Phaoronic Village, freshest honey ever and kitty cat

For those of you who have never tasted freshly harvested honey (do you harvest honey or just collect it? anyway...) our morning started off with an amazing treat, we returned to the Zitouni restaurant for breakfast and what do we find but an actual live honeycomb on the buffet table. Seriously fresh.

Following breakfast we headed out with our guide Mohammed and driver Aiymen to the Pharaonic Village which is a recreation of ancient life on a small island in the middle of the Nile, kids enjoyed visualizing what life was like and how it took about a 6 step process to make a sheet of paper from papyrus. On the island the kids found a teeny weeny animal of a faintly feline nature that I could not immediately identify but luckily Mohammed is an experienced tracker and told us it was definitely a new born kitten. I will use my allergy to cats as my defense but frankly take a look at this photo and tell me have you ever seen anything so tiny or un-kittenlike? You can click on any image to enlarge it and get the full effect, so please do.

Then we stopped for some much needed ice cream, Drumsticks are exactly the same in Egypt as at home, and proceeded to a private river boat cruise of the Nile. That sounds way more luxe than it was, picture a 7-man fishing boat with swivel chairs and a plastic canopy, and a driver with quite literally no teeth but a massive friendly grin (think plenty of Purel before, during and after the boat ride). It was a beautiful boat ride and we saw how the local fishermen and their families live along the Nile. They have loads of children and little else, and were excited to see us motor by; everyone smiled at us as we passed and waved. A group of young girls (maybe 6 or 7 years old) were shouting out to Livvy telling her it was too cold to be in a tank top and giggling in their long sleeves and long skirts in the 90 degree heat. Justin and Livvy waved at everyone they saw and were delighted when everyone waved back.

We saw a school-boat, our name for a small boat that we saw dropping children with their backpacks off at a dock on an island in the Nile where their nakab clad mothers (only eyes showing from beneath their black head to toe garments) awaited them.


As we drove back to our hotel from some R&R by the pool, Aiymen handed me a brand new travel size bottle of Purel and insisted we use it given the boat we'd been on; I could've kissed him. Along the ride on the crowded city streets we spied an enormous flock of sheep and their shepherd (totally NOT making this up) stuck in rush hour traffic and navigating between the cars and trucks. Justin nearly punctured his appendix laughing at the unusual sight. He thought maybe they should create a Sheep Lane and if you walk and herd your flock you should get a sticker like my Prius and be able to go faster.

Back at the hotel which we've come to call "the Oasis", we had a quick Skype with David who is missing us and who we are missing loads. Chloe has gotten her braces off and we admired her full smile photo together; she isn't missing us because she is 14, but she does wish us well. Then we swam and snacked by the pool and finished the day with an evening journey over to the Sofitel to eat at the Buddha Bar. The taxi driver got not insignificantly lost en route and was so embarrassed that when we finally made it (after stopping for directions and some 25 minutes delayed) he refused to take my money but I insisted emphatically with semi-wild gestures and stilted English emplorings of "please yes take, okay mistake, no worry, please". He finally demurred wishing us a hearty "welkom ehgypt america". The cab ride home was blissfully uneventful.

The kids are in their beds, Livvy listening to Lady Gaga and Justin working on a Powerpoint of his trip to Egypt for school. Good thing we don't use papyrus anymore.

Cairo at last

After 20 hours of travel, Justin, Olivia and I arrived in Cairo. The kids loved the London to Cairo leg of the trip where they sat on the upper deck of a 747 in business class and thought they'd died and gone to heaven. "the seats go all the way down to a bed mom, that is so sick." Apparently all good things are to be referred to as "sick". I am also told that it is "way uncool" when I use the term "dude", so must refrain from that as well.

We were greeted at the airport by our guide Mohammed who whisked us through immigration to our awaiting van where Aiyman our driver blasted the AC and within no time we arrived at the Four Seasons Nile Plaza. After clearing the mildly disconcerting security screening at the hotel front door, we entered the oasis. Olivia said "Mom, I already pinched myself twice to make sure I wasn't dreaming." She is right, this place is absolutely lovely. Staff clearly outnumber guests and are uber-Four Seasons lovely. The lobby is adorned with an embarrasing dislplay of 3 foot high rose arrangements of every conceivable vibrant color a top a 10 foot long, 5 foot high table. The lobby has huge vaulted ceilings and strewn about the couches and tables in the raised interior lounge at the centre of the lobby were various exotic looking guests speaking many languages and enjoying a variety of cigarettes, "they can smoke in here, that's illegal" said the kids. Not in Cairo darlings, not in Cairo.

Our rooms have balconies overlooking the Nile River, which Justin was disappointed with at the Nile "looks more like a lake" and is narrow. Our guide assured him that it is the longest river in the world and travels through 9 countries, which somewhat satisfied him although under his breath I thought I heard him mutter "well maybe it's wide in Ethiopia."

It was 12:30am when we arrived, so we checked into our rooms and then went down to the 24 hour lebanese restaurant in the hotel called Zitouni for an excellent Lebanese meal. the kids thought the kebbeh and hummus were the best they'd ever had but the falafel was apparently not as good as those our friend Jay makes back home. The kids are adequately freaked out about the water which their grandmaman (my mom) warned them would invite dysintery if consumed. Since both the kids sometimes bite their nails, this poses a very grave threat indeed for what if they wash their hands with tap water and then bite a nail and get horribly sick and nearly die. So, they are washing their hands with bottled water and when they at last have a shower they have avowed to not allow even a trickle of water to be swallowed and to use copious amounts of Purel on their hands the moment they get out of the shower. Of course given the difficulty I seem to have getting them to shower on a normal day, this orange alert water threat may end up being less of a daily threat than they imagine.

It is now 9:15am in Cairo and I need to try and wake up the kids so that we can have a bite of breakfast and enjoy one of the 3 hotel pools before our guide comes to pick us up at noon for a half day of touring.