Camels

after a relatively uneventful flight into Cairo, we drove to our hotel.  John and I were sharing again, so it was ok.  Then we all got dressed and went on a dinner cruise down the Nile.  They had amazing food and the entertainment was singers and dancers and belly dancers and everything.  We were all pretty tired so we went to bed almost as soon as we got home.  The things we saw out of the window of the coach were insane!  I have never seen so much dirt and garbage and crazy drivers.  There are no rules to the road.  It was a HUGE culture shock to see everything like that and it has only gotten worse over the last couple days.  The next day we got up and took a bus to the Egyptian museum.  We saw old artifacts and we saw an exhibition of Mummies which was really cool.  I can now say I was a foot away from some of the greatest rulers of the Egyptian empire 4000 years ago!  Then after that we went for lunch and we all bought some crazy headdresses from some man on the street.  Then we drove to the pyramids and got out of the bus.  There were merchants everywhere trying to sell us stuff and little kids begging for money.  It was unreal.  We mostly just tried to ignore them.  We took pictures of the pyramids and then we actually went inside one of them.  It was so insanely hot and humid....I was sweating out of places I didn't know I could sweat out of!  But it was very cool.  We had to go througha tunnel 3 feet by 3 feet to get down there so that was quite interesting.  After that we went on our camel ride.  My driver didn't really talk to me but it was still very cool.  It was something I will never forget.  We finished at the sphinx which was a lot smaller than I pictured it but it was crazy to see it upclose anyways.  Then after that we went to a papyrus place where they showed us how to make the famous egyptian paper.  I bought one with my zodiac sign and my name printed in heiroglyphics.  Then we went to a perfumerie, where I ended up buying 3 things-2 perfumes and one eucalyptus cause everyone is sick and it clears out the sinuses.  We all tried smoking a "Sheesha" pipe (aka Hooka) with apple flavouring....something I am not sure I will ever do again!  Then after that we got dinner at a restaurant and made our way to our overnight train to Aswan.