Cairo, Egypt - Welcome Back Bubba

Luxor, Egypt, circa 1994.


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Map points to the Dahab Hostel. Excellent location (see Egyptian Museum). Clean rooms. Shared bathrooms. Common seating area opened to the heavens. Top floor. No A/C but fans available. Something like 35 L.E. per double per night.

Managed to buy a book today at the huge second hand book market at Midan Ataba. There must have been a million or so books on sale. Books covered a wide range of topics from engineering to medicine to rare antique literary works but somehow I picked out of the bunch a trashy page turner written by Ken Follett called White Out. I was really after Pillars of the Earth but I'll try this one.

I met a cool Japanese girl, Mimi, at the Dahab Hostel, the place where I'm staying. She's a buyer of belly dancing attire (to stock a store back in Tokyo) and makes annual trip to Cairo (THE hotbed of belly dancing in the Middle East). Anyway, she had the hippest business cards (everything translated into Arabic) that she got down in the Ataba area. I had to get my own. They should be ready by tomorrow.

My time in Cairo has been great. It's so energizing to be in a really really big city. I've eaten alot, trying to get rid of a calorie deficit. So, I've been eating crazy things like double chocolate cake (did I mention Egyptians have a incredible sweet teeth), and massive half barbeque chicken dinners.

I've met an incredible group of travelers/wasters at the Dahab. The Hostel is located just off Midan Talaat Harb on the top floor of a building. There's a common central sitting area where we spend most of the day wasting away. Some notable wasters were Richard and Sally the Aussies, Muhammed the German, Mimi, and Dennis the Dutchman(semi-retired grad student whose been at the Dahab for months now) and the Norwegian.

As for the rest of the trip, I will go to Alexandria and Siwa and think about it. The AUC (America University at Cairo) was well stocked with LP guides but was missing the critical Pakistan guide. I might have to make due. Otherwise, they had the LP for Central Asia albeit dated. I met a Korean girl headed to Bangkok on Egyptair for $340 USD. Now that's a deal...

Out of Canuckistan: A travel blog, May 22/07
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