Cape Town to Cairo complete!

We've arrived in Cairo and I guess this marks the end of the historical Cape to Cairo trip. After 16 weeks we've made it all the way up the east coast of Africa and have arrived in the bustling cosmopolitan city of Cairo (it is crazy to find out that Cairo has the same population as the whole of Australia. Wow!!)

We've spent a few days doing the sights....pyramids and the Museum being highest on the list. We've also enjoyed wandering around "Islamic Cairo" and seeing the mosques, markets and citadels. Because it's a big city we're staying in the illustrious New Sun Hotel and are quite enjoying life outside a tent!

The pyramids are very large (big one is 146m high) and truly amazing. When you consider they are about 5000 years old it is even more incredible. I was keen to head inside the big one to the burial chamber so forked out on the extra ticket and clambered up the tunnel to find three older german ladies singing Amazing Grace in the burial chamber. Because of the acoustics it sounded like there were 10 of them in there and was really beautiful. Somewhat less beautiful is the circus of camel and horse touts who follow you around the site offering rides....I guess they are just trying to make a living but they don't leave you alone. Even the police guards are corrupt and when no one was around one of them was trying to get us to climb up one of the pyramids and take a photo (in return for baksheesh payment of course).

In the museum we saw all of King Tutankamun's treasures and lots of sarcophagus and mummies! We also had the unfortunate experience of visiting a crappy museum at the Citadel called the police museum (it was free with the entry ticket). The pickings were slim and the only thing that caught my interest was a noticeboard full of pictures of dogs digging in the sand. Intrigued I wandered over to face the caption of "dog uncovers stash of 150kg of hashish in the desert". In case anyone was wondering, that is the quality of content that makes it into the Cairo Police museum.

It's our last night in Cairo tonight and I think we're going to make it a good one...so adios for now, we're off for a beer!

xxx