Day 8 - Egypt
25.04.11
The phone rang at 3.45hrs, "Your early morning call sir", I said cheers and didn't tell him that I'll be glad never to hear his voice again. This morning we were going to be taking a balloon ride over the valley of the kings.
I did have visions of there possibly being up to 8 people including a captain in a large basket with enough room to wander around sipping champagne, o how wrong I was. The basket held over 30 people crammed in like wooden pegs hammered into a hole, and even the big lass came. As we set off I could see that Kerry could quite literally shit herself at any moment so I did my best to appear un-phased by it all. On the inside I was panicking a little, trust me to get the pilot who wanted to break the world record for flying the highest in a balloon carrying a mental amount of passengers I thought. But luckily the initial burst of height was short lived and we descended to a sensible height to watch Egyptians sleeping in bed in their roofless houses and to hear donkeys singing as the sun rose. Before too long we were bracing ourselves preparing to be dragged along the floor in the basket for the landing and although a little draggage did occur the landing was relatively civilised and I was glad to be on terra firma. Kerry remained un-soiled.
When we returned I napped whilst Kerry caught the last of the Egyptian sun. We both agreed that we were ready to go home and then was presented with the following announcement, "the Manchester flight is running approximately 10 hours late", I swore in my head.
We were transferred to the Luxor Hotel, a large complex where I imagine people check-in, spend days by the pool consuming the full board buffet and never leaving the premises. The hotel had an Internet kiosk which I wanted to use to check the flight details in Manchester and it was 300 Egyptian pounds (approx £3) for 30 mins. "Do you accept English money?", I asked. I did have a small amount of change left, the remainder had been begged off me by Egyptians demanding money for making eye contact. Luckily they did and I handed over £3. The guy disappeared for a moment and returned stating that they didn't accept coins. He said "sorry" but I knew he didn't mean it. I calmed myself and said "yeah I bet you are". What I actually wanted to say was, "yeah well you're the first fuckin person in this country that doesn't, and well I don't accept coins either you twat!", the camels back was broken. I instantly knew that I had had enough of visiting Arabic countries, and this was only my second ever. The dirt, the chaos, the rudeness, the smell, the unclean water, the lecherous men, fuck you Internet kiosk! Obviously the lack of sleep and knowing that I should have been home by now was getting to me, I had to compose myself once again.
Eventually we boarded the plane, much to my relief. We were then told that the plane was diverting to Cyprus to pick up a new crew, I gritted my teeth slightly but at least we were Blightly bound.
The phone rang at 3.45hrs, "Your early morning call sir", I said cheers and didn't tell him that I'll be glad never to hear his voice again. This morning we were going to be taking a balloon ride over the valley of the kings.
I did have visions of there possibly being up to 8 people including a captain in a large basket with enough room to wander around sipping champagne, o how wrong I was. The basket held over 30 people crammed in like wooden pegs hammered into a hole, and even the big lass came. As we set off I could see that Kerry could quite literally shit herself at any moment so I did my best to appear un-phased by it all. On the inside I was panicking a little, trust me to get the pilot who wanted to break the world record for flying the highest in a balloon carrying a mental amount of passengers I thought. But luckily the initial burst of height was short lived and we descended to a sensible height to watch Egyptians sleeping in bed in their roofless houses and to hear donkeys singing as the sun rose. Before too long we were bracing ourselves preparing to be dragged along the floor in the basket for the landing and although a little draggage did occur the landing was relatively civilised and I was glad to be on terra firma. Kerry remained un-soiled.
When we returned I napped whilst Kerry caught the last of the Egyptian sun. We both agreed that we were ready to go home and then was presented with the following announcement, "the Manchester flight is running approximately 10 hours late", I swore in my head.
We were transferred to the Luxor Hotel, a large complex where I imagine people check-in, spend days by the pool consuming the full board buffet and never leaving the premises. The hotel had an Internet kiosk which I wanted to use to check the flight details in Manchester and it was 300 Egyptian pounds (approx £3) for 30 mins. "Do you accept English money?", I asked. I did have a small amount of change left, the remainder had been begged off me by Egyptians demanding money for making eye contact. Luckily they did and I handed over £3. The guy disappeared for a moment and returned stating that they didn't accept coins. He said "sorry" but I knew he didn't mean it. I calmed myself and said "yeah I bet you are". What I actually wanted to say was, "yeah well you're the first fuckin person in this country that doesn't, and well I don't accept coins either you twat!", the camels back was broken. I instantly knew that I had had enough of visiting Arabic countries, and this was only my second ever. The dirt, the chaos, the rudeness, the smell, the unclean water, the lecherous men, fuck you Internet kiosk! Obviously the lack of sleep and knowing that I should have been home by now was getting to me, I had to compose myself once again.
Eventually we boarded the plane, much to my relief. We were then told that the plane was diverting to Cyprus to pick up a new crew, I gritted my teeth slightly but at least we were Blightly bound.
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