Tahrir Square demo

The group is now all together as the trip officially started on Thursday. Those of us staying at the Juliana Hotel transferred over to the Swiss Nile Hotel for two nights, the starting point of our trip. As the name suggests, it overlooks the Nile and from the rooftop you can even see the Pyramids. There are 20 of us in the group (a full truck) with ages ranging from 20s to 60s and a nationality mix of Aussies, English, Irish, South African and Kiwi.

Today, we have been to the Pyramids and the Egyptian museum. Our plans were slightly disrupted by the demo in Tahrir Square that took place today to denounce the violence that erupted last weekend between Muslims and Coptics (Christians). As the museum is right next to Tahrir Square, we went there first thing this morning rather than later in the day when the demo was planned. As it was, there were already quite a few demonstrators gathered but the protests seemed to be very peaceful and our visit to the museum went ahead. Not sure how much of this has been reported on the news, but 12 Christians were killed at the weekend and a church burned. Various theories abound as to why religious violence has erupted when previously Muslims and Coptics had lived peacefully along side each other. Some suggest that Mubarak is paying extremist groups to deliberately incite violence to further de-rail Egypt post the "revolution" as the locals refer to it.

After the museum, we then visited the Pyramids - no trip to Cairo would be complete without seeing this ancient wonder. Whilst undeniably spectacular, they are also inevitably very touristy and you are constantly hassled to take a camel or horse ride, or have your picture taken with a camel or one of the locals. Having taken a camel ride on a previous trip to Jordan, I can safely say it is not an experience I would choose to repeat!

Tomorrow, we leave Cairo behind and finally get on board the truck and head out into the desert...