Last day in Egypt

Before telling you about our day, I want to give you a few final thoughts about our time in Cairo. Last night, at bedtime, Diane and I had a conversation. Neither one of us would want to live here, and we are not imagining a return trip, but reminiscing about the past few days, we both realized how much, from a traveler’s point of view, we really like this place; yes, in spite of all the chaos I mentioned a couple of days ago, in fact, because of it. We thought about all the tourists that might come here, lodge at the Ritz Carlton, visit the Egyptian museum, and perhaps sail a boat down the Nile. They would go back to their home without knowing the place. We feel we lived it, walked among the Egyptians, ate in their diners, savored Turkish coffee in what some would call god-forsaken places, and we really enjoyed it. Compared to this city, recent trips to Copenhagen and Reykjavik just seem so blah. From Cairo, and all of Egypt really, you bring home more than pictures. You take back memories that will last a lifetime. Egypt was truly an adventure.

And now about our last day. We contacted the driver we had when we first arrived, whom we really liked, and asked him if he would consider driving us to Al Fayoum, a city approximately 100 miles from here, reachable through a long, potholed and partly graveled road cutting through a mostly uninteresting desert landscape.

A few miles beyond Al Fayoum is located a salt water lake and an oasis, called Wadi El Rayan, which we thought would be interesting to see. We certainly had done enough walking to last us for weeks, so a car ride sounded good.

The place is a favorite destination of Cairenes, and today was especially enjoyed by a multitude of students, apparently on school trip. We were the only foreigners there. We had lunch at a restaurant by the lake, and became the adulation of a group of teenaged girls who wanted to take pictures with us, and were thrilled to practice their dozen or so words of English.

View from a window in the restaurant

Our driver, Nehad

Bedouin tent

The salt water lake at Wadi El Wayan lies below sea-level

Turkish coffee anyone?

The oasis

Because of the condition of the road, it took three hours to get there and the same time back. Surprisingly we drove past the Giza Pyramids.

The Giza Pyramids from the highway

We also passed the largest cemetery we have ever seen. About five miles long and two miles wide. It is located in the middle of the desert, just off the road, and is the resting place, we suppose, of millions. We thought it was a city, and it looked beautiful. Nehad, our driver tells us that many old cemeteries in Cairo are closing due to the sprawling city development, and graves are being relocated to this new “condominium”.

The outer part of the cemetery in the desert

There are actually 4 cows on this pickup

The area called Tunis in Al Fayoum

Well, the wi-fi in our hotel is horrific. So I am going to walk to a local café where the wait staff know me by now, and use theirs. Our Uber will pick us up at 6:30 and we want to get a good night sleep. The next blog should be from Amman, capital of Jordan, a country we are eager to discover. Tata for now.