts of Egyptian wares. We all took pictures. Suddenly our tour guide led us into a building which happened to be a KFC/Pizza hut! We were all baffled to say the least. Anyway, we walked up a few flights of stairs to the roof of the franchise and then gathered around to take our photos in front of the pyramids. All the while I wondered why we needed to stop on the side of the highway and why we were viewing the pyramids from a Pizza hut.

After about 10-15 minutes of pictures we descended back into the street and were loaded back into the van. The tour guide then told us that we were going to go to a papyrus museum and a perfume shop to learn about these two ancient Egyptian industries. The one lady headed to Kuala Lampur asked about the bazaar to which the guide responded “Oh no, no we cannot go there it is too crowded now!” I can only imagine the look of disappointment in her face -at least the second one that day – it was probably the same look Joe had when he found out that the closest we’d get to the pyramids was atop a cheesy American franchise! I guess we’ll have to return to get the true experience.

Off we went to the museum and shop which ended up being just tourist traps to get us to spend our money. None of us did except for one Pakistani woman who purchased some kohl for some outrageously expensive price. I promise you the perfume salesman cursed us as we left but we thankfully piled into the van. Finally, hungry and exhausted we were driven to our hotel – the nice thing about Egypt Air is that if you have an extra long layover you can take advantage of their FREE hotel service where they will put you up and feed you. So after what seemed to be a forever ride back near the airport through rush hour traffic we arrived at the hotel. Most of us had late night flights so we only got to enjoy the rooms for two hours but in that time we ate a much needed buffet meal and got showers.

Come 21:00 hours – 9pm – Joe and I checked out of the hotel, then hopped on another bus to the -airport which was actually walking distance but due to security and the highway systems could not do so. Finally we arrived back at the airport went to the customer service counter, picked up our passports, boarding passes, and luggage tags and were quickly shuffled through customs and security. An hour and a half we got on our plane for about seven more hours straight down the continent – next stop Johannesburg!