The journey

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Wrexham, Wales, United Kingdom
For the past 5 years, me and my best friend Nathan have talked about the possibility of travelling around the world by land and sea, and so finally we have a route, savings and time to set off around the world. What we are doing is living out a dream, a dream we share with many people worldwide, a dream of travelling this vast, diverse, beautiful and interesting planet, but unlike the many others who keep it as a dream, we have the tenacity to make this dream a reality.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Days 33 & 34: Egypt

Day 33
95miles/153km

Caz had to get back to Sharm Al Sheikh for her flight, and rather than getting a 7 hour bus, she had found a cheap domestic flight from Cairo, and so our first drive of the day was to the airport just outside Cairo.

After saying our goodbyes we drove back through Cairo heading south to see how far we could get before it went dark. Trying to find our way back through the city was an absolute nightmare, and after two hours we had found the Pyramid Road which leads to the highway, and we heading south at 60mph/110kmh.

The sun was descending rapidly to the west, so we headed for a town called El Faiyum where we found a hotel for the night so we could resume our journey refreshed in the morning.

Day 34
206miles/332km

The highways of the previous days around Cairo we knew would not be seen again for a long while. The road that roughly follows the route of the Nile down to Aswan was a single lane for 95% of the distance, and passes through numerous villages, each with a series of Traffic Police road blocks and annoying speed bumps.

As we headed south it was noticeable that the skies were getting brighter, and the people were getting darker. The friendliness of the Egyptian people was still the same as ever, and one local businessman even paid for our falafel and fuul naan sandwiches as we stopped off along the way.

We arrived in Asyut trying to find a cheap hostel, but the one that we had in mind was full, so we searched for another cheap hotel before heading out for food. We found a small cafĂ© where we ordered some cheap food, and at one stage had 12 separate plates and bowls on our table, with everything from soup, salad, humus, chips (they call them potatoes here), rice, half chickens and bread. We paid our 40EP/£3.60/€4 and left feeling more than quite full.

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