Sorry I have taken so long to write my first email, but i wanted it to be full of fun stories, and lots of content. I will do my best to be brief about things!

Firstly, 28 hours of flying was exhausting, but I entertained myself by teaching a Syrian athletics team how to play hacky sack in the airport of the Jordanian capital, Amman. I thought it was very funny!

Geting out of Cairo airport was easy enough, and i caught a bus into the city centre. Unfortunately for me, i caught a local bus, which was a great adventure considering the price tag (US$0.08). Had it not been for a generous local who spoke some english, who knows were i would have ended up! Met this cool Aussie guy in the hostel (Wayne), so we have been going around Cairo together. Today we visited the Pyramids at Giza, which was just incredible! The size of those pyramids is simply monumental. We arrived at 7am, and left around 2, after entering the pyramid, riding some horses around, and climbing one of the smaller pyramids to the top . Yes, it is illegal to climb a pyramid, but Egypt is the land of moustaches and rules which nobody obeys! We had people yelling at us from the bottom, so we came down to find out what as going on, just to have them hassling for some bakshish – a bribe! We simply laughed and walked away!

We also walked around the back streets of Cairo around the pramids – the people who live in Cairo are very friendly, always talking to us and smiling when we pass. Then they try and take your money!!!

Later that afternoon, we went to the Old Cairo city, looked around the old churches and an incredible synagogue, followed by a tiring game of soccer with some local kids in the street. If you are ever overseas, i urge you to try it – find some kids and start playing soccer, it’s a lot of fun!

Visited the Egyptian museum, where there are so many artifacts it would take more than 3 years to spend 1 minute at each. To amuse ourselves, Wayne and I pretended to take photos of Tutankamuns gold with our cameras (strictly none allowed!), and got jealous eyes from particular tourists and eventually an interrogation by the Egyptian police. We were in hysterics.

All in all, Cairo is a disgusting city with great people and great food! A jay-walkers paradise where chaos rules the streets and traffic lights are a pedestrians holy grail.

I had started writing this email in the Biblotheca Alexandrina, in the largest open space reading area in the world, overlooking 10 levels of books, people and computers. Unfortunately i was distracted and went back to reading my Tin Tin comics. Situated in Alexandria, Egypt, the library has been built to remember the original ancient library which was destroyed. A Medierranean port, Alexandria doesn’t really have much to it, except for fresh fish and a sea breeze. The city was destroyed many times by warfaring nations, such as the Romans and the Greeks.

After a 12 hour train ride to Luxor, kown as the city of Thebes in ancient times, I have spent the last couple of days exploring the glorious ruins of Karnak and by walking over the mountains from the Valley of the Queens to the Kings’ counterpart with my mate Will from Canada.

I met two incompetent South African girls who are travelling Egypt by themselves on an over priced tour by a random local from Sinai, who didnt know the value of anything in the country and had an infected sting with nothing to do with it. They looked at me with saving grace when i pulled a tube of svalon from my medikit… Will and I had a good laugh at them with all their hilarious stories.

I haven’t decided what I will be doing for the next couple of days. I am going to be going to Aswan and to Abu Simbel, and possibly catch a 2 day felluca (local nile sailing boat) back up to Luxor before heading over to Sinai and go diving!

Anyhow… all this writing has given me an appetite! Time to go and buy some shwarma($0.70) and felafel($0.15) for a hearty dinner before going to bed. I will leave you with the bit of arabic i know – yallah – go to the beach or something, but remember: Don’t apologise for long emails, and NEVER apologise to the Egyptian police for anything you do.

Hope everything is well at home, Seb

ps – i got a photo of myself wrapped in toilet paper out the front of some archeological sites! The mummy is back!