Home Sweet Home...

I am safely back at home after, a week on tour in Egypt with 37 students of the British Overseas School, and we had a fantastic, if exhausting time!

We left Karachi on 14th March and flew via Dubai to Cairo, where we transferred to the Pyramisa hotel and met up with Thomas, and I was able to wish him a happy 21st birthday. Everybody went to their rooms and Thomas and I were able to get showered and changed and I was relieved of my responsibilities and we went out for dinner in nice little Italian restaurant and then back to the room for the first half of a Scrabble game.

Saturday we were up bright and early for a tour of the Pyramids and Sphinx, and it was great to see the excitement on some of the kids faces when they saw the Pyramids for the first time. One thing, out of many, that I love about our kids is their innocence when compared to kids of the same age in the UK. It’s great to be with young people who are not ‘mini-adults’ or ‘adult wannabees’ but are enjoying their childhood, it is very refreshing.

We remained in Cairo until the early hours of Monday morning, Thomas having left us on Sunday afternoon to return to Alex where he had a week of exams to look forward to, when we went to the airport to fly down to Luxor. It has to be said that Cairo airport at 4 am is one of the maddest place on earth, and it cam as no surprise that 7 of our bags did not reach Luxor with us!! Thankfully, six of them arrived on the following flight; unfortunately, Tariq’s did not and so far has not been seen again! He handling the whole thing very stoically and borrowed clothes from the rest of group, and when no swimming shorts could be found for him he merely went in, in his trousers and then lay in the sun to dry out!!

Tuesday morning required some of us to rise again at 4.15 am as we were booked in for a balloon ride over the Valley of the Kings and other antiquities. As some will already know this was a repeat performance as Will and I had done this back in 2003 on my birthday, but I can tell you it was just as breath taking the second time. At one moment we were nearly 2500 feet in the air and then the pilot brought us down so low that we were skimming the tops of the sugar cane, absolutely amazing, and I was sharing my part of the basket with a lady form Ilkley Moor, who will be 70 next birthday, proving you are never too old for a new experience.

After breakfast we went and looked round Luxor and Karnak Temples in record times, Joseph our guide, who was superb, commented that he had never been round the Temples in such a short time! We had done it so quickly that we were too early for lunch so Joseph suggested that we went to one of the Perfume shops in Luxor and gave the kids a 30 minute limit. An hour and half later, they emerged smelling sweetly and laden down with purchases! After lunch we drove for 4 hours to Hurgahda by the Red Sea and enjoyed a day of relaxing by the pool in the hot sun.

Thursday saw us rise at 6 am to start our journey home! We drove for 6 hours to reach Cairo, where the kids were fed at, as Yayha calls it, ‘M. C. Donalds’, this being by far the meal of the week according to the kids! We then went to airport and boarded a flight to Dubai arriving there at 12.30 am, with our flight tot Karachi departing at 8 am!! Dubai Airport is one big shopping mall with far too few seats, making sure that the most people possibly are wandering around the shops! Many of our kids had saved their pocket money or brought extra so they could shop here as they consider that the shopping here in Karachi is ‘rubbish’! And even though many of them had been looking forward to this, by about 6am several were heard to say ‘I hate Dubai Airport’!!

We final arrived back at school at 1pm PST which meant we had been up for 28 hours, and were a little on the tired side!!

I had hoped to make it to church for our Good Friday service but I got home and realized that I would have to shower and then drive and then sit for an hour and I am afraid that the ‘spirit was willing but the flesh was weak’! In the end I fell asleep instead and then woke about 8pm stayed awake until midnight and then went to sleep again and slept through until 8am this morning.

I was then back to the airport again at 11am to meet Thomas who had followed the same route as us, though he started in Alex. He arrived safely with all his baggage and a large bottle of Baileys!

We have been shopping and I have given him the edited highlights tour of Karachi and we are about to get changed for dinner and head out to BBQ Tonight to allow Thomas his first proper taste of curry in six months, sadly, Egyptians are not renowned for their culinary expertise.

Thomas is here until 5th April and we have several things planned include Easter Day Service at the Cathedral, a day at the beach, three days in Lahore and generally enjoying the wonders of Karachi, but more of that later as there is a vegetable kebab calling my name…