Meeting my group and Marwuan for the first time

This morning I slept through the morning prayer and woke up at 7am finally a good night sleep. Once Mel woke up we went down and had breakfast in the hotel. What was served for breakfast was interesting to the eye there were no cereals. I had a choice of hot dogs cut up soaking in a red sauce that looked like tomato soup, mashed up brown beans (which I later found out is called Foul), scrambled eggs, hard bread, lunchon meat cut into thick slices this looked like the roll of meat you feed your puppy, a white cheese that looked like some sort of feta as well as some tomato and cucumber sliced. I ate the bread with white cheese, tomato and cucumber I was not brave enough to try the other food.

We relaxed in the room for a bit then set off on our walk down to the Nile. We reached the main road we had to cross it, there are no traffic lights anywhere but we did see a zebra crossing great we would use this but when we stood at the crossing cars are not stopping to let us cross it seemed that pedestrians have no right of way. Ok looks like we have to just take a chance and do the best we can to get across we literally have to dodge around cars that were passing by. We made it across the road my heart was racing I was sure I was going to get squashed.

Not really sure where to go we were just guessing we passed the Cairo Opera House but did not see the Nile anywhere we were lost we were walking around in circles. After walking around for what seemed like hours in the heat but was only 30 mins we came to a road with a bridge ahead of us we had made it to the Nile. There was a gate beside the bridge that leads down to the river we walked in. A man jumped out at us and started speaking in Arabic we had no idea what was going on, were we going into private property? He then pulled out some tickets we had to pay to enter. We paid the man the money it was not much 5 pounds he handed over us a ticket then not really knowing what we were paying for we made our way in.

We walked down the stairs towards the river, we could see why we had to pay unlike the rest of the places we seen around Cairo it was a well maintain park with lovely green grass, wooden benches to sit on and a footpath that ran parallel with the river. We took a seat and spent time watching the people and the boats pass us by. After an hour of sitting talking, people watching and taking a few photos we walked down the river in the direction of the Cairo Tower it was a lovely clear day so we decided to go up and see the view of the city from above

Cairo Tower is a tall thin tower that stands alone in the middle of Cairo beside the Nile. Up the top it has a rotating restaurant and above that a viewing deck with 360 degree views. We had to go through some security checking then made our way up the lift to the restaurant then we had to walk up a flight of stairs. We came out to an open air area we are greeted by men dressed as pharaohs.We walk further out the view is amazing you can see far into the horizon. The weather was perfect we were lucky that it was a sunny clear day. Cairo looked like a different city. Its quiet up here I couldn't hear the horns of the traffic that was jammed down below. I see a sporting facilities, pools, tennis courts and soccer pitches. I see the Nile and the boats that are slowing making their way down the river. I see all the building across the river that are all the same grey brown colour because of the weather conditions they have been standing in for so many years. And when I looked far into the horizon I see the Pyramids.

After some time on the viewing deck we made our way back down to the restaurant where we had planned to have lunch. Lunch was nice the prices were more on the expensive side but they did serve wine so I was happy I finally was enjoying a nice glass of white. We took our time enjoying the view and lunch as we rotated around. It was getting late we had to get back to the hotel we were meeting our group in a few hours and we were unsure how long it would take us to walk back there was a high possibility we would get lost again.

Mel and I made it back to the hotel without getting lost this We made it across the main road again playing chicken with traffic was not my idea of fun but it had to be done. When back in our room I had a quick nap but really I was just laying there because I was very excited about meeting the new people on our tour.
Mel and I both showered and changed and made our way up to the top level of the hotel this is where we were all meeting. I walk in and people are sitting around a table I ask them if they are here to do the tour "Yep" someone replied. Awesome we are in the right place. The table has about 10 people around it so far mostly females and a few males. We took a seat one of the girls gives me some paperwork and informs me that I have to fill it out.
While filling out the paperwork a dark skinned male walks in the room and introduces himself as Marwuan our Tour Leader. I put two and two together he is the same man I was speaking to on the phone yesterday.

We had to wait a little bit longer for more people to arrive but there was a bit of small talk happening around the table. People were introducing themselves and talking about where they were from and where they had just traveled from. The group had people from Canada, England, Brazil, New Zealand but majority were Australian. Everyone seemed really nice. When there were a total of 15 of us Marwuan began talking. He informed us that there were still a few arriving that night and he would fill them in once they had arrived. He then went on to inform us that we were 2 groups that were joining together to make one so half the group would be doing 8 days of the tour then leaving and the remaining would continue on to Dahab.

Marwuan was quite direct when explaining the information about the tour his face was serious very rarely breaking into a smile. Another tour leader came in he was all bubbly and laughing he handed Marwuan a beer and told us that it was Marwuan's birthday the day before and we were to wish him a happy birthday. We all did so. Marwuan gave us a quick smile and thanks then continued talking about what we had installed over the next few days. After explaining everything he told us he would meet us early in the morning and said we were free to go. I was surprised that was it I had expected that he would be taking us out for dinner for us to get to know each other.

My first impressions of Marwuan were not very high I was starting to worry that he would be a grumpy tour leader and hard to approach. I was a little disappointed I had expected more and after seeing the other tour leader all bubbly I felt that we had really lucked out on who we had leading our tour.

After the meeting a few of the group were starving and because Mel and I had been in the hotel for a few days now we knew where to go to eat we invited others to join if they would like. Some accepted and we took them a few blocks to get pizza we took this time to get to know each other. Once we collected our dinner we returned to our room because tomorrow we were going to be up a 6am we had a full day of sightseeing we were going to the Cairo Museum and Pyramids then tomorrow evening we were taking an overnight train down south.