Around Cairo

We flew to Cairo from Aswan arriving after midnight. By the time we finally found our ride and got to the airport it was nearly 3am. We had originally planned to be out the door early in the morning to go see the pyramids but that wasn't looking likely so we flip flopped our schedule and chose to start later in the morning and do the local things first.

We stayed at the Sheraton Cairo which is a very nice hotel right on one of the branches of the Nile. From our room we could look towards the center of the city and we could kinda see Cairo Tower through the smog. That smog was THICK! One of our guide books said that breathing Cairo air for one day is the equivalent to smoking 30 cigarettes. I would believe it. Cairo is a must for any tourist in Egypt but for health reasons you probably want to spend only as much time as necessary here.

One of the stops we made in Cairo was the Khan el-Khalili Souk (market) which used to be a big market for locals. Now it's pretty much exclusively for tourists with anything from fine handmade Egyptian goods to total crap obviously made in China. We found another market about a mile away that looked more "local" but we didn't have time to stop. Lily, Melanie and I spent very little time at the market because we wanted to spend more time at the Egyptian Museum.

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