Friday, 10 February 2012

Monday, February 6/2012

View from Maggi's Room
We've arranged for a transfer to the airport about 12:30 for 50 Egyptian pounds ($8.20 CAD, £5.20 GBP, €6.20). The original plan was to go in the morning to see the Nilometer on Roda Island but conflict has escalated in the night so we decide to keep a lower profile and stick closer to home. The shopping district around Tala'at Harb Square is peaceful enough. Rather too peaceful actually as the shops seem only to begin opening after 10 o'clock and then one or two at a time, reluctantly as it were. Near home we stop for a cup of coffee and a pastry. Pastries delicious. Maggi's coffee comes but not ours - which in the end is just as well as we're out of time and it takes some effort to elicit a bill.


On the way to the airport the driver gestures and tells us that Mubarek lived "back there" in a big place. We think of the big jail his sons are living in now There are so many beautiful buildings in Cairo, such lovely colonial architecture, mostly now grimy and crumbling.


Terminal 3 is large and very new. We change back the little Egyptian currency left - in our case into sterling with $3 US as top up. Duty free shops not terribly interesting, and snacks available in Egyptian pounds a shocking price. The small bottle of water that is 1.50 in Egyptian pounds on the street is 26 Egyptian pounds here ($4.27 CAD, €3.23, £2.71), much worse than Larnaca airport at €1.10. Announcements for departures are interesting - in Arabic, English and the language of the destination country, and preceded by a few bars of music appropriate to the destination. Ours is from Zorba the Greek!


Flight home about an hour and twenty minutes. The illuminated sign next to the fasten your seat belt sign now advises against using electronic equipment during take off and landing - which doesn't prevent at least two men from talking on their mobiles as the stewardess is presenting the safety demo. They're asked to put them away but don't seem to grasp the point of turning them off as well. But we land safely in Larnaca. We're home.