The long drive back to Cairo

  Cairo, Egypt
June 09, 2013Walked around the town to take a few photos of donkey carts, the local breakfast cafe, our hotel alarm aka the rooster, and the bread shop. 
 
I need to correct our previous breakfast entires. We did not have dates, it was sycamore jam and sweet olive jam. I need to find out how to make these. They were so delicious with bread (pita) and soft saltly cheese (tastes similar to cream cheese, but was not as firm). 
 
We departed with Hanny and Mohammed, our Emeco companions at 8:00. The drive back to Cairo will be 150 kilometres shorter since we do not have to go through Alexandria this time.  
 
Our first stop of the day was around 11:30 in Matrouh. This was the closest city to Siwa in Egypt. We ended up having a two hour coffee break with Hanny Morning Ride in Siwa. Mohammed was with the van for a while and was probably on the phone with one or all of his habibi (my lover) most of the time. The guys had coffee and we had soft drinks since it was a local cafe. The streets were very busy and full of cars. Hanny said that he had been here twenty years ago with his family and at the time they only had donkey and carts. They have come a long way since then and probably have more stop lights here than in all of Cairo! 
 
We only had two brief stops after that. We bought peanut M&M's, Lays chips, mixed nuts and red Lipton tea for lunch at 3:00. The last stop was a restaurant and a small zoo with a flamingo, ostriches, goats, llamas, other birds and deer. 
 
All in all it was smooth sailing until we hit a traffic jam in Cairo! We arrived at the Marriott after 7:00 and I was glad to be out of a moving vehicle!
 
We checked in, took a quick dip in the pool and then headed out for dinner. 
 
We took a very inexpensive cab ride to Sequoia Restaurant. We stuck to he mezza menu and ordered tehina, mixed mini shawarma in mini pitas, calamari and our waiter recommended mombar (rice in warm grape leaves). It was all really good, but way more than we needed!

Other new words of the day: Insha'Allah - means God willing and Aish - means bread and life.
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