
After a long night, the bus arrived at a different spot to the one we had expected. It was outside the main station. Now seasoned travellers, after fighting off the taxi driver who told us that the metro was closed - and that we should rather take a taxi for only 4 pounds (expect those to be British pounds when time comes to pay!), we quickly found the metro and determined where we needed to go (Ramses Station). Fortunately as it was 6.30 (and as we subsequently found it was Coptic Christmas public holiday), the metro was relatively empty and we had no problem getting on and off with our packs. Once at the station, we even chose the right exit and by around 7.10 we had arrived back at the Cairo Moon and by 7.30 we were back in bed and asleep.



Finally got up at around 12.30. I showered and went down to the dining area to have some coffee and catch up on admin while the others got ready. When they arrived, Abraham came down with 'breakfast' (at 13.00) and tea. It felt like being back home again!
After a leisurely breakfast, we walked back to the area of Ramses station so that Fiona could finally have a fruit salad in a beer mug to herself (10LE for 4) after which we headed back (past our hotel again) to amil Khalil. We knew we were back in Cairo as already the crowd had gathered across from the fruit salad shop to demonstrate.
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Today was our official day for buying things. I managed a good deal (10LE) on a scarf for Lauren. Then we crossed the main road and went to the islamic market again. Many of the shops were closed because of the public holiday for Coptic Christmas (Jan 7th) was still being celebrated. We walked further than we had before, finding the local shops - bought some biscuits and ate some peanust to keep us going. It was not too crowded and the atmosphere was fairly festive. When we reached the end of the market, we re-traced our steps to Kamil Khalil with the plan to walk back through the tourist market.




As we were already a fair distance in, we decided to cut across the main street. After walking for a while, the streets became quieter and we passed a number of beautiful mosques, but no sign of the market. All around us people were closing up for the night - at 7pm it was usually unheard of to close at this time in Cairo - so we changed direction towards what we thought was the direction we needed to go. In the process we passed a number of very interesting shops - metal workers beating metal on old fashioned anvils and others beating out pots from aluminium - to later see the results of their efforts on sale in the street shops. We eventually come out on a main road, but nothing looked familiar.
We went left heading towards where we thought the double highway was. After 500m or so, we passed some holesale shops - which was probably where a lot of the stuff in the markets comes from - and asked where we should be going. An old man directed us in Arabic, but we got the gist. Soon after that we found the highway which was our landmark back to our hotel, finding the route that we had taken to get there in the first place.



Back at the hotel, we had our early evening whisky and then went out to Filly's Pan for supper. In spite of the loud music and the competing TV (which we switched off to have it later turned back on) we had an excellent meal of chicken with cheese, salad (large), rolls, cokes all for 123LE plus a 20LE tip.
We then went back to the shoe shop that we had visited earlier so that guy could buy some shoes that he wanted. Then back to the hotel for our late eening (final) drinks and rummy. At 11.30, booked the plane seats and off to bed.