You’re looking at Sadat Subway station, the major landmark closest to the hotel where I stayed in Cairo. It’s a screen grab courtesy of Nokia Maps and my Bluetooth GPS unit, which I did indeed use to navigate my way through Egypt, despite the fact that the there’s no visible GPS signal showing in the bottom right corner of the screen — ahem…

It was the first time I’ve ever used GPS in my travels, and I have to admit that the jury is out as to whether I really needed it or not.

Here’s what Nokia makes of Luxor — note that Crocodile Island is a landmark I added myself (it’s where our hotel there was). As you can see, there’s not too much in the way of detail. I kept my GPS unit running on the overnight train all the way back to Cairo, and the maps from my E61i’s built-in database were similarly sparse right up until we got back into the city proper.

Part of the blame should be pointed at whomever collates the maps for Nokia. Here’s my hotel in Giza, and the Great Pyramids — probably occupying that empty space to the left — are nowhere to be found!

But perhaps I had unrealistic expectations for GPS. It’s certainly comforting to have a general sense of where you’re at, but I maintain that the best way to get acclimatized to foreign surroundings is to walk in progressively larger concentric circles around your hotel. It’s worked for me everywhere I’ve visited with the possible exception of Lima, Peru.

I know what you’re thinking: “Come on, Currie… Another video from Egypt?!”

This one is actually a good lead-in for my next post… It was captured in Cairo’s famous mobile phone Souk — I was hipped to it by our tour guide in Luxor.

Note that like your typical stupid tourist I completely butchered the name of the store mentioned in the video, despite roaming on their very network with my Nokia. It is not “Eltistadt” or whatever the hell I said, but in fact Etisalat… My bad.

BTW, despite their claims of having the only 3.75G network in Egypt, I could only get 3G on my E61i.

Okay, I know you’re all getting tired of hearing about Egypt so I’ll dump my last two videos over the weekend then get back to the tech stuff you nerds crave so much…

Despite taking place in the shadow of the Great Pyramids, greeting 2008 was a decidedly more subdued affair than rolling over into 2007 in Seoul, Korea. But I won’t forget for a second how fortunate I was to be there in the first place!

Now that you’ve suffered through my Flickr photos it’s time to marvel at the cheap 30-second videos captured by my Canon S70 — actually this one got cut off at 7 seconds for some reason, so you can watch it four times!

Your typical Giza Plateau camel tour brings you to the Pyramids from the opposite side of the front gate, Lawrence of Arabia style — that was pretty cool, but to get there Ray and I had to ride our camels through some pretty dodgy slums, and despite my free and easy grin seen here in Ray’s backward-facing photo it added about an extra half hour of travel time both ways.

Since camels have been trained to kneel they’re far easier to mount and dismount than horses. But once the beasts are at full height there are no stirrups in which to plant your feet, so if the camel breaks into a trot one’s ball sack can lift a full six inches off the saddle then coming crashing down with each step.

Thus, Ray and I took it very slow on our ride to the Pyramids and back…

The final batch of my pics from Egypt have been uploaded to Flickr, featuring a spectacular sunset felucca ride on the Nile and just a taste of downtown Cairo.

My only regret with this trip is that I didn’t have more time to spend in Cairo proper. Ray and I got to ride the very impressive subway (the only underground railway system in the entire African continent!) visit the Egyptian Museum and get fleeced at the famous Khan-Ali-Kalili market, but there was a lot we didn’t get to see in our two days there.

Maybe a return visit is in order someday…

A 200-metre crawl to a tomb deep within the largest of the three Great Pyramids has definitely been the highlight of our trip thus far. I realize that the lack of any available illumination may not impress, so I’m working on some heavy duty light recovery in Photoshop for my Flickr collection…

Next stop, Luxor and the Valley of the Kings!

Why are these men smiling? Because they know that the moment this photo is captured they’re in for a bribe…

After being throughly fleeced at the Pyramids yesterday Ray and I returned today on our own terms, but didn’t necessarily do any better. Ray got suckered into paying a “government official” to see us through the front gates, and we couldn’t walk 10 steps without someone offering us a camel ride or other tacky souvenir. The police weren’t any better — one of them lifted up a rope fence and asked if we wanted to climb up on the very structure he was supposed to be guarding!

Speaking of tacky we wisely steered clear the obnoxious New Year’s Eve party in the lobby of our hotel and instead reflected in the shadow of the three monoliths from Le Meridien’s roof. A grainy souvenir photo can be seen at my Flickr site, along with many more…

If you’re coming to visit The Great Pyramids at Giza, my advice is to bring cash!

Here’s how our day at the pyramids broke down — all amounts are in Egyptian pounds, each worth about 20¢ CAD:

• £110 for a car tour of pyramids, arranged by our hotel (once in the car we were quickly upsold to a camel tour)
• £300 for a camel tour for two
• £20 for “complimentary” head scarves
• £50 entrance fee to Giza Plateau
• £350 for “special access” to king & queen chambers, tombs in small pyramids
• £20 tip for special “tomb guide”
• £350 tip for our guide
• £70 tip for camel kid
• £10 tip to camel tour owner
• £20 tip for our driver

The grand total = £1300 total = $260 CAD or $130 per person for the day. And you know what? It was absolutely worth it! See my Flickr set for more pics…

Last night Ray and I rolled in like rock stars through the gates of Le Méridien Pyramids in the back of a Mercedes limo. The toughest part about getting to Egypt wasn’t the 12 hours in the air but the grueling 2-hour drive through congested traffic to get to our hotel.

It was all worth it, though — check out that view! Oh, and be sure to visit my Flickr site for the growing collection of photos from my trip…

(Staged Terror in Trinidad…)

Just before dinnertime tonight yours truly will be taking off for Frankfurt, Germany and then on to Egypt. Close on my heels will be Ray Deonandan, who will rendezvous with me in Cairo after completing a similar flight path through London’s Heathrow.

With the both of us being somewhat prolific bloggers, the plan is for Ray to handle the text and yours truly to document our trip through images and video. Or I might play Devil’s Advocate (again) and give you my own spin on our travels.

Whatever the case, you’ll want to bookmark Ray’s blog for the next week or so — along with mine, of course!