Jacqui and Richard Abroad: Wednesday, April 13th - Recap of Egypt - Part IV

We got back to Cairo by mid afternoon on Thursday. The drive back to the hotel took a while as there was a fair amount of traffic. While we were stopped on the highway, we noticed people walkinig around, between cars, with boxes on their shoulders. We asked our tour guide what they were doing and he told us they were selling Asaliya, a kind of sweet stick made of black honey and sesame seeds. So next thing you know, the window is rolled down and the guide is buying some for all of us. Everyone liked it and he had to buy some more later on!

On Friday morning, Jacqui and I, with a driver and our tour guide from Cairo, headed out to Alexandria, located on the Mediteranean Sea, on the Nile Delta. The way there (a little more than 200 km) allowed us to see mostly farm land used for fruits, veggies and feed for animals. We visited Pompey's Pillar and the Catacombs of Kom ash-Shuqqafa. It was really neat to go undergroud in the catacombs and see where they used to bury their deads, way back when (200 AD). We then drove to the Montazah Palace but it is not open to the public so we only saw it from the gate. We had a very nice seafood dinner in a restaurant on the corniche, than drove back to Cairo, before being taken to the airport to go back to Muscat. On the way to the airport, we stopped to get some Koshari (rice, macaroni and lentils, mixed with tomato sauce, chickpeas and fried onions), a very traditional Egyptian meal. It was indeed very good as our tour operator prepared it for us in the front seat of the van before sending us off to the airport.

And so ends our trip. It was very interesting and we learned a lot, with all the things we've seen and heard from our two tour guides. We are really glad we had a chance to do it!