Cairo is an assault on the senses.....ALL the senses. First of all as we have found in most muslim countries, your auditory senses are just fair game for anybody to violate.From 4.30 in the morning when the local mullahs compete with each other to proclaim the greatness of god, you know there will be no respite .In many ways since mosques tend to be only a mile or so apart (and sometimes much closer)The cacophony is reminiscent of a Premiership Derby with each set of supporters bellowing their own chants. After that the traffic starts, and there is a saying in Cairo that you can drive without lights or brakes, but you cannot drive without a horn. It is simply infuriating as a driver to be subject to this unnecessary onslaught although it has to be said that Janet copes much better than I. Next, Cairo is built on the Nile floodplain, therefore the ground is marshy, and there are loads of drainage canals, which stink and are brilliant breeding grounds for voracious mosquitoes. As if this is not enough the city is very badly polluted by vehicle emissions and the city lies for most of the day under a blanket of dust and exhaust fumes.What I can’t work out is why we enjoyed it so much, even though after 8 days we got our visas and had to leave because the pollution meant that Janet was having difficulty breathing. I think the reason was that the camp site was a meeting point for travellers going North South East and West, and the camaraderie, stories and help that everyone gave to each other over the evening camp fire was really enjoyable. In addition when you have 7 nationalities around the camp fire then English has to be the common language. Owing to a good deal of negative reaction from those more sensible than us we have now bombed out the Bin Ladens (bad phrase) Although it is a biblical truism that “the sins of the father be not visited on the son”, (and if it is not true than I have the utmost sympathy for Nathan Dodson, who is damned no matter what he does), we realised that having their number on our mobile address book was inviting attention from the worlds intelligence services. So we travelled south for Christmas to the tourist paradise of Hurghada where Natalie will be joining us.. This place makes Sharm El Shaikh look like West Wittering, and it is literally awash with Russians. They say what goes around comes around and we were highly amused to hear a German couple complaining that the Russians ate all the food and pinched all the sun beds.After Christmas we travel to Sudan and Ethiopia so blogs will not be frequently updated, but in the meantime “A very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to anyone who is reading this” | 