Last Night in Cairo | Arriving at the Cairo Airport | Egypt Travel Blog: Day 09 (Part 63) 08D19

Cairo Airport, Egypt | Leaving Cairo Tonight

Egypt Travel Blog: 10 DAYS Egypt Explorer - Felucca Cruise & Red Sea

We hopped on a van with other travelers to go to the airport. I didn’t know most of them, but some of them I remember seeing in the hotel before.

My tour guide was sitting with me for almost two hours to give me company and it was time to say goodbye. His name was Mina and we became like friends for the past 10 days staying together crisscrossing Egypt.

I took good care of him by giving a lot more than the standard tips, which was recommended by the tour company. He was very appreciative of that. He personally thanked me many times and personally went beyond his regular duties to look after me during my stay. So yes, I felt bad to say goodbye, but that’s life.

We would have gotten to the airport in 30 minutes, but due to traffic it took more than an hour. However, I took the time to immerse myself in some Cairo roadside scenes for the last time. The full 10-day tour was kind of passing before my eyes and I was recalling all the bits and pieces of it.

This happens to me on every trip. The last couple of days, I start to feel bad because the trip is coming to an end and then when I am home, I feel trip sick for a while. Also, I recall these trips vividly for the rest of my life.

I think that’s a part of travelling and that’s what makes travelling unique and this is an eye-opening experience everyone should have if your situation permits it.

The shimmering lights of the Cairo airport are getting visible far away. We should be arriving shortly.

Best Cloud Storage Offers Even Unlimited Backups at Ridiculously Cheap Cost

GoPro Subscription Unlimited Cloud Storage Is Hard to Beat

I was looking for cloud storage to save my video clips and pictures, especially when I travel. I wanted an additional backup in the cloud, in case I lose both my SD cards and portable hard drives.

But it’s almost impossible to find unlimited cloud storage. I had narrowed it down to either Google One or Microsoft 365. Goggle One 2 TB costs CA$139.99 per year (they don’t have a 1-TB plan) and Microsoft 365 costs CA$79.00 per year for 1 TB.

Both would work for travel needs, but they are nowhere near unlimited. Then while buying my new GoPro 10, I accidentally found a GoPro Subscription that offers unlimited cloud storage for $59.99 and other benefits such as discounts on GoPro cameras and accessories.

The GoPro Subscription for $59.99 has blown my mind because of the value it offers. It offers convenience, as I don’t have to manually transfer my clips from my GoPro cameras anymore. Whenever I come home and plug it in to charge, it starts saving them on the cloud automatically. Later on, I just download them from the GoPro site to my computer to start editing.

But it’s not the convenience that is causing me to continue my subscription beyond the 1st year. It’s the unlimited storage that hooked me to this. I doubt other providers would offer unlimited cloud storage even for thousands of dollars. If you look at the annual rates for any other service, you can see that it would be very expensive had they offered any unlimited option.

Sure, a GoPro Subscription has disadvantages. Some of them are that you can only save video and picture files, nothing else. It doesn’t have nice, visually pleasing layouts like Google or Microsoft. It also doesn’t have search capability or options to stash files by folders or names.

But those flaws don’t bother me. My GoPro Subscription fulfills my needs of having a backup to save my videos and pictures and it’s not only limited to GoPro files. I can save anything from my phone or computers as long as they are video or picture files.

My next trip will be a lot more efficient, as I don’t need to worry about losing my physical backups. I also don’t have to spend hours saving them manually to my portable drives, if I choose not to save them and am happy with only saving on the cloud.

Leaving Hotel Oasis, Giza | Egypt Travel Blog: Day 09 (Part 62) 08D19

Final Hours at the Hotel Oasis | Leaving Cairo Tonight

Egypt Travel Blog: 10 DAYS Egypt Explorer - Felucca Cruise & Red Sea

Once I reached my room, I was shocked to find out that they gave me a much better room this time. I felt bad because I would be leaving in a couple of hours and got such a nice room, but when I stayed longer for the first time my room was not so good.

My room was on the second floor and quite spacious. There was a balcony overlooking the resort. The washroom was big with a huge bathtub and a standing shower. This is the kind of room you want to stay in and relax, but I had to leave shortly.

I had to rush to finish my shower, organize and pack my only carry-on bag, so I could be ready at the lobby at 8:00. What I didn’t realize was that someone gave me the wrong information and my airport pickup was not until 10:00.

When I was in the lobby and saw no one, the employees at the counter told me I was scheduled for a 10:00 pickup with some other people. I got upset, as I was rushing the whole time to be here at 8:00 and now I’d have to sit and wait for another 2 hours.

I asked for my tour guide and explained to him what had happened. He apologized for the wrong information and offered me the keys to get back to my room (I already checked out), but I didn’t want to go back to my room again.  He was nice enough to stay with me for the rest of my waiting time and offered me tea and snacks. I asked only for tea.

We sat for the next couple of hours and talked about our trips and various other things. I was more than pleased for his nice gesture and spending some time with me, which he didn’t have to do – yet another example of Egyptian hospitality.

Before 10:00, I saw other passengers gathering in the lobby and we finally left for the airport. I looked at the hotel Oasis for the last time and it will remain in my heart for a long time.

Lenovo Chromebook Duet or Lenovo C340 2-in-1 Convertible Chromebook

Is The 11.6" or 10.1" Chromebook Better? | Lenovo C340 2-in-1 Convertible Chromebook Vs. Lenovo Chromebook Duet

Which one is a better option for travel and day-to-day needs: the 10-inch or 11- to 12-inch Chromebook Convertible Laptop Tablet? Today, I will answer this from my own experience, without going into too many tech details.

When I first bought my Lenovo C340 11.6" Hybrid Convertible Chromebook, my purpose was to make it a travel laptop and use it here and there, mostly when I don’t want to move my main Windows 10 Asus ASUS ZenBook Flip S UX370UA laptop.

However, 11.6 inches felt big, at least for me, and I was not using it daily as I was expecting to. It just sat there on one side of my kitchen counter and I kept charging it once in a while to keep the battery powered.

Then one day I was at Best Buy to get a set of earbuds. I accidentally saw the Lenovo Chromebook Duet 10.1-inch Chromebook. It caught my attention right away because of its smaller and eye-catching design.

I came home and did some research. I was convinced that this is what I have been looking for and ordered one the same night.

Both the Lenovo Chromebook Duet and the Lenovo C340 are hybrid convertible 2-in-1 laptop tablets. The Chromebook Duet has a detachable keyboard, which the C340 doesn’t. However, the little 1.6-inch difference in size makes a lot of difference in terms of portability and convenience.

The Lenovo Duet is so easy to carry and slips into any small bags or backpacks without weighing you down, so much so that I am using it a lot more than the C340. The Lenovo Duet can sit on a tight and challenging space so I feel comfortable using it anywhere and more often.

The Lenovo Duet also looks very high end, although its price isn’t. It offers a lot more practicality when you’re traveling and don’t want a bulky or bigger laptop or tablet.

I am surprised that now I use my Lenovo Duet more often than my Lenovo C340 and I am happy about my using experience. Currently, I am working on a review of the Lenovo Chromebook Duet and I will publish it on my YouTube channel shortly.

Outdoor Patio Restaurant at the Khan El Khalili Bazaar | Cairo Downtown to Giza| Egypt Travel Blog: Day 09 (Part 61) 08D19

Cairo Khan El Khalili Bazaar Patio Restaurant | Through Cairo Downtown | Khan El Khalili Bazaar to Hotel Oasis in Giza

Egypt Travel Blog: 10 DAYS Egypt Explorer - Felucca Cruise & Red Sea

We all gathered at a restaurant and sat in the outdoor patio in the Khan El Khalili Bazaar. I met some people from other tour groups and we talked about our Egypt experience. Our tour guide joined us as well.

I only ordered mint tea. I liked Egyptian mint tea so much that I was having that almost daily.

There were other restaurants on the same row and all of them had outdoor patios. One funny thing I noticed was that some employees were shouting and fighting for customers to get into their restaurants. Sometimes I even saw them grabbing customers by the hand and pulling them onto their premises, so the next restaurant couldn’t get them.

It was an evening I would remember forever. Hot, humid Cairo weather with an invigorating gentle desert breeze, crowds, chaos, smells from the restaurants, and the thought that I was leaving Cairo in just 6 hours … they all made for an unforgettable and eternal experience.

I asked my tour guide to suggest some dry Egyptian sweets to take back to Canada. I also knew some names of sweets from the Felucca cruise. The tour guide asked the restaurant to airtight-pack sweets such as Basbousa, Kunafa, and Baklava for the flight. They prepared those sweets in nice boxes in different layers.

We were ready to head for Giza to our hotel. We would go through downtown Cairo and I was ready to video some downtown Cairo clips.

We hopped in our tour van to head towards Giza and our hotel. This trip would give us an opportunity to see downtown Cairo. Normally it would take about an hour to reach our hotel, but Sunday traffic was especially bad and it took a lot longer.

Downtown Cairo looked like any other big city’s downtown, but with a lot more chaos and crowds. There were big brand stores, restaurants, and cafes with their glimmering lights and shiny invitations to go in and shop.

The streets were heavily lit. There was lots of traffic and honking horns. What made Cairo different was the heavy volume of people. It’s hard to imagine this type of volume if you are from another country. When we were up on the expressway, it gave us a good chance to see the streets full of people from above and I was shocked to see so many people here and there.

I especially noticed the density of people near every open market or bazaar every few blocks here and there. There were vegetables, fish, meat, clothes, restaurants … basically anything you can think of had open-air stores on the streets. I couldn’t understand how it’s possible to even buy anything when you couldn’t really move because everywhere was jam packed with people.

We were supposed to reach our hotel in an hour, but traffic slowed us down. I was getting worried, as I had to leave the hotel on time to catch my flight leaving at 01:50 tonight. We finally reached our hotel after an hour and a half.

I rushed to my room to get ready to leave for my flight.