Egypt

After my horrendous first trip to Africa when I went to Morocco, the worst country I've visited so far, I wasn't looking forward to travel to Egypt anymore. This was the first time I had no enthusiasm for going travelling and when we got there I could see the same poverty as in Morocco. Even though it was 04.00 in the morning and hard to see that much when going through the outskirts of the capital Cairo to go to Giza where the pyramids are located in the Sahara Desert.

My friend Andreas and I would be staying at a hotel right in front of one of the seven wonders of the world but it was so dark when we got there and we were so tired, that all I could see was a top of one of the pyramids in the distance before we entered the hotel and got a room with a view of a wall in front of our window. The receptionist said there had been a crazy man staying in the room that was supposed to be ours so they needed to renovate it before we would be able to stay there, so we would have to stay the first night in another one with no view and a double bed instead of twin bed.

I still tried to be positive the next day when we finally had gotten some sleep and I went up to see the pyramids and the Sphinx from the terrace by myself. I had heard so many bad things about it and most people who had visited seem disappointed. Well I certainly wasn't, I was blown away by the sight and it was one of the most amazing views I've ever seen.

We changed room and except for the blood splatter they had forgotten to wipe away from the previous guest on the toilet wall we had the same view over the pyramids as from the terrace. It was like annoying in a good way that we wouldn't visit the site immediately because it was like you can see the Christmas gift under the tree but you can't open it until tomorrow. Because of all the travelling to get there we would just chill and visit Pizza Hut with the view over the amazing wonder. It's hard to understand why something trashy as Pizza Hut would be there but I quickly realized pizza slices come in the shape of pyramids so I forgive them for the bad taste of ruining something as old and legendary with something so modern and capitalistic rubbish.

We would see the sound and light-show in the evening from our hotel room and even though the music was dramatic all the time it was hard to hear what the narrator was saying. We would give it a second chance the next day from the terrace but it didn't help. And they could probably update the show a bit but it was still fun to watch.

When we finally entered the area people tried to rip us off even if they were security. If you ignored all those annoying people it was amazing to see it up close and you could see the enormous effort behind building this. We went inside The Great Pyramid and it was claustrophobic and cavelike and people came out barely breathing and sweating and noticing me being almost 2 meters tall they sarcastically said "good luck" with a smile. I quickly understood why when we had to almost crawl up a long tunnel to get to the next section, and while not even one person fitted in there at one time, they would also have people coming down from the same tunnel at the same time. I was like "hell no" and let Andreas move on without me. I stayed in the pyramid and tried to find my chance to go up with no other people in the tunnel but it was impossible with all the tourists coming and going. It was a hard pill to swallow because I really wanted to see more but I still made the right choice because I know I would have panicked in there.

We left Giza and the poverty around us to go to the island Zamalek between Giza and downtown Cairo and to the four star hotel Hilton, and Paris can be proud of what her father has built. The surroundings showed all sides of Cairo from extreme poverty to extreme wealth and everything inbetween. We went here as a back-up plan since our original plan to go on a tour to see and sleep in a tent in the White and Black Desert four hours away with car was scrapped since there now was a threat to Swedish people after the Quran desecrations happening in our country. Three Swedish people had been killed and injured by a terrorist in Belgium because they had been wearing Swedish footballshirts.

The island of Zamalek wasn't as high-end as I had thought, but it was full of embassys and security so I still felt safe there. A funny thing was that the guard outside the Swedish embassy was asleep. Maybe he hadn't heard the news about the threat.

Andreas went inside a shop and the shopkeeper immediately asked him if he wanted to buy beer, and he pulled out a filthy bag from under the counter. It's not illegal to drink alcohol in Egypt but it's pretty hard to get your hands on it since it's a religious choice not to drink it there. Andreas replied "maybe later" and went to me around the corner and told me about it. Then we returned one minute later to the shopkeeper and bought all his stock which was five beers.

We enjoyed the pool area and our huge balcony at the hotel and drank Egyptian beer (must be a small market for it) and listened to music before we went out at night to find a rooftop bar nearby. We couldn't find it but the GPS showed us into a hotel and then we got guided by some Egyptian guests who arrived at the same time as us. We took an elevator and some stairs and nowhere was a sign of us going to a bar. So I guess the people who knows, knows. We had a great time and saw some girls from a distance who looked like they could be Swedish. We had countless of bad and funny ideas of how we would approach them but in the end we went with a more normal one and ended up sitting down at their table. It turned out they were Norwegian which was kind of funny since we told everyone who asked that we were Norwegian to not have to suffer from a backlash for just being Swedish.

Next stop on the journey was a five star hotel called Sofitel at the most southern part of Zamalek. It was mostly annoying that it was so classy because you weren't allowed to do anything, and it felt like there would be a guy wiping my ass in the toilet as well. I prefer to see all people as equal and I don't want five modern slaves running after me all day asking if everything is fine. When I was lying down on the sunbed on a pillow a guy came and asked if I maybe wanted two pillows. And when I tried to open the balcony door in our room on the 17th floor overlooking The Nile it was closed and it had a note saying I'm suppose to call housekeeping to open it for me. Like c'mon. When I had to sign a contract that I had asked him to open it I realized it was for security reasons and we could barely step out on the balcony during our visit because it was so windy.

The view overlooking the longest river in the world, the Nile, from the pool and jacuzzi area was amazing and we would spend the majority of the time there.

Because unfortunately Egypt is both one of the best and one of the worst places I've ever visited. The hotels are like prisons in that sense that you can escape the chaos there, but if you wanna see "the real" Egypt you will have people trying to rip you off wherever you go and cars and mopeds go at crazy speed everywhere and if you don't step in dogshit you should consider yourself lucky. The real Egypt is as noisy, smelling and filthy as Morocco with animal cruelty all around you. And even if the worse day was when we walked around in the reality of downtown Cairo, at the same time you don't want to become this lazy tourist just lying by the pool all day. 

We tried to see the capital from above by going up in the Cairo Tower but there was elevator maintenance done so we would have to use the steps to climb the many floors in 34 degrees to get to the revolving restaurant. Since it's 187 meters tall I wasn't that keen to see the view anymore when I heard that and we went on a more relaxing dinner cruise on the Nile instead. There was a Tanoura show, oriental show, a singer, Tabla show along with a bellydance show and more. And from the upper deck we could see a felucca going by, a traditional wooden sailing boat.

Andreas got sick the last day so he almost couldn't join a tour to go see the Cave Church, Garbage City and The City Of The Dead. In the last minute he agreed to come since I told him he could end the tour at any time if he felt like going back. It was great to see new places of Cairo and we even got a glimpse of Khan el-Khalili market and El Moez Street on our way. The majestic and unique Cave Church was way up in the hills, away from the city, and we reached it after we went through Garbage City where the garbage people live amongst the trash they collect to sort the garbage for recyclable material.

Flies were everywhere down in the Christian Garbage City and it smelled bad and the tour guide told us these people were rich because of their business. Well you couldn't tell.

Unfortunalety we would just see The City Of The Dead from a distance to respect both the living and the dead. It's a huge area of Islamic cemeteries where people have started to live amongst the dead. And if the pyramids are the most famous tourist attraction in Egypt, this tour showed us the most unusual and unique places. We ended the tour by eating Koshary which is known as "The food of the Poor"; it consists of fried onions, lentils, rice, macaroni and a red sauce. Not everyone can be rich like the garbage people.

I'm now looking forward to discover more hidden gems of Africa and I'm already eager to travel again.

* Best things about Egypt – the view of the pyramids and the Sphinx is one of the best in the world, and seeing the Nile was on the bucketlist as well, The Cave Church could make anyone believe in God and even though Garbage City is the last place on earth that I would wanna live, it's still an experience to go through it by car

* Most mediocre thing about Egypt – to see The City Of The Dead from a distance, I think it would be an experience to walk through it but at the same time I'm glad I at least saw it

* Worst things about Egypt – the chaos, the noise, the smells, the filth, animal cruelty, the poverty, people who wanna rip you off and the claustrophobic tunnels of the pyramids

Best countries in the world according to the nerd (will be updated with every post):

1. USA

2. The Bahamas

3. Croatia

4. Montenegro

5. Andorra

6. Cyprus

7. Grenada

8. Turkey

9. Greece

10. Italy

11. Spain

12. Monaco

13. Malta

14. Jamaica

15. Netherlands

16. Belize

17. Panama

18. Saint Lucia

19. Iceland

20. Denmark

21. Sweden

22. Lithuania

23. Macedonia

24. Armenia

25. Mexico

26. Egypt

27. Portugal

28. Dominica

29. Hungary

30. Slovakia

31. Belarus

32. Slovenia

33. Austria

34. Russia

35. Barbados 

36. New Zealand

37. Ireland

38. Germany

39. United Kingdom

40. Belgium

41. Poland

42. Saint Kitts & Nevis

43. Vatican City

44. Estonia

45. Czech Republic

46. Switzerland

47. San Marino

48. Honduras

49. Colombia

50. Costa Rica

51. Kosovo

52. Romania

53. Finland

54. Latvia

55. Azerbaijan

56. Georgia

57. Saint Vincent And The Grenadines 

58. Antigua & Barbuda

59. Moldova

60. Norway

61. Ukraine

62. France

63. Bulgaria

64. Luxembourg

65. Liechtenstein

66. Trinidad And Tobago

67. China

68. Serbia 

69. Bosnia And Herzegovina

70. Albania

71. Morocco