Today I am just setting it up but over the next few weeks I will go back to the start and let you know all the details from when I first went on tour to Egypt and met my husband to where I was kidnapped , spent days in hiding under police watch, shot at with machine guns by Bedouins, being pregnant, having a baby in an Egyptian hospital and my daily life married to an Egyptian Muslim man... The last two years of my life have been interesting and I can't wait to finally share with you..Please feel free to share this page with whoever you like.. I hope you enjoy and get inspired by my story.
We started to look into where our big adventure would be, both of us had been to south east Asia so that was out, Europe was an option but for what we wanted to do in Europe we both didn't have the time or the money to fit everything in so we said we would put that on a back burner and do in a few years. Where could we go that was in our budget and we could fit into our short time we both had off work?
After doing our research talking to friends, flicking through travel brochures and speaking to travel agents everyone was raving about Egypt it was the number one place to holiday at the time, plenty of sights to see, warm weather, the prices were cheap once you got there and the time of the tours fit us perfectly, so we made up our mind Egypt it was.. We booked a 14 day tour which included all the ancient sights as well as 5 days relaxing in a Red Sea coastal town we still had a couple spare days up our sleeves so we decided to add 2 extra days before and after the tour in Cairo to explore the city on our own..
I remember us walking out the travel agent jumping up and down, we were going to see the pyramids, cruise down the Nile and snorkel in the Red Sea and we were going to do it together.
After months of counting the days October 27th had arrived time for us to leave for Egypt both of us excited but also a little nervous about the first few days that we were going to be spending alone in a Middle Eastern country that we heard was very racist towards women traveling without a man.
Flying over Egypt the sun was shining we were both leaning over looking out the window at endless desert. It is interesting to see that the desert is not all sand dunes like you see in the movies. It looks very rough, rocky and the colour is a dull brown. As we got closer to Cairo we started to see apartment building after apartment building all different heights but all looking similar blending into the ground with the same dull brown colour. Occasionally you would see a patch of green ground which we figured to be football pitches. Finally after 24 long hours traveling we landed in Cairo..
Stepping out the plane the heat hit us it was hot and dry and dust was in the air, reminded me of the dust you get lingering around after you shake out your vacuum bag.
The terminal was chaos people were going in every direction we had no idea where we should be going all we knew was we needed to get our entry visas then after going around in circles we spotted a small sign sticky taped to a window with a man sitting behind that said "ENTRY VISA 15 USD" The man spoke English but not very well collected our visas then asked for directions out . We were soon out of the airport with very little security checking from airport officials to meet our transfer driver and on our way to the hotel where we would be based for the next few days.
Traffic was terrible we were moving very slowly with people everywhere walking in between the cars but we did not mind as we were taking it all in. After almost 2 hours in the car we arrived at our hotel" Indiana", it was on a one way street lodged between apartment buildings it was located in Giza and walking distance from the Nile.It looked run down but we did not expect much as we were doing a budget tour all we cared about was if it was clean and close to the city. Walking into the lobby we noticed the decor it was like we had just gone back in time 40 to 50 years with big old dusty chandeliers, pinkish and gold coloured walls and furniture that was wooden with gold timings.
We checked in and made our way up to the room the lift was worrying you had to pull open the door and once in it you could fit at most 3 to 4 people it made creaky noises and jolted each time you went past a floor, Mel and I looked at each other then both started to laugh. Our room colour was much like the lobby with 2 brown beds with yellow covers thankfully my sister was a thinker and made us sleep sheets we did not have to use the covers provided. We decided that we settle in for the night and would start our adventures of Cairo the next day.
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