It has taken a day or so to adjust to life outside of the UK, and now that we are here, we are loving every minute. This a quote from the lonely planet which sums up Cairo in a nutshell.

“Let’s address the drawbacks first.  The crowds on a Cairo footpath make Manhattan look like a ghost town.  You will be hounded by papyrus sellers at ever turn.  Your life will flash before your eyes each time you venture across a street.  And your snot will run black from the smog.  So blow your nose, crack a joke and learn to look through the dirt to see the city’s true colours”.

This is so accurate, but in a nice way.  We have been overwhelmed by the friendliness and attitude towards us and other tourists.  It is death defying trying to cross the streets, but when the police see that we are waiting for an opportune moment, they stop the traffic to let us cross.  Every 100 yards we are greeted with ‘hello, welcome to Egypt’ accompanied with a warm friendly smile.  The clapped out black and white cars are the taxis, a sight for sore eyes.

We are really enjoying having to haggle for everything, we have it off to a tee.  In our hotel in the evenings we share stories of our haggling abilities and many are impressed how much we can haggle the taxi drivers – we have been able to get fares for half or more than others to standard destinations.  A typical fare is starts at E£15-20 but we always haggle to E£5 – that’s 50p for a 20min ride – I’m in heaven.  This place is truly amazing.

Following the incident with the taxi driver on the first night, we made it to the hotel we originally booked in downtown Cairo – it was a breath of fresh air.  The African House Hotel is situated on the 3rd floor of an 800 year old building, the first to be built in the downtown area, apparently.

It is so beautiful is is almost indescribable – the height of the ceilings, the rooms, the wooden floors, the temperature – everything about this place we absolutely love and to top it all off the staff couldn’t be more friendly. 

It is always a good sign to see other travellers staying and from all walks of life.  Most evenings we chill out in the communal area, discuss the days events, surf the internet and drink black tea, can it get any better!

I hope the pictures below give you a sense of just how beautiful this building is.  Needless to say, we will be staying here throughout our stay in Cairo.  The hotel costs £10 per night inc. breakfast for the two of us – bargain.

A quick post to say thank you to everybody who has been keeping an eye on our travel journey.  We have been somewhat amazed at the numbers visiting our site, we are averaging 60-70 hits a day, wow.

We would also like to say thank you to those who have been commenting, we love opening up our email and reading the comments – and it keeps us motivated – keep it up!

You will have to bear with us for a while, we have some posts written but are unable to upload them.  They may be too large in file size due to the photos or it may be the dodgy internet connection. we will keep trying.