Day 14: Cairo, Egypt

Sheraton Cairo Hotel & Casino

5 January 2026

A quiet day today. We didn't have anything planned - except checking in with our Viking Tour Guides.

They had a table set up in the hotel lobby and we checked in with them, were given some information about how things are organised, what to wear, what to take on the day excursions (toilet paper, apparently, because not all sites provide it!) and what the plans are for tomorrow.

Tomorrow starts at 8am with a briefing in the main ballroom of the hotel, and will then head out at 9am for the Saqqara Step Pyramid (which we haven't seen yet). 

There are 80 people on this particular tour, broken up into three groups of around 27 people. Our particular guide is called Mohamed (what a surprise!) but goes by the name of Younis, to distinguish him from all the other Mohameds. So, when we are on day excursions, we will be a relatively small group but when we are all together on the boat, there will be 80 of us. Sounds like a lot!

After the check in, we were free for the rest of the day and so hired a car and driver from the hotel to take us to the largest shopping mall in Cairo - called The Mall of Arabia. It was about a 45 minute trip, but in a different direction to all our other drives, so was interesting. 

I forgot to mention that the streets are full of white minivans, which are the most popular local form of transport. They are very cheap (about $1AUD) and will take you anywhere you want to go. They will stop at any location (by the side of the road, in the middle of the road, on the freeway etc) to pick you up or drop you off. They seat about 10 people and I couldn't understand how the system worked, until someone explained that when you are waiting on the street, you signal to the driver where it is you want to go. Each suburb or location has a particular sign (e.g. thumbs up means you want to go to Giza, two fingers up means somewhere else etc). A van will stop and pick you up if you are going where the other passengers in the van are also going. Genius! But they drive like maniacs and stop unexpectedly, so are yet another traffic hazard. 

The Mall of Arabia was large, beautifully decorated for Christmas and pretty empty. There are lots of shops you might find anywhere and also quite specific Egyptian shops - like the ones selling hookah pipes and hijabs etc. I bought myself a light jumper and Jim a light jacket - neither of which were particularly expensive.

We then went and had lunch in a beautiful cafe which looked out on to a large park in the centre of the Mall. 

We had a lovely Egyptian style meal of cheese cigars, a salad of eggplant with pomegranate seeds, tomato and topped with fried pita bread, a beef and potato stew with pesto and Egyptian sausages with pine nuts and lemon. I also had a mint lemonade - which was freshly squeezed lemon juice with mint added. Amazing!

We walked around the park after that, and then called the driver to take us back to the hotel. We had a quiet evening, and just ate in the upstairs buffet.

Oh, I forgot to mention last night's Italian meal - quite a disappointment. My minestrone was okay - but could have come out of a can. I'm sure it didn't, but it could have. Jim had a mushroom soup, which was not bad. My main was quite a nice mushroom-filled ravioli with a creamy sauce, but Jim had a seafood penne, which he said was atrocious. We also ordered a Margarita pizza to use as bread, but it was soggy and tasteless. No Italian made this meal, I'm sure of it! (This picture here is the beautiful lunch - not the disappointing dinner.)