The day for departure came around very quickly after such a short time frame of preparation. We said goodbye to the girls and although I did my best to hold it all in and keep a strong face for the girls to show them it would be okay (Although showing a wide range of emotions in front of my girls is healthy, I didn’t feel this would be the time to be an utter mess). They still cried, more than I anticipated and that broke my heart although we had prepared them and we felt that everyone had a good grasp on what was going to happen. It will always pull on your heartstrings to experience that.
My biggest concern however of the entire holiday, even more than leaving the girls at home were the flights. Fun fact about me, I am not a great traveler. Road trips, train trips, bus trips, plane trips they all suck. I get uncomfortable, I get bored and I am a huge sook. Our first flight left at 10pm and we were to travel for 14 hours to Doha, we then had a short layover and a 4-hour flight and we would arrive in Cairo. Thankfully (despite it being a full flight and no spare seats) the flight went much better than expected.
I think another reason Nathanael probably chose to go to Egypt was because after Italy I had said to him that I was never going to fly more than maybe 6-9 hours away unless he somehow won flights somewhere.
So naturally that’s what he goes and does doesn’t he? Haha.
Overall the flights went better than expected for me. I was able to sleep and not be in too much discomfort pregnancy and hip/back mobility-wise. However, whether the flight went well or not it still took us 26 hours to get from home to the hotel in Cairo and we were now in the opposite time zone meaning it was daytime upon arrival and nighttime back home.
Arriving in Cairo was a very eye-opening experience. The traffic was insane. We had previously travelled to Bali and Thailand before and yes, their traffic was a lot but this was something else. The way people drove and the amount that people used their horns was overwhelming. I feel like I can still hear the constant beeping day and night all these weeks later. Just about every car was dinged, scratched and crashed. The people just crossed whenever they felt like it. There was really no concern for traffic rules or etiquette. I want to get to the other side. Great, I’ll just walk there now.
We arrived around 2pm and the plan was to try and last as long as we could before falling asleep. We set out to find something for lunch and walk around a little bit. We found a kebab shop around the corner and got some lunch. It was okay. I didn’t finish mine as my pregnancy vibes were throwing me off the meat. With a few hours to kill before bedtime and no tour until the morning, we decided to head about 30 minutes away from our hotel and collect Nathanael’s race day bib for the Cairo Marathon on the Friday morning. It was located in a Shopping Centre and had a cute little set-up of vendors and sponsors. We walked around the shops for a bit before heading home ready to crash ASAP.
Wednesday morning came very early due to jetlag and it was around 4 a.m. that we started our day. We headed upstairs for some breakfast when it opened excited for the complimentary breakfast I had organized with the hotel. Yeah, that was the first and last I wanted to eat there. Not only were we really high up in what seemed a very unstable building with wires and electricity running along the outside but the breakfast was certainly not a pregnancy friendly one for many reasons.
Around 10am we set off for our walking tour of Cairo City. Nathanael and I love to do walking tours as it gives you such great background information about the city and helps you to see and learn so much while being active. Over the next 6 hours, we visited the Coptic Area, Hanging Church, Babylon Fortress, St George Church, St Sergius & St Bacchus Church, Ben Ezra Synagogue, Amr Ibn Al-As, Salah Al-Din Citadel, Muhummad Ali Mosque, Al Nassar Muhummad Ibn Qaloun Mosque.
Basically, we saw a lot. It was really interesting seeing a lot of different religious and historical places. It was fascinating to see the amount of time, energy and money spent to build these places. It was interesting to see the locals and how they lived and spent their time while walking through the streets. My favourite part about the day was probably seeing the view of Cairo from the citadel. Although covered in a haze of pollution seeing the pyramids in the background and a vast city of what seemed to be 99% of buildings with no completed tops it was certainly a view full of emotions.
After finishing our tour and heading back to our hotel we set out for a place for dinner. I was exhausted by this point. We did a lot of walking and still jetlagged and tired we wanted to find somewhere we could sit and eat. We found this busy little place and decided to eat there. We asked for a menu and the waiter said that he was the menu and that they only serve one thing there. So that’s obviously what we ordered. The place was called Abu Tourek which we came to realize through the rest of the week was the most rated place to eat as it was affordable and accessible with a staple meal that all Egyptians could eat and afford.
Essentially, the meal is rice, pasta, and lentils, covered in a tomato sauce, lemon oil, and herbs and surprisingly was delicious and filling. We had two massive bowls each that gave us leftovers, 2 x soft drinks and 2 x rice pudding for dessert and we were only set back $11 AUD in total. It was a fun night. The waiter was great value and the vibe of the place was awesome as it was so busy but homely.
Thursday morning came and it was an early start out to Giza to take our tour of the pyramids. Obviously, I knew they are one of the seven wonders but I can’t say I’ve ever really learnt about them and their history. I was blown away by the information that was shared by our tour guide. He was good value and actually is an archaeologist but when they are only paid $60 USD a month there he needs to work as a tour guide while waiting for someone to sponsor new projects.
Apparently, the world is sort of done discovering new places near the pyramids and no one is willing to sponsor. He even told us and showed us photos of a new place that had been discovered. One completely different to anything found previously and it needs to be kept secret otherwise it will be ransacked and anything found will be sold on the black market…but that’s all I can say. Anyway back to the pyramids.
Just a little context for pyramids if you don’t know much like I did. The main pyramid has 2.6 million blocks on it. Each block weighs between 2-3 tonnes (which is 2000-3000kg) Which is about the weight of an adult male rhino at 2.3 tonnes. The Great Pyramid of Giza took 20 years to build. The blocks were sourced from a location about 1.6km away. In this period of time, the wheel had not been invented and as of today, they have found no residue of wood or other materials on the pyramid suggesting that wood or other objects were not used to assist in moving or placing the blocks.
In order to complete the pyramid in 20 years each block needed to be cut to size, transported 1.6km and placed on the pyramid whether down the bottom or at the top of the 130m+ height EVERY SIX MINUTES. Um, I’m sorry…WHAT!! EVERY SIX MINUTES. So when they say that they have a couple of theories but that no one knows how they were able to build the pyramids it truly is a wonder when you are looking at it in person how on earth they were able to do that and how we can’t with all our modern technology and education figure it out.
For me, this was such a highlight. Listening to the information and seeing it in person. What an absolute joy it was to witness, touch and experience. We finished the tour with Nathanael entering one of the pyramids. I was advised not to enter. Mostly because of pregnancy but also because the height is only about 1.3m and so you have to bend over for 10mins straight in almost 30-degree heat inside with a bunch of people to go and see the room at the end. I was totally fine for Nathanael to take a photo and share it with me later. After a short camel ride with some hilarious teenagers (which might I add I will never do again, far too hard to not feel like I was going to fall off) we headed off to lunch together.
Our tour guide stayed with us and ate with us and the other person on our tour. We offered to pay for his meal but he declined. He was happy just to spend time with us all. Nathanael ate pigeon and I tried a few local dishes. Some great, some, no thanks. What a fabulous day we had. We finished it off with some souvenir shopping before heading to bed early for an early start for Nathanael’s running event.
Now why you may be wondering was Nathanael participating in running events on our trip. Well, you see while we were looking to go in Feb/Mar to ensure I would be able to fly if I fell pregnant…when booking Nathanael was the one who sort of locked down the dates more. Which just so happened to mean that we were going to be IN CAIRO ON THE SAME WEEK AS THE CAIRO MARATHON and IN JERUSALEM ON THE SAME WEEK AS THE JERUSALEM MARATHON…..COINCIDENCE…..yeah, sure.
No really. It was SO awesome that Nathanael was able to participate in both of these events while away. What an epic experience to get medals and runs under his belt in different countries. Nathanael participated in the half marathons because we only actually decided we would go with a few weeks’ notice also only had a few week’s notice to go from running 5km at Parkrun on a Saturday to half marathons in a few weeks. Fortunately for him (whatever type of human breed he is) that wasn’t an issue for him to do.
I’m going to have to leave it there. If you’d like to keep reading about how Nathanael went in his marathon and the remaining days in Egypt you can click here. Our time in Egypt gave us way to memories to share in just one post. 😊
Love, Sarah Kay, xx
