Cairo

I arrived to Cairo on the night bus with Eric. They played ridiculously loud football match the entire time until 2 or 3 in the morning. We arrive in Cairo around 7am and it is really freaking cold. Luckily Eric is carrying a lonely planet and we find, ironically, a hotel called Dahab. The two of us are crammed into one of the smallest 2 bedrooms I’ve ever been in. Basically there is enough room for the two single beds and enough floor space to put our bags. We both end up crashing for the morning and don’t get up until noonish.

At the Egyptian museum, which is to our surprise just a 10minute walk from our hotel, we see a large queue of package tourists waiting to get in. We join the line and I quickly realize that I had left my swiss army knife in my day pack. The line queued up to a metal detector as well as an x-ray machine. I thought about it and realized that I had taken a ferry from Tangier to Gib, flown from Gib to London, flown from London to Istanbul with my knife in my daypack. If the security authority of the port of Tangier, Gibraltar Airport, Gatwick Airport, and Luton Airport didn’t find my knife in my daypack what are the chances of the Egyptian finding it? Well they found it. The security guard said “you have a knife in there” I said “oh” and he pointed me towards an item check in booth.


We are still outside the main building of the Egyptian Museum right now. I have now passed the checkpoint into the sounding fence of the building. To the left of the metal detectors and x-ray machine is the items check-in stand. I started to walk towards the stand and just happened to glance back at the checkpoint. The guard had already started to talk to other entering tourist and stopped looking at me. This was my chance; I didn’t want to check in my knife and risk losing it again; especially after going through the idea of losing it in Morocco and then miraculously finding it again in Istanbul. I nonchalantly detour my route towards the stand head into the main entrance of the museum. Well guess what there is another x-ray machine and another metal detector. I beeped the first time I came in and the guard didn’t even check me, but my knife was still in my day pack. I thought to myself: If the security authority of the port of Tangier, Gibraltar Airport, Gatwick Airport, and Luton Airport didn’t find my knife in my daypack what are the chances of the Egyptian finding it, again? Well they found it again and I ended up having to check my bag in and re-queue for the entrance.

Inside the museum I met yet another familiar face. One of the Koreans at the Seventh Heaven Hotel was also browsing through the exhibits. It really is a small world after all. But then again I guess there are only so many routes a travel can take when visiting a desert country where the majority of the population and cities are along the live force that is the Nile. Ruda works for a travel company. Her job is to travel and get the 411 on countries she visits. All she has to do is take notes on what she’s done, where things are, and how much stuff costs. When she flashes her travel journalist card she gets a discount everywhere. For example she stayed free at the seventh heaven hotel. What a tough life.