Day 10 – A Whole Lot of Sitting

Today was another travel day, and it was a long one. My bus from Dahab to Cairo left at 9am, and I didn’t get into Cairo until after 6pm. Again, I can’t complain much about the bus ride, especially after living in Uganda for nine months and taking public transportation here. I had plenty of room on the air-conditioned bus to read, sleep, and listen to music watching the desert scenery go by.

I was supposed to arrive at the main bus station in Cairo, which would have made it easy enough to just get on a new bus to Alexandria from the same station. But the bus stopped on the outskirts of town, so the plans had to change. I ended up taking a taxi to the train station, where I figured I could find a train to Alexandria just as easily as a bus. If I could speak and read Arabic, I would have had no problem at all. But, since I don’t, and there were no English signs to be seen, I had to find some English-speaking people to help me out. And I seriously had to make an effort for a while to find someone who could: one, speak English well enough; and two, was willing to help me buy a ticket and find the right platform. Thankfully, I did – there was a dad who was sending his son to Alexandria on the same train, so I was good to go. We waited a bit for the next train to come (trains for Alexandria leave Cairo almost every hour), and we were off.

It actually worked out really well to take the train rather than a bus, because the train station is just on the outside of central downtown Alexandria, whereas the bus station is much further away. I reviewed the map of downtown Alex in the guidebook before the train stopped, put my backpack on, and set off exploring the city in search of some dinner and my hotel. After walking around for a while, I finally came to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. I knew the hotel was along this strip, so it was easy to find. By the time I was up in my room and ready for bed, it was just about midnight, and although I hadn’t really done much today – really, I just sat the entire day – I was ready to sleep. To be honest, I was a little sad to leave Dahab, and a lot sad to leave Sean and Jamie, but I was excited to explore a new city. But rest comes before play!