Day 22 – Long Ride to Cairo

Today was our last full day in Egypt. After breakfast, we loaded up the van and started the long journey to Cairo. We stopped in Marsa Matruh to see Cleopatra’s bath. There isn’t much left, but the tidal pools were nice to walk around.

We made a few stops in el Alamain to see the memorials to the WW II battles that were fought here.

Our driver, Magdey, gets a little goofy when he is tired. He has been singing and “acting” for the last half hour. In tight traffic situations, he has the appropriate amount of road rage. The Egyptians apparently use a lot of hand gestures. He zig-zags through the traffic like Mario Andretti. We would not want to drive here; it takes a lot of skill to navigate without any apparent rules. Before we left Alexandria, Magdey disconnected the device that limits his speed. He told Salma that he would fall asleep with boredom if he had to drive at 100 Km/hr. At some points, we were well over 150 Km/hr.

For our last supper, we went to the Hard Rock Café in the hotel. I promised Kim she could have a burger. It was good to have “American” food for a change. It is not that the food we had been eating was bad; it was good to have something that familiar.