Category: Africa

Location: Middle of the White Desert Miles travelled: 321 miles (N27 17.225 E28 11.131) Weather: 30ºC - Sunny Today we mostly listened to: Elbow So we finally got out of Cairo!!!  We picked up Monty yesterday from the garage and left an hour later (with a significantly lighter wallet!).  Special thanks go to the lovely Essam who has been incredibly helpful and generous throughout our stay in Cairo.  If you ever get stuck in a Land Rover in Egypt, head to Essam for help (we'll post his email and the GPS coordinates for the dealership on our 'points about Egypt blog'. After a quick trip to Carrefore to stock-up on supplies for the desert we hit the road.  Unfortunately the rush hour traffic meant we didn't get very far.  After…

Location: Ismalia House Hotel (Cairo) Miles travelled: 0 miles Weather: 30ºC - Sunny with some puffy clouds Today we mostly listened to: Shuffle on the iPod So Monty was supposed to be ready today.  The good news is that they have all the relevant parts now, the bad news is it still isn't ready!  Tomorrow we hope - Inshalla. So we returned to Cairo on Friday afternoon, back to the Ismalia House Hotel - it's like we never left!  Yesterday we ventured over to the Islamic section of Cairo to wander around the spice market.  A pleasant afternoon followed and we even managed to find a couple of antiques shops - one which tried to sell me a postcard for £5 - I offered him 5p before leaving the shop.…

Location: Ismalia (on the Suez canal) N30.583171,E32.287905 Miles travelled: 80 miles (to Ismalia) Weather: 30ºC - Sunny with some puffy clouds Today we mostly listened to: New Moon and wailing music in taxis We're still waiting for Monty to be fixed, so in the meantime we have decided to head out of Cairo to Ismalia (on the Suez canal).  We really like Cairo but the constant beeping noise and pollution does get to you, so a couple of days outside the city were in order.  Ric was keen to see the wondrous engineering of Suez (yawn!), so we're in a nice hotel relaxing and topping up the tans. Before leaving Cairo though we decided to take in the 'Light and Sound' show at the Pyramids.  It was like being at…

Location: Ismalia House Hotel, Cairo, Egypt Miles travelled: 0 miles (still in Cairo) Weather: 30ºC - Hot, dusty and Smoggy Today we mostly listened to: Dan Brown, The Lost Symbol (still) So we're still stuck in Cairo waiting for Monty to be fixed.  Yesterday we visited the Egyptian museum - the mummies were incredible, but it was extremely busy and full of tourists.  We could only stay for about 2 hours before the heat got to us and we had to retreat to somewhere cooler!  We went for dinner on the Nile in one of the floating restaurants - yum.  We've eaten really well since being in Cairo. Today was filled with us visiting the British and Sudanese embassies in order to try and get our visa for Sudan.  It…

Location: Ismalia House Hotel, Cairo, Egypt Miles travelled: 15 miles (around Cairo) Weather: 28ºC - Hot, dusty and Smoggy Today we mostly listened to: Dan Brown, The Lost Symbol (still) What can you say about Cairo - it's loud, traffic is bad, people are in your face - we LOVE it! We woke up at the Salma motel yesterday and decided to take Monty to the landrover dealership.  Our guidebook directed us to the old showroom so we had to get a taxi driver to show us where it was.  After much debate about the price (he started at 3000 E£ - the equivalent to £300!!!) we finally agreed on an amount significantly less than that and he took us the 40km or so to the garage. We were greeted…