Travelogue: Western Desert March 2008 - Day 1

In keeping with my newly established custom of posting old news, I thought that I'd post my day by day account of of my last trip into the Western Desert of Egypt. I am sure that it won't be of interest to everyone, and I have some doubts about the value of travelogues, but if some of you enjoy bits of it then that's good news. I am kicking it off today because it is such a slow news day and I will restrict other posts on the subject to slow news days as well.

It's a bit of a slow start, but it gets better :-).

The nice thing about flying on Egypt Air is the fact that the plane leaves from Terminal 3. After collecting my ticket from the Kuoni representative and checking in my luggage I did a little Duty Free shopping and then had lunch at Chez Gerrard, with a very enjoyable glass of chilled white wine (my last for two weeks!).

I had a happily uneventful plane journey and got quite a bit of work done. The lunches were even more unapproachable than usual (and there was much grumbling when they ran out of the beef option, leaving only the fish) but the triangle of cheese spread on a small roll went down okay, and on this trip the chocolate was in the shape of a pyramid.

As we queued to leave the plane I was hailed by Emma, who remains unforgiven because she recognized me from my photograph in the Ancient World Tours brochure - where I looked like a woman driven beyond the edge of absolute madness. Only Bob Partridge, editor of Ancient Egypt magazine, had an equally mad-looking photograph in that brochure, which I made a happy point of telling him some time ago. Emma and I were the only ones from the tour on that flight. Everyone else was due to fly out the following day, direct to Luxor, but the flight had been full so Emma and I were here in Cairo, a day early, booked on to internal flights to Luxor the following evening.

Emma and I chatted in the minibus on the way to the hotel and decided that a trip to the Cairo Museum would be a good way to spend the daybefore flying to Luxor. We were delivered in a minibus to the Le Passage hotel, which was a first visit for me. Located right next to the airport in Heliopolis, it is bright, modern and attractive, with palm trees in a small green garden and a waterfall overlooking the swimming pool. After arranging a time to meet for breakfast we went our own separate ways.