Cairo and the St. Catherine's Marathon

Overview

Karen wanted to run in a marathon before her 30th (Jan 12th) so Greg scoured the internet and found a race in Egypt on New Year's Eve near Mt. Sinai. The race's namesake is the 1500 yr-old St. Catherine Monastery. Where Mose's Burning Bush still lives today.

Fortunately for us there was a travel tour that started in Cairo, made its way to St. Catherine's in time for the marathon and then back to Cairo for a few more days of sight-seeing before our flight home.

Learnings

• The suburbs: Cairo is a huge city (population 20M with another 3M commuting in everyday) in order to accomodate this amount of people the city has spread, so don't expect the pyramids of Giza to be in the middle of the desert like Hollywood shows it, there is a metro stop nearby...
• Frogger: Watch yourself as you cross the street, few stoplights and cross walks exist, so find a nearby Cairene to shield you from the traffic.
• Bring sanitary wipes.

Recommendations

• The street food in Cairo is very good and very cheap, we had some incredible falafel and the street vendors are always cooking something special.
• Sabaya Restaurant. A Lebanese restaurant that could hold its head high in Beirut.
• Egyptian Museum. Although not up to Western museum standards, it is a must see. Do not hesitate to pay extra in order to see the mummies.
• Make time to get to the Sinai Peninsula. The St. Catherine Monastery, Bedouin people, and scenery are amazing.

The Trip

The first post and FYI

This is the travel blog for Karen and Greg. We currently live in London and travel as much as possible throughout UK/Ireland and Europe with an occasional trip to America, Africa, or Asia.

We'll use this blog as a diary of where we've been and what we've done. But, it should also serve as communications to our friends and families and, hopefully some learnings from mistakes that we've made and luck that we've had.

Feel free to comment, enjoy!

-Greg and Karen