It has been some time since the "Cabron of Cairo" has been to Cairo, and lucky for me, this time it was a very nice visit.

Some days ago, I received a very surprising email from V.O. telling me that he was planning a nuclear attack against me through his wife who was visiting Cairo. He had prepared the nuke, entered the activation codes and set it's course to hit my house here in Alexandria, then gave it to his wife so she could mail it from Cairo.

Our nuclear defense system aka the Egyptian Post managed to abort the attack sequence by being idiots and refusing to carry to the nuke to it's final destination, because, according to them, it could contain "weed/hashish" and they will not risk carrying highly radioactive material like that.

So, V.O., sorrowful for losing his opportunity to hit me, contacted me and told me the story.

Luckily enough, I was already planning a trip to Cairo on July 4th to meet up with some friends and to participate in a video game contest that had really good prizes, so I decided I might as well pass by the Pyramiza Hotel, where the deactivated nuke would be waiting for me in the reception.

I left at 8:25 AM on the train to Cairo, and arrived at Ramses Station in downtown Cairo at exactly 11:00 AM.

The distance between the station and the Pyramiza wasn't long. The Station is on eastern side of the Nile, at a place called Ramses Square, while the Pyramiza is in Dokki, on the Western side of the Nile. So I decided to walk.


The Hitlon Ramsesgreets you right after leaving the station.

Tahrir (Liberation) Square, the heart of Cairo and the home of many important places like the Arab League, the AUC and the Tahrir Complex Notice the place is almost empty because Friday is the weekly holiday. On a week day, this place is packed.


The Tahrir Complex. Home to a lot of governement offices and ministries. One of Egypt's most famous and iconic buildings.


The Arab League HQ, home of the secretary General. The Arab League flag flying on the building.

Now I had to cross the Qasr Al Nile bridge to the Island of Zamalek, home of the Gezira Golf Club and the Luxurious homes and many foreign embassies. Zamalek Island is one the best places in Cairo.


Approcahing the Qasr Al Nile bridge. The oldest bridge crossing the Nile. Qasr Al Nile literally translates to "Palace of the Nile"


The bridge again, and the Cairo Tower built in the 60's could be seen in the background. The tower is built on the Zamalek Island.


The Qasr Al Nile Lions. Two lion statues on the sides of the bridge entrance and exit. The 4 statues were a gift from France when the bridge was built. They've been standing guarding the place for more than 150 years now.


The view to the South looking at the Nile from the bridge.

The Eastern Shore of the Nile.

The Tower Again.


After crossing the Zamalek Island and to the Westen Side of the Nile, you are officially in Giza, not Cairo. Giza, along with Cairo and Shubra make what is called "Greater Cairo". The places on the Western side of the Nile are the fine suburbs of Dokki and Mohandseen, and the slums of Imbaba and Boulaq north to them. Fortunately, I will only be showing photos of the fine places, as I didn't have to pass through the slums to the North.

In Dokki area. The Cairo Sheraton on the left, the Faisal Islamic Bank Tower on the right

Finally, my destination, The Pyramiza


Approcahing the Pyramiza


Then I went in the hotel and to the lobby, where I asked for a package with my name. The guy wanted to play idiot and told me he doesn't know about any packages, but then I told him the name of his assistant who had taken the pack from V.O.'s wife the night before (Nihal. Good you told me her name V.O.). He called her, got the pack and gave it to me.


With the pack in my hands and a smile on my face, I left the hotel. It was about time for the Friday prayers. I sent V.O. a quick email from my phone telling him I got the pack. The guys at the mail though have opened it in a very barbaric way, and when they closed it again, they put the hydrating pillow in direct contact with the cigars, which caused them to get a bit over moist, but of course nothing that cannot be remedied.

The Nuke from V.O. was 6 cigars, from my wish lists. Three NCs and three CCs. RyJ Churchill, San Cristobal de la Habana (Robusto??), Bolivar Beliscos Finos, RP Old Worlde Reserve, RP Vintage 1990 and Davidoff Short Perfecto.

The contents of the nuke as they appear afterwards upon my return home and hereis the plan map for it's designated course.

The capital is crazy as usual.

The view from the 6th October Bridge. The ministry of exterior to the left and the TV building (aka Maspiro) to the right.

After the prayers, it was time to go to the City Stars mall, where the video game contest was being held. The Mall is in the Medinet Nasr suburb, East side of the Nile. Really far from the down town area so I had to take a ride. It took almost 30 minutes to get there by taxi, and the streets were empty (Friday).


I reached the mall at about 4:00 PM.

At the mall, I met my friend whom will be joining me in this event.

The contest is a part of the promotion for a new Nissan car and a new Playstation 3 video game called Gran Turismo 5. The purpose is to score the best time on the lap using this Nissan car. The winner goes to Dubai to compete in the Middle East Finale and the winner of that gets several Sony products and a trip to Japan.

The platform of the contest as it appears in the mall. and the trophy for the winner.

I played several times, and my best lap time was 1 minutes 14.515 seconds. The winner and the runner up were two brothers, who were competing togther on the first two places. They scored 1 minute 11 seconds. My time qualified me as 6th place, only 00.054 seconds from the 5th place.

The winner kid was no more than 12. He had all his family behind him to support.

And another photo while he plays

Me playing

My friend and I after the event.

It was a great day. I returned to Alex on the 10:30 PM train, and there was a delay so we arrived at 1:30 AM. I reached home almost dead and went to sleep right away.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: LuckyBreak,

V.O. is the man!

Updated.

Nice score Lucky. I would watch your language description of the cigars, as it would be unfortunate if an Egyptian national is reading these posts and takes you quite literally.

Nothing like getting mentally and physically probed by some over zealous Egyptian home security squad. Or worse, rendition.

quote:

Originally posted by Steve Cohen:
Nice score Lucky. I would watch your language description of the cigars, as it would be unfortunate if an Egyptian national is reading these posts and takes you quite literally.

Nothing like getting mentally and physically probed by some over zealous Egyptian home security squad. Or worse, rendition.

LOL!

Hey Lucky you better tell that girl behind you and you friend to put on some clothes. To bad she wasn't real, couldn't play video games.

Nice pics Lucky, glad you had a good time!

I forgot to mention that I also visited the one and only LCDH in Cairo, in the same mall. Unfortunately it's still a part of the Egypt Air Duty Free Shops, so you can't just get in and buy what you want, you need to have a passport with an entry stamp that's not older than 48 hours.

They had nothing special though, I asked them if they had any LE's, they didn't, and all their stock was all 2007 and 2008.

I wanted to take photos of the place but the shop keeper refused. Don't have an idea why.

Those little kids. I swear that more and more kids are doing horrible in school but are amazing at video games, I'm sure there is a correlation.

In other news, I love the picture tour of your day. That might be an interesting thread in the travel section or even cigar talk, if someone is going to have an eventful day that involves cigars they take pictures and give a description of it in a post. It would take some planning ahead though.

Thanks for sharing pictures of your trip. It looked like a lot of fun! I couldn't help but think of France's gift to the US when you mentioned those lion statues. Props to VO for those smokes!

This was supposed to be a surprise strike, but the Egypt post ruined all the plans
I can see they did some damage to the cigars too, especially the RyJ Churchill.
Lucky since you nowhere mentioned it in emails, I suppose they also took out the cedar spills. Probably they thought these are fuses to blow up the warheads...

Lucky, FYI, SCDLH is La Fuerza, OWR is Robusto maduro and RP Vintage 1990 is Toro.

Hope you enjoy them all.

Very cool story, good job VO!

Nicely done, VO!!!

quote:

Originally posted by V.O.:
This was supposed to be a surprise strike, but the Egypt post ruined all the plans
I can see they did some damage to the cigars too, especially the RyJ Churchill.
Lucky since you nowhere mentioned it in emails, I suppose they also took out the cedar spills. Probably they thought these are fuses to blow up the warheads...

Lucky, FYI, SCDLH is La Fuerza, OWR is Robusto maduro and RP Vintage 1990 is Toro.

Hope you enjoy them all.

Didn't you get my last email?
The cedar spills were there, they didn't take them. And the cigars are in good shape now, I left them spend the night without humidification, actually, the weather here in Alex is pretty humid, the hygro reads 67%, so I guess they don't need a humidifier now.

quote:

Didn't you get my last email?
The cedar spills were there

Yeah, I now see I missed that part. Good. Those are my favorite way to light up.

BTW, thanks much to CrazyPoet for providing the target coordinates. Wasn't able to use them eventually, but still... He must have a very large database

And Lucky, about the prize picture - so the trophy was a cup, a laptop, a pen cap, a large screen and a girl with Diesel bag?

Haha. No.
The first place winner goes to Dubai to enter the grand finale. The winner of that goes to Japan to drive the Nissan car, as well as winning a Sony Bravia LCD and a Playstation 3.

I finished 6th. No Dubai for me. I just got a cap and a t-shirt. The stuff all the participants take.

I wonder if the Burger King is the same as the ones in the US . Do they have anything we might consider "weird"?

Is a quarter pounder known as a "Royale with cheese"??

Don't know about Burger King, but it's not popular at all here. I never tried it myself.
But we have a sandwich at McDonald's called Mac Arabia, it's only in the Mid East. Really good stuff.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2...g/800px-McArabia.jpg

I didn't know Fuddruckers was international.