Egypt, Day Seven and Eight

Day7: The next day we got up and walked around Cairo since it was Catherine’s first day there. After exploring for awhile we went to the restaurant that Musa had taken us to a couple nights previous and had lunch there. After that we decided that we wanted to go to Cairo Tower. It is a verrry large tower in downtown Cairo, right by the Nile, and it allows you to see pretty much all of Cairo from the top. We went up there and took pictures and then spent awhile up there just talking and enjoying the nice weather. That after leaving the tower, we went and got supper and then went back to the hostel to get all of our stuff so we could catch out 10 pm train. I have never been on a train before….but I am guessing the ones we road in Egypt are a tad different then the US ones. In each box car there were probably 8 rooms and in each room there were 6 seats. So it was the five of us and this middle aged Egyptian man in our room. We all took sleeping pills hoping we could just fall asleep and stay asleep for most of the 9 hours we were going to be on the train. The ride wasn’t bad all accept for it was absolutely freezing…they had the air conditioner very cold and high up the whole time….its Egypt, we didn’t pack our winter coats….so of course we shivered through it. And also of course we cant go anywhere without someone hitting on one of us….I didn’t know this until we got off the train but turns out when we were trying to go to bed, the guy that was in our room was sitting next to Joy, and he motioned to her that she could rest her head on his lap to sleep if she wanted….creepy nice….that’s what we call that…and that’s just what Egyptians are….creepy nice.

That kind of became our moto because every Egyptian guy that we met or befriended…or even sat by on the train, always started out being very nice….and then they would hit on us or do something creepy….hence the name Creepy Nice.


Day 8: Our first day in Luxor!!! As soon as we stepped out of the train station taxi drivers swarmed up and other people asking where we were going. We said we were going to the Venus hotel, but that we could walk because we knew it wasn’t far. One guy grabbed another and said wait this is the owner of the Venus he can take you there….we were always a little skeptical of things like this just cause Egyptians want money and so we knew if we had someone take us there we would have to pay them even though we could do it on our own. But the owner told the other guy to lead us there and he would meet us there. So this guy lead us there…we knew he was probably just tip hungry….but little did we know this particular man would open so many doors for us. So once we got there we got checked in and the guy that lead us there said that he would sit down with us for awhile and plan the next couple days with us if we wanted…they had special packages for the hostel to go see things, but he said we could say no at anytime and it would be ok. We agreed to sit with him and just see what he had to offer….so we did so over breakfast. Some tours he had turned out to be good prices so we decided to do some.

We also chose to go on the faluka boats that night. The faluka deal was 30 pounds (a little less than 6 US dollars) to go out on the faluka (a type of sail boat) on the Nile for a couple hours. We first just sailed around for awhile ( oh and in the boat with us was the guy that planed this for us…his name is Hiraji…his friend who owned the faluka and a younger boy who helped out)….we all took off our shoes and had our feet in the water as we sailed around. Then we stopped at Banana Island which is an Island right next to Luxor. It has tons of banana trees and they use it as a stop for the falukas so people can get off and walk around the island and they have this shelter area with picnic tables where they serve you this whole plate of bananas for free. Some people live on this island, but not many….I am guessing the agriculture on the island is what they do for a living. So we walked around the island for awhile, saw an alligator that they have caged up there and then sat down and ate some bananas.


After that we got back on the boat to catch the sunset and take pictures of that. It was so gorgeous…and weird to think at the same time that we were sailing on the Nile. I wonder if Moses ever had a faluka to sail around in? Then after that we went to a little hut that Hiraji and his friend ( the owner of the boat) have right next to Nile. It basically like a man cave for them. We went there and had some tea and just chilled out for awhile. Then we noticed that they had a motorcycle…Hiraji said we could drive it if we wanted, but we all told him we didn’t know how. He then said we would take us for rides around the little country village that was near….Catherine and I kind of wanted too and he really wanted us too….so we did. So as Catherine and I were walking over to it we were both saying you’re going first, no you’re going first, no your going first….so with getting nowhere with that I volunteered to go first. It was a lot of fun…and Catherine had fun too. After the motorcycle rides Hiraji told us he would take us to a good Egyptian restaurant that was close to the Nile and it has a good view from where we ate. So we went there had a great meal and then headed back to the other side (Luxor is split into two sides by the Nile, the west bank and the east bank) by a small ferry boat.

Getting on the ferry boat the driver who was probably 18 or so asked us our names and such (sorry another detour…Egyptians had a very hard time be able to pronounce my name…and every time I would say Melinda they would think I said Mona which is a popular Egyptian name….so therefore I thought I’d make it easy on people and just say my name was Mona while being in Egypt)…so when the boat driver asked our names I said Mona and he said oh really that is my sisters name…and I said yes, I am sure it is haha. So as we got to the other side when we were exiting the boat he would grab our hands to help us out and when he grabbed mine he squeezed it and said “Mona you have very beautiful eyes”….I just laughed and said thank you.


These kind of things happened a lot while we were in Egypt....We all know that Egyptians love American girls….but for sure reason I was the favorite in the group….we concluded that maybe it’s because I was the most different looking….tall, light skin and eyes, and curly hair. Let’s just say I got a lot of crap from my friends while being there because of all the comments I got. But we just have to remember the creepy-nice thing...because it is true about all of them. But I am more thankful then anything that we were treated very nice the entire trip....i rather have someone be slightly creepy then mean :).