After packing up the Airbnb, we took taxis to our hotel which was near the Nile. We checked in, left our stuff in the room and then went down to buy some breakfast at Chai Jmr. 

We bought some chai which came in glasses that they let you keep and some chapaati with cheese and honey (especially for you @Shabnam). My brother also bought some chicken schwarmas from another kiosk which they cut into bite size portions for us and it was so spicy, we loved it! 

After this, we caught taxis to Imam Hussein Mosque. We got dropped off on the other side of the road so we had to walk through a tunnel under the road to get to the mosque. 

The mosque was quite busy but we found spaces for us, read salaah and then had to leave with the rush. I absolutely hated the rush, there was people everywhere, the street is dirty so you have to seriously watch where you’re walking and people are constantly touching you. I just wanted to get out of there (which would turn out to be a whole mission). 

Before we left the area, we went to Khan el Khalili. It’s a bazaar with many streets and they sell all kinds of things from oud burners, bookmarks and soccer t-shirts to leather bags, lamps and abayas. It was cool to nice but I genuinely preferred the Old Market in Sharm el-Sheikh and Old City in Palestine. The worst part of this bazaar is that you have to haggle for prices and then you still don’t know whether you’re getting ripped off or not. We didn’t buy anything except for some bookmarks which were initially priced at 200 EGP each but my sister ended up getting them for 5 EGP. 

We were then ready to leave this area to get some jummah lunch but there’s markets across the whole street and lots of traffic – but this traffic consisted of cars, carts with horses, people and even stalls. We tried to navigate it as best as we could but we eventually gave in and hailed a taxi so we could get some relief from the chaos. 

The taxi took us until Ataba Square where we walked from until Opera Square where we caught a taxi straight to Maharaja Indian Restaurant for jummah lunch. At this point, it was already 3pm. 

We all felt a bit better after getting into the taxi and drove away from the chaos of the Al Azhar area. We drove through downtown Cairo which I really love. 

My parents and I got to the restaurant and had scanned the menu before my siblings arrived. We ordered our food and asked them to be super fast because we were super hungry. The food was decent but the butter naan was out of this world. They even have paapir on the menu which my family loved. 

After this, we were pretty stuffed and we took taxis back to our hotel. We drove over Imbaba Bridge which was so cool and we got to see the beginning of the sunset as we were driving across. 

We reached our hotel and I walked across the Nile to watch the sunset (which didn’t really happen) and then went back to the hotel to rest. 

We spent some time in the room recharging our batteries (both, phone and other) and then decided to go to City Stars Mall. 

We caught taxis to the mall, despite it being 16km away from us, it took about 40 minutes to get there because of Cairo traffic. 

We spent some time in the mall which is probably the biggest mall I’ve ever been to. It has seven floors and many, many shops. They have a lot of brands that we don’t have in South Africa so it was really cool to see. 

We bought some coffee and lemonade from Strella Coffee which was good and my siblings got ice cream from Baskin Robbins. I found a Dubai chocolate dupe which was the best dupe we’ve bought (I’ll be honest though, the one I make at home is so much better, Cadbury chocolate ftw). 

The mall was really hot and busy while we there. Today, we saw two opposites. When we were walking through the busy crowds in the afternoon, I thought to myself “I wonder where the other people shop” and the mall answered this question. 

We left the mall, did the 16km drive back and were so happy to get back to the hotel. We all got ready for bed and were in dreamland before we knew it. 

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