The Hor Moheb hotel Manager Mr. Mohsen must have felt sorry for us as he gave us a 10EPnd discount on our room. He walked us to the car park and really tried to pacify us saying things like there are bound to be some bad amongst the good, but generally Egyptians are not prone to stealing. He is probably right but we know now not to take things for granted and to check all our belongings frequently.

Without the Garmin we had to make some guess work going out of Cairo and my guess was not bad as we hit the road south quite easily following the Nile. But the road itself was atrocious as every few kilometers there were speed breakers wherever there is a bridge connecting the two sides of the canal alongside the Nile. We could see the women washing clothes, pots and pans in the canal and rubbish strewn all over right opposite them. We wonder how clean the clothes can be after being washed in such condition.

The road itself was not that busy but going through the towns was rather annoying with people walking around without a care in the world, and donkey carts, motorcycles trying to cross. When we got to El Minia it was a pleasant surprise and that was our first sighting of the Nile since leaving Cairo. There was a nice promenade along the river and we could see that they were extending it. There were a couple of hotels on the river but we didn’t bother checking on the price as we could see that there were no parking facilities for them.

We checked in at hotel Ekhaton as it had a reserved parking area and the price was also good at 140EPnd per night with breakfast, a room overlooking the Nile and internet connection. We had dinner at the hotel but the dining area was freezing cold which made me rush with my food. I didn’t quite know what I had for mixed grill but I did my best to finish it but just couldn’t manage with one last piece of meat as it was so hard it would break my jaw chewing it.

I was glad to get back to the warm room while Alison could do all she wanted with the laptop, and I could watch football on tv for a change as Adrian was not interested to watch any of the Arabic programmes.