I woke up at 6 as i needed to pack my bags and move to another room for an extra two nights, despite the hotel being empty they couldn't keep me in the same room!
The man at the front desk said he'd sort me out with a special room with a great view, I just wanted the same room!
Anyway, I had my bags ready to be put in storage but he told me to leave them in my room and it'll all get sorted. Ahmed was picking me up at 7:30 and I had the small case of a breakfast buffet to sort out so I didn't want to faff around.
There was more on offer this time but I wasn't a "ful" and stayed away from anything that looked brown or like salad dressing. Ahmed picked me up and dropped me with 4 guys that worked for kites who were running the excursion, Mustapha, Zizo, Zorro and Ramy.
Kites is an organisation that covers a wide range of events and adventure excursions. They deal with weddings to school trips and in those excursions you can try your hand at loads of activities from arts and crafts to parasailing, it really is a very exciting company that does great work for people of all ages.
I was going to be doing a full day in one of their top 3 locations with a booked group of about 50 others all aged between 18-30. The location was around 2.5 hours drive west of Cairo into the desert and I would be checking out a waterfall, canoeing, sand boarding and then ending the night with a campsite and marshmallows.
It was good to see the types of roads I will be expecting when I get back on Nigel and instead of scaring me, it really made me want to start as soon as possible. I think I find myself more at home in extreme conditions or at least in city's that aren't your everyday standard city. I had settled in Cairo and I was completely used to the pointless horns and motor madness already.
When we arrived at the location I did feel alone as the group all knew each other from a church. I would ease myself into the group eventually as i normally do but i just needed to sit down and take the landscape in. I had seen nothing like it before, I had landed in bedrock only there were no dinosaurs and I wasn't wearing animal fur.
There were a few houses made from stone and we were under a wooden shelter that had kitchen and changing/toilet facilities. The site overlooked a beautiful salt water lake and the weather was just perfect. Before I could really take it all in, Egyptian kindness was already in play and I was approached by a couple of guys not from the group but had driven from a different town to join in with the days activities. I don't know whether they were meant to, but Kites accepted them in and we were soon one big group.
We visited a waterfall first and then jumped in a few boats and rowed across the lake for some team building games and sand boarding. As I waited to hop into one of the boats I got talking to a few other people. When I told them what I was doing the word spread like wild fire down the line and literally within seconds I was surrounded by around 20 of them, each one asking different questions, shaking my hand and even having photos! They were so genuinely interested and from then on, I couldn't walk or sit alone without someone calling me over to talk more about my trip or to help me learn some Arabic. I've come to the conclusion that I'm a visual learner, I need to see how the word is spelt phonetically because there are some things they were saying that i had no clue how to repeat. My fat tongue can't move quick enough to pronounce the words from just hearing them unfortunately.
Rowing across the lake was comical. Two people, one on each oar (and by oar I mean beam of wood - I thought about explaining to them about how paddles have flatter, wider sections for better propulsion but I'm not quite there yet with my grammar.) As the crow flies the other side was probably about 500m away. We must've rowed 5 times that as a tiny bit of wind combined with a major lack of two people coordinating was enough to zigzag us across the lake.
Eventually we got there and the first couple of games run by the guys at kite were games I play with the kids back in England. I had no troubles with the first but the second one involved calling numbers out and having to get everybody into groups of that number the fastest. I soon learnt my 1-5 but 6 got me and I was out. (They didn't call the numbers in order and I was obviously helped/pulled around a little to keep me in the game)
By this time the group were getting used to the bearded guy but I still felt I needed something big to state my position in the group-cue the holey drum game. Basically there were 4 teams, 4 plastic oil drums riddled with holes and 4 bowls with holes in too. The team that could fill the oil drum up the quickest or had the most water in it after 5 minutes were the winners.
Great idea, good range of tactics can be implemented, in my opinion, a 5 star team building game given our location. We won the first round, I took up the position of covering each hole on my section with an individual finger and if I'm honest, I thought it was the best way. Others used feet as well and some just lazily used there hands with fingers closed.
So we are into the final, cometh the hour, cometh the man. We were going to stick with the same system but we had to keep changing our water runners last time as the 10m run from lake to drum across sand is an absolute drain when you've done it 15 to 20 times! Other teams chose to throw the bowl and so were only running one length. I've relaxed in the years when it comes to hate losing but I clearly still maintain my determination to do my best and be the most efficient. I knew last round we chucked too much water away when pouring it in the drum, I wasn't going to let that happen again and with my limited Arabic of yes, no, hello, thank you and how much is this? I couldn't explain to the team what we could improve on.
I did what I had to do. "Give me the bowl, I run" The group just stared at me. Robert, a rather fit looking man (huge arms) looked at me and said, "are you sure? you think you can do it?" I replied in the nicest way I could without sounding big headed, "Robert, I ride from England to Egypt - I run from lake to barrel" I got some laughs but I knew full well it wasn't going to be easy. The race began, I felt good, but it dawned on me that I hadn't actually ran in months! The noise level of Egyptians when they are just talking to you is borderline screaming baby in an echoey room, imagine what it was like when they are shouting right at you - it was terrifying.
After about 2 minutes my legs were gone but I was maintaining efficiency and I could see the barrel was almost full. The workers were crowding around our team, I knew victory was in sight. A couple more runs and boomshakalaka! The barrel was full and we had won! I was knackered but the hard worked earned me much respect and even more high fives from the group. I don't want to know what they would've done to me if we hadn't of won, especially Rob but they were a great bunch I'm sure I would've been fine....
They played a few more games, water fight, colour fight and dodgeball only the ground wasn't sand it was a slip and slide. Hilarious to watch but I chose to sit out of the last one, partly still knackered and partly knowing that if I ended up having to stay in Cairo for months due to an injury playing dodgeball I would be quite annoyed.
In saying that, I was well up for sand boarding and it wasn't long until I got my snowboard legs back on - the two are very similar however I think I'd rather a face/trouser full of snow then of sand but both are quite unpleasant experiences.
We finished all the activities at around 4. Everybody looked positively exhausted and we were already for some kofte. The food was excellent, salad, rice, chicken and kofte followed by some green tea and then of course the marshmallows over the fire. I was reminded that I was in Egypt during the battle for fire. A lively, friendly and welcoming group of people don't get me wrong but unlike the Kites crew, they suffered from a lack of organisation and patience. Before I knew it I was playing sardines around the camp fire with molten marshmallow flying around from all angles. I thought I survived unscathed only to get back to the lit seating area and discover marshmallow stuck all the way up my leg! As if the flies eating me all day wasn't enough, now I'm rewarding then with a sugary calf!
As a result of this I have what looks like chickenpox on my leg but that's another thing I've had to get used to. As the time drew near to getting back on the coach I exchanged numbers and Facebook contacts with a few people and one guy, Morie, may even meet me in Aswan. It really was a great day with some really good people. Exhausting? definitely but very well run, very successful and I'm gutted I can't stay around for more excursions.
Kites is an organisation that do great things for kids and even adults that would never get the chance to leave the big city. I could tell by how they messed around in the waterfall that they very rarely, if ever, leave the hustle and bustle of the streets of Cairo. Kites inspires and opens the eyes of everyone that gets involved by holding such a wide range of activities and locations. A really great company that I will certainly be staying in touch with. A massive thank you again to Ahmed and Farouk for letting me go on the trip and one thing's for sure, they won't be getting rid of me that easily!
I got back to the hotel around half 10, absolutely knackered. The last three nights I've had no more than 5 hours sleep and it was catching up on me. In ended up staying in the same room after all!
Tomorrow was a museum day and I could have a lay in so a good nights sleep was on the cards. A great day and I'm so pleased I got the chance to do something I would never of been able to do if I was just staying for one night.
Growing to love Egypt and I've only been here 3 days!
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