Alexandria Day Trip

We had set the alarm for 4am thinking it was actually 5am. Dan woke at what he thought was 5am and got ready, pushing Ev out of bed to get ready too even though she said he had the time wrong. Convinced he was right, Dan went downstairs where he met Richard and Denise from Melbourne who had arrived yesterday and were on our tour. They were also coming to Alexandria today. Richard thought it was also 5:45am. Dan was beginning to think he was down an hour early and had it confirmed when the concierge said the time was indeed 4:45am. Not sure what went wrong but Dan was an hour early. He went back upstairs and Ev gave him an ‘I told you so’ look and went straight back to sleep, so wide awake Dan updated our journal.

Finally 6am actually came around correctly and we met the rest of our group and also met our guide for the day, Hene. She was a very nice Egyptian woman and knew everything about Alexandria and Egyptian History. We officially met Richard and Denise for the first time and along with Graham, Helen and Carla we boarded the bus. Breakfast was supplied by the hotel in small boxes containing bread, cheese, jam, egg and a mango drink. The drive from Cairo to Alexandria would be around 3 hours. As we ate breakfast we watched the Egyptian countryside go by. It’s incredible how different the scenery just outside the city is; from city life to crops to extreme desert. We saw a lot of pigeon houses along the way to Alexandria. Halfway into the journey we stopped at a rest area to stretch our legs. We went into a small store to purchase a bottle of water. We thought the shopkeeper said ‘30 pounds’ ($5-6AUD) which seemed like a lot for water. Anyway, Dan handed over a 100 pound ($18-19AUD) note and the guy said “No change, no change” which we thought was for an item worth 30 pounds. Dan went through his wallet trying to find something smaller and found a 5 pound note and he said “Yes, yes. 3 pounds.” Whoops. We then understood why he got annoyed when Dan flashed a hundred. We both laughed about it though. 3 pounds is amazingly cheap for a 1.5L bottle of purified water. It equates to about 60 cents.



Alexandria Day Tour

Alexandria is a beautiful name for a city but in fact it was quite dirty but no where near as dirty or polluted as Cairo. Alexandria has a population of 6-7 million people and is one of 34 cities around the world with the name Alexandria. The Egyptian city is the original Alexandria and is named after Alexander the Great. We started our tour of the city at the Catacombs of Kom El Shoqafa. The area had been buried for centuries until it was accidentally discovered by a donkey in 1900 when it fell down a shaft. It was quite spooky as we descended down 99 steps of a circular stairwell to find underground tombs of noble families and burial chambers for commoners. We saw hieroglyphics and drawings depicting the mummification process of the noble families. It was quite interesting. It was a very hot day and thankfully Dan had his zip of pant legs and was a bit cooler than Ev who was respectful to the Muslim culture and wore long pants and a ¾ length shirt. It seems crazy to think that Muslim women cope with the heat in full body clothing.

Our next stop was the ancient Pompey’s Pillar and Sphinx statues. We got a photo taken by Hena which made us look like we were trying to carry the pillar. We entered an area known as the Sanctuary which as replica of the Bull of Apis and also an ancient library.

Pompey's Pillar, Alexandria

Bull of Apis, Pompey's Pillar, Alexandria

Pompey's Sphinx and Pillar, Alexandria

Our next stop was at the Citadel of Alexandria on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, which was built in 1477. We then took short a walk along the sidewalk of the Mediterranean. It looks very nice from a distance but unfortunately up close is full of rubbish and stray cats everywhere you look. We were able to get a few good shots of the sea and the Citadel in the background. There were vendors lined up along the sidewalk also and it was very tempting to buy some souvenirs. We think we’ll leave that sort of thing for Luxor and Aswan, though.

Citadel, Alexandria

We headed to a buffet restaurant called Athineos. For 40 EGP ($7-8AUD) you can have all you can eat of rice, fish, meatballs, calamari, spring rolls, salad, noodles, potato and curried rice. The little desserts were like baklava’s. The food was excellent and the view was even better. It was wonderful thinking that we were eating lunch and drinking fruit smoothies overlooking the Mediterranean. Love it.

We got back on the bus and to was time to get to Bibliotheca Alexandrina (Alexandria Library). It was a massive library, but still a library and Dan was bored within seconds. After a few minutes we did some exploring and found a museum downstairs that displayed ancient Egyptian antiquities. This was more like it. Unfortunately we spent too much time at the library and couldn’t see as much of what we wanted. Before we left, we went downstairs to another room called ‘In the Afterlife’ and saw a display of an actual mummified woman wrapped in linen. There were some displays of ancient coins from different civilizations and also letters and invitations in hieroglyphics on papyrus paper. It was fascinating. We felt we could have spent at least half a day in the museum alone. We met up with the rest of the group at the gift shop and bought some books, ‘Treasures of the Egyptian Museum’, ‘The Gods and Kings of Egypt’ and ‘The Easy Way to Read and Write Hieroglyphics’.

Bibliotheca Alexandrina

In the Library

We caught up on our journal on the bus ride home and slept some of the way. The group tipped the driver and Hene for doing such a great job.

We went for a walk to the Nile at around 6-6:30pm and it was nearly time for the Muslim’s breakfast. We noticed at around 6:30pm people had food ready to go outside of businesses, petrol stations, car bonnets and in the park. It was also really nice later on to see that some restaurants had set out some food for the homeless to enjoy as well. On the way to the Nile we were followed down the street by a guy who owned a souvenir shop across the road from our hotel. Hoda had warned us about guys like this. She said these guys would approach foreigners and be all friendly, asking their name and where they’re from and all of a sudden he would invite them into his store and basically shut the door, forcing them to buy something just so they could leave. We weren’t going to have a bar of it. Ev didn’t even acknowledge the guy who was following us, which is good. He walked up beside us and said “You are at the King Hotel. You are my neighbour. Where are you from?” Dan replied “Australia”, “ah. I have friends in Australia. In Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra” obviously just reeling off the cities he had heard of or studied. “What is your name?” Dan says “David”. The guy asked “Where are you going?” Dan said “Just for a walk”. “Are you enjoying the city and people of Cairo?” Dan said “All except for the driving.” The guy laughed and finally cuts the foreplay and gets to his sales pitch. “My good friend, David. I have souvenir store across road. I’ll show you and you buy if you like, yes?” Ev chimes in “No were fine.” “I give good price?” Dan replied “Sorry, not interested” “Real nice stuff” Dan said “If we want some souvenirs we know where you are and we’ll see you but we're not interested.” Thankfully the guy knew he was fighting a losing battle and retreated. He seemed nice enough but it was a bit unsettling that he followed us for about 5 minutes almost to the River to try and sell us something.

We think the Nile looks a lot better when you’re not in Cairo because of the rubbish in the water, but it was still pretty cool to be walking across the Nile on a bridge. It was nice to go for a walk in downtown Cairo. We went to Alpha Mart (supermarket) and bought some water, milk and junk then headed back to the hotel before it got dark and our ‘neighbour’ was at his store and was like “You come in now?” We just said “No thanks” and walked back into the hotel.

Nile River, Cairo

We saw Richard, Denise and Carla in the restaurant downstairs at the hotel and arranged to have dinner with them on the roof top restaurant. We got ready and headed upstairs. The place was empty except for our dinner party. It was a very relaxed open balcony restaurant. We sat on couches with coffee tables, and there was a big screen TV and the staff in their 20’s played Arabic pop music. It was a warm evening but a nice cool breeze blew all evening. The 3 guys serving at the restaurant spoke very broken English and ordering was a bit of an ordeal. We wanted to know the difference between regular and special whiskey, and the ‘waiter’ thought Dan was trying to order both at the same time. The staff were watching TV on the big screen plasma and had the volume blaring so we asked them to turn it down a couple of times and they would turn it down for a moment and turn it up again. At one stage they just started changing channels thinking we wanted to watch something else. Everything was Arabic, what could we possibly want to watch? Anyway, the 5 of us ended up moving down to the other end of the room away from the TV. The view from the top of the building was excellent, except for the pollution making it a bit hazy. We got to know Richard, Denise and Carla better over drinks and dinner. Richard used to work in mining in various cities around the country and overseas but left the industry and now he and Denise run a Post Office in Melbourne. Carla works for Queensland Health and a couple of weeks ago finished volunteering in an Orphanage in Kenya.

King Hotel roof top

Dan ordered spaghetti bolognaise and Ev had pesto. Both meals were very nice. We’re starting to learn in Egypt that you must have correct change because they tend to keep anything you give them over the asking price. Our meals and drinks cost 113 EGP ($20AUD) and we gave him $120 EGP and got no change. Oh well. The strange thing is that when you withdraw money from any ATM in Cairo you get it on 100 or 200 EGP notes but no one wants to change for these notes when you buy something. Frustrating.

At around 8pm we heard the prayers go out across the city via speakers. We have never heard anything like it. Incredible. We chatted for a while and finally called it a night at around 9:30pm. Dan stayed up until 1am catching up on the journals. We’re off to get our first look at the pyramids tomorrow. Can’t wait!

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