Day 47

Today, we found the boat docked in Aswan. We were right near the high dam wall that we checked out with the other cruise.

This was the day that we had to leave the boat, so we got all our bags packed and out of the room before we went for the tour of the day. We were a little late, because everyone on our tour didn't realise that all the drinks bills had to be paid before we went and although we would be back from our excursion at 10, we had to vacate the rooms completely before we left...

When it was tour time, we left for the Kalabsha Temple. The same routine as before, get on the small boat, get taken out there, visit the temples. I found that a lot of the temples had similar styles. You could be forgiven for not knowing the difference.

This temple was, like most of the others, moved from its original place. It had a 'nile-ometer' as well, but this doesn't work so well now that the temple is situated well above the height of the dam...

Like the other stops, there were a couple of temples in the one spot. So we also visited Beit El Wali and the Kiosk of Kertassi.

On our way to one of the temples, the guide showed us some stones engraved with the most childish looking carvings. They looked almost like cave man pictures. Well, turns out that we were on the right track, these were over 7000 years old, and are the oldest carvings known in Egypt. I don't care if I've seen better in Kindergarden, their raw ages made them awesome. I wonder if these were the ancient fridges that ancient parents hung the drawings of their ancient children on...

One of the carvings had both gazelles and giraffes on it. Although it looked like the guide was pointing at the giraffe when he said gazelle, and gazelle when he said giraffe. The next one had just a giraffe, and he proved to us he had the names wrong when he called it a gazelle....

Sadly, Sandra wasn't feeling well that day. A lot of us weren't, but she was feeling a bit worse than the rest. But Sandra's a trooper, even when you want her to rest and get better.

We got back around 10:30 so had half an hour to kill before the tour company came to pick us up. Unfortunately as we had checked out of the boat all we could do was sit around in the foyer and people watch. The transfer arrived and took us to the Aswan airport again. This airport and Cairo airport were the only airports in the whole trip that we flew out of twice... So it was wierd coming back and knowing the way.

From here, we were going to fly to Cairo again and spend the night there. Sticking with the 'familiar' theme, when the plane landed we were met by the same tour representative that came on the first cruise with us (Tamer).

The previous tour guide said that laptops were cheap in Egypt. Mum was interested in getting one, so while we were driving to the hotel, we told Tamer this. He was then kind enough to take us to one of their computer stores.

This wasn't part of the tour, so we had to take a cab rather than use the tour driver and car. We ditched dad at the hotel, as there wasn't room for all of us, and, well, he's simply the most useless out of us all for buying a laptop for mum.

We got dropped off at the spot, and then had to cross the road. Remember how fullon the traffic was in Cairo? Yeah, that made for an interesting time crossing. We trusted that Tamar knew what he was doing...

The computer store was just like any other department store. I was expecting something more shabby. Either way, the computers weren't that much cheaper, so we decided to leave it.

Getting a cab back to the hotel proved to be harder. Unlike Australian cabs, taxis in Cairo have the right to refuse a job. So each time Tamar said where we were going, the driver would simply keep on driving. We figured it was due to rush hour, so we crossed the road again went for a drink and a snack at a sports bar.

After hanging at the sports bar with Tamer, we decided to try the cabs again. Still, the little bitches just didn't want to take us. Tamer then suggested we take a cab to his place (which was close) and he would drive us instead. Cool, cheers. The cab stopped straight away...

So we made it to Tamer's place. I had no idea which apartment was his, but then, we weren't there to see his apartment. We made our way round the back to where the car was parked. Hey, some dude parked his car in the middle of the road! Oh, that's your car... Ok then. Turns out that if there aren't any parks, they simply park people in.

The whole trek to the computer store and back was actually pretty cool. Despite the fact that it yielded no results, it was a great way to see a little of the everyday life (which tours tend to hide from you).

Now, a while ago, we started feeling bad for dad as he was still at the hotel for all of this. When we got back, we found that he had left. No surprise really. My money was on finding him in the restaurant next door. And luckily, that's exactly where he was.

We all had dinner there, and then went up stairs. Sandra and I had to pack (not that we had really taken that much out of our suitcases) to leave the next day, where as the parents weren't going to fly out till the day after. Thankfully our transfer was at a normal time tomorrow instead of some stupidly early hour.