I arrived in Cairo early this morning, 6:40. By 9 o'clock I was at the guesthouse, and by 11 I'd checked into my room (my room wasn't ready when I arrived, check-in's at noon), and being tired from the 7.5 flight northward accross the African continent, I immediately went for a long nap.
By 3pm I'd regathered my energy, and decided to step out into the blistering sun to experience some more of Cairo. I decided to visit the Cairo Tower, a 30 minute walk from the guesthouse.
Here is Cairo from top, at around 5pm. The river flowing right through the city is none other than the Nile:
In view here is Zamalek, the district in which the guesthouse is situated. In fact, the cathedral (across from which is situated the guesthouse) is barely visible in this next picture: right above the rounidsh wall on the left side of the picture.
Note the desert dust, whirled into the air by the wind. Cairo is a really dusty place:
In this next picture, the pyramids are visible ever-so-faintly, way in the distance, on the top right of the picture:
The above shots were taken with a 50mm lens. After about 45 minutes of playing with this lens, I decided to put on my 17-85mm lens, giving us a broader perspective:
A local convinced me that I really should have a picture taken with me in it. I let him take my camera and he took this picture:
Then, I went inside and in the following order, drank an iced tea, ate vanilla ice cream, and a club sandwich. I think the reason I messed up the proper eating sequence was because I was so hot and sweaty when I got inside that I just wanted something to soothe my dry throat. Only later, when I realized that I was going to hang around inside until sundown, did I order the sandwich.
I went back outside at sundown, close to 8pm:
Little by little, the city transformed itself from a dry dustbowl to a colourful light show:
One final picture, this time, the tower, from below:
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