On my way into Egypt, my flight is put in a holding pattern right over the pyramids. What a welcoming! People aren't kidding when they say the city presses right up against the pyramids. Egypt is dangerous so it is imperative that I take an organized tour. I am picked up at the airport and taken into the heart of Cairo. My hotel is the nicest one I've stayed in since starting World Tour. I have a roommate named Anna from New Zealand. She is going to be my roommate throughout the entire tour so it's a good thing I really like her. We begin our tour the next morning on a gigantic air-conditioned coach bus. Rafik is our tour guide and he is a really fun guy. One night he takes a few of us to the ATM to withdraw money and he makes us all hold hands to cross the crazy streets. This is strange since I've crossed many a crazy street by now, but okay, let's not get killed in Cairo. He explains that we need to watch out for live wires that jut out of each light post, and he's right! They are everywhere. This place is treacherous. Let's see how it matches up to India. 
We start our tour by going to see the pyramids and the Sphinx. It's amazing to stand before such ancient, iconic structures. We also visit the
Egyptian Museum with old relics and King Tut's mask. We are all getting to know each other and it's really fun to know that I will be with these people for the next week, and not have to move on so quickly as is often the case. We are taken to a papyrus paper shop where they show us a demonstration on how the ancient Egyptians used to make paper. That night we board our coach again and begin the overnight journey to Aswan. We all decided to upgrade to the Nile cruise for an additional cost, because it will be best to sleep and live on our cruise for a few days instead of being in and out of hotels as we visit cities along the Nile. I start to come down with a fever that evening and the following morning the misery grows. We awake at 2am the next morning to get an early start to see the temples of Abu Simbel. WOW. This is the most amazing thing I have ever seen. Ever. Nothing can
compare to it. These two temples sit within close proximity of each other and have gigantic pharaohs standing outside of them. Inside my favorite temple, gigantic pharaohs carved out of stone line the entrance. Hieroglyphics cover every inch of the interior walls. Light is cast upward on the walls so tourists can see the detail. We are given ample time to explore inside each one. We take a felucca to a Nubian village across the Nile from our Nile cruise port later that day. Along the way, we have two young African boys hitch a ride by grabbing on to the side of our boat and surfing across the river on their boogie boards. The next few days I'm a stick in the mud due to my fever. All I want to do is sleep in my bed on the cruise and forget all of this intense touring. Organized tours are definitely not my thing. It's a good thing I'm with good people, though I doubt they're enjoying my company since I'm pretty miserable. In the valley of the kings I pay extra to visit the tomb of King Tutankhamen. I stand there for as long as I can staring at his mummy and his sarcophagus which lie separately from each other. This was worth the extra ten dollars.Over the next few days we are shuttled to and from different temples in the blazing heat. I skip out on a lot of extra ad-on tourist sites due to lack of money and lack of energy. Egypt is fun, but in my book a bit of a bust.
We are told that at the end of the tour we can choose to take the mini bus to the airport that
costs about thirty dollars, or we can find our own way. Everybody chooses to stay in their comfort bubble and take the mini bus. I opt for the dodgy cab (pictured) for a mere ten dollars. And off to Istanbul, Turkey I go.
