We had breakfast at the restaurant on the top floor and had a magnificent view of the Suez Canal; at least the start of it and just in time to catch the last two vessels going on the north bound convoy.  It brought back many memories for me mostly funny ones about how the passengers were cheated by the traders in bum boats and the gili-gili man who went conning unsuspecting candidates even though I was conned on my first trip out to the Far East and lost my fortune of 5 Pnds.

It was then time for us to go and after saying our goodbyes to Ron n TJ we parted company and headed towards Cairo. On passing Heliapolis, a new township outside Cairo we were stopped by the police who just wanted to wish us welcome to Egypt, strange indeed!! We drove right into the heart of town and I learnt quickly to adapt to the driving style of Egyptian drivers.

We found the road to Giza and the pyramids and got to the site at 3.30pm and was told that it closes at 4pm. We were told that we couldn’t go in without tickets and after a slight verbal confrontation we left looking for a hotel. We ended up at Europa hotel which had parking facilities next to it. It was the cheapest we could find at USD60 although we were initially quoted USD 70 and as it was getting dark we had no choice;

I protested at first when asked to hand over the keys to the car park staff but was told by a customer that it was a normal procedure to do so. I relented but made sure that I had all the car documents and valuables with us in the room. We had to drive out for KFC which we saw during the day and returned to the hotel to eat as there was no parking available along the pyramids road.

Alison found a non-secure internet site and manage to update the website the best she could.d

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