Cairo

This is the greeting I received, in the hotel room, in Cairo, Egypt. A very very nice hotel. I was rather surprised that I was travelling in so much style.

Just a shot of our room, a nice room indeed. 

Everytime we entered the hotel we had to do the security thing, oh man I don't think I'll ever do that much security in 10 yrs in North America, as I did in 2 nights in Cairo.

A view of the street from our hotel room. Busy, busy at night, cars and people everywhere, honking etc... Too bad I didn't get a picture of the streets as we were driving from the airport to the hotel. Bumper to bumper traffic for as far as the eye could see and on the 3 lane streets I counted 7 cars across, I don't know why they bothered with lines on the road. So what do you say for that, door to door traffic along with bumper to bumper for miles and miles? I'm still amazed that our big bus got through it and to the hotel in relatively good time.

Not the greatest picture(I know) but it gives you an idea of how many people were in one spot. They are waiting to get into the "Colossal" mall that was right off our hotel. Life doesn't start until after 6pm in Cairo.

Same spot from our hotel room in the morning. No one is around at all. (and no, it's not 6am, it's more like 9 or 10am) not a car to be seen or heard.

The best I could do to give you an idea of the size of the mall we went to. West Edmonton Mall is childs play compared to this mall. It has all the stores one would find in Canada or the USA and then some. Oh the people, so hard to describe how many people were in this mall at night. We thought we would go to the food court for supper, but to stand in line that long for junk food, nope, decided to go back to the hotel room and order in. Alot of young people were hanging out in the mall, hanging out with friends and doing the cell phone thing too. They were all walking somewhere, but I couldn't figure out where they were all going, but going somewhere they were! We had to be careful not to lose each other. To say that it was a bit overwhelming would be an understatement!

A view of the city of Cairo from one of the mosques we visited. 25 million people live in Cairo. (Huge!!! or should I say Colossal?)

Kelly and I with Cairo in the background.(Master of the obvious, I know) Really shouldn't take pictures facing into the sun eh? Just notice my "Brazil" shirt. That shirt made me a popular tourist, as all the locals love soccer and Brazil must be a fairly good team. Too bad you can't hear the locals say "Hey Brazzil"! I got the thumbs up everywhere I went.  Oh some of the lines I got from the boys working the tourists, rather entertaining that is for sure!!

Just to get you ready for the next post. I bet you can't guess what it will be about? I'm going to leave it at that for now. For the record, I'm very glad to visit a city like Cairo, but I don't want to live in a city like Cairo.