October 15 - Saturday

Up at something like 2AM to catch our 5:15AM flight.

The hotel arranged a shuttle to the airport. No problem. We were a bit early it seemed to me. As I recall check-in was smooth. We sat down to have some coffee and a snack.

Finally on the plane for our hop to Cairo. We were on the bulkhead. The guy next to the window is Egyptian and lives in America. He is heading to Alexandria. He was thrilled to hear we were going to see Dr. Zawi Hawass.

We went slowly through customs.

Got our bags. Found our "Archaeological Path" guys and got in the van with some other folks.

Off we went. We mainly took the ring road. An amazing ride. We saw real desert at the beginning then as we got into town we saw much construction that appeared to be halted. The driving was terrifying. The lane markers are just suggestions. Movie. There would be three lanes marked but we'd see five cars abreast. If you come up to two cars, say one in lane two and one in lane three, you can just honk a little and split between them. Traffic seemed to be just drifting around trucks and slower vehicles like a river with rocks in it.

These pictures don't show it but there was trash everywhere. Not just trash dumped by the truckload on the streets but construction debris and all manner of stuff.

We finally got a glimpse of the pyramids! Wow! We pulled into our five star Mena hotel complex. We were dropped off at the main lobby. The rooms were not ready so we passed some time having a drink. Fairly promptly the rooms were ready. Our hotel has a view of the pyramids! I guess we walked the three hundred yards or so to our building. We are on the top floor room 456 as I recall. Norm and Diana are near by.

We nipped down and hiked over to the main restaurant for lunch. They were having a rather expensive buffet. We passed. I'm not sure what we did for food.

Deb and Dianna hiked around the grounds and got a good view of the pyramids. I was probably wrestling with the wi-fi.

No wi-fi in the rooms. They do have an internet connection but I don't have that type of connector. I had to go to the lobby to get wi-fi. And not only that you had to know where to sit to get a good signal. In fact the best signal was in an adjacent room that had no air-conditioning. Even with a good signal things were very slow. Painfully slow.

Meanwhile Norm was upset because of some construction noise in his room. He asked for and got a transfer. He now has a view of the pool and a large TV. Very nice.
 
I assume we napped.

We had a nice dinner at the restaurant. They check us in each time. Apparently there is a special menu for group guests.

Off to bed.