Most of the group had got up at 3am to go to Abu Simbel. Someone got the cabins wrong, so we got a wake-up call, which didn't impress us too much. Then they turned off the air-conditioning on our deck, so the vents pumped in hot diesel fumes all night. Excellent. Anyway, got up and had breakfast at 7, which was actually really excellent. We then went to the day stay hotel (the Basma), and waited for ages to get day stay rooms. Lovely views from the hotel though, and it had a fantastic pool. It was over 45 celsius today, really sweltering weather to try and explore in. We went to the market, and bought some more carvings. When we got back the rooms were ready - the tour leader said there were two, and divided us up between a guys room and girls room. We later found out that there were actually three, but he took the other one for himself and spent the entire day sleeping and smoking shisha. No one was impressed when that was discovered - people had been looking for him for help during the day, but no one knew where he was..
We went to the Temple of Isis at Philae at midday (yet again!!!). Really stunning temple, on an island. We were the only tour group there (no one else was mad enough to try and go out at that time of day), and it was fantastic seeing it without people everywhere.
Had a good afternoon lounging by the pool, and then went to the train station. On the train, we were given surveys to fill out about the tour leader, and from the general discussion most people weren't happy, but also weren't comfortable saying they weren't happy, as we still had two days with him. Train was pretty comfortable again, and we arrived back at Giza station in Cairo at 6am. A number of people were heading off to Alexandria for the day, but we elected to stay in Cairo. Went back to the Zoser hotel, and again waited around for over two hours for rooms. Eventually we gave up, and headed off to go the Ibn Tulun Mosque, and the Gayer-Andersen House. The house was restored in the Mamaluke style by a slightly dodgy sounding british doctor, who left it the Egyptian government in his will. The house is quite stunning, well worth a look.
We then went to the Khan-al-Khalili, which I was particularly keen on, after my abortive attempt to get to it last time. At first, it looked like it might be a disappointment as the main drag was full of really nasty plastic tat, but then we discovered the rabbit-warren-like side alleys with amazing shops of gold, inlaid boxes and jewellery. It was fantastic, and I could have spent hours there. We bought some inlaid boxes, and then had to find our way out as we were supposed to be meeting back at 1pm. However, as per usual, our tour leader was more interested in hanging out smoking shisha, so we then had to wait for half an hour until he was ready - personally would have preferred to spend that half hour in the souk than watching him smoke, but anyway....at least we were better off than another tour member who went to the Citadel instead and was told to wait at the side of the road at 1:20 to be picked up. We didn't pick him up until after 2 and there was no shelter from the sun where he had to wait....
That night we went to the Sound and Light Show at the Pyramids, which was really really corny in terms of dialogue, but looked quite lovely.
