Egypt update: 4 November

James checking in. We have been in Egypt for two and a bit days now. We have been very lucky to be hosted at the Wyness' house in El Maadi just south of Cairo proper. I know Richard Wyness from a work project. His wife Innes has been fantastic and has helped us with a driver to get us to embassies, tips on where to go, organising a trip to the Pyramids and allowing us to use her house as a base. It has made life alot easier! Our task on day one was to organise our visas for Sudan and Ethiopia... Easier said than done. It was Thursday, which is a Friday in Egypt AND Eid was kicking off in a few days. We got our letters of introduction from the South African embassy within 15 mins. They were so helpful and interested in what we were doing. The man who helped us, James, was surprised Isobel and Jo had let us go! "Boys those are special girls!" Very much so! With letters in hand it was off to the Sudanese embassy. Ashraf our driver got us through the traffic and at the embassy in no time. Then the bad news. It was too late to issue a visa and the office was closing and would only open in ten days time. Holiday apparently! Great! Feeling despondent we debated options. We could cycle to Aswan where there is another Sudanese embassy which will be open by the time we get there. Best case scenario would that we cycle 900km in 7 days, get to Aswan on the 12th, apply for a visa on the 13th and hopefully get it quickly and then catch the weekly ferry to Sudan on the 14th. It seemed possible and now that is our plan A. If the visa takes a while or there is no space on the ferry we can always spend a week exploring Luxor and Aswan. With this plan in mind we went to look for the Ethiopian embassy. We couldn't find the place despite using the address in the lonely planet and on the net! Its not the end of the world as we can always get a visa in Khartoum. And they are cheaper there! So despite the visa issues we have a plan and in better spirits we went to see downtown Cairo. We started at Tahrir Square and then headed east tithe Khan el Khalili which is where all the markets are. It was great exploring the alleyways. We also sampled the local coffee houses and spent quite a while drinking tea and smoking sheesha. Our throats were burning! We had an awesome and well priced dinner in the area before heading home.

Today was spent building our bikes. Luckily they are fine. No damage to the frames and the wheels are not buckled. Bikes sorted we took the surprisingly efficient metro into town and spent a few hours at the Egyptian Museum. The Tutankhamen exhibit was fascinating and we spent most of time in this section of the museum. After the museum we went for tea and sheesha at a local coffee house. We were joined by Dr Sherif Zaky from the museum who kept us entertained for an hour or two and gave us lots of info on Egypt. By this time the daily prayers had finished and the streets came to life. They were people everywhere selling anything and everything, munching on delicious cakes from the bakeries, eating in restaurants, setting of fireworks and having a good time. And we were the only tourists on the streets! Supper at local place was great, we even struggled to get a table as the place is so popular with the locals. Tomorrow morning we are heading to the pyramids. Innes has organised that we do so on horseback. We can't wait!

Our plan is to start cycling this Sunday.