(upbeat music)
I got the call asking if I wanted to go to Egypt,
and I had two thoughts,
Does Contiki even go to Egypt
and is it safe to go to Egypt right now?
Well I did some research and as it turned out,
now is a really good time to go
because of the heightened security
and because of the fact that there wouldn't
be a lot of tourists everywhere.
And when I thought about it,
when else would I ever have the opportunity
to go to Egypt, if not on a guided tour with Contiki?
- [Woman] Welcome to Cairo ladies and gentlemen.
Well, next thing you know,
I'm at Cairo international airport
and I had a feeling that this was gonna
be a trip full of highlights.
Hi, I'm Andrew,
also known as Gunnarolla,
musician and world traveler.
This time I'm off to Egypt with Contiki
on an eight day guided tour.
We saw pyramids and temples,
rode camels and maybe even ate one.
I rather enjoy camel.
- [Man] Can I take a breakfast selfie?
- [Gunnarolla] But that's not all we did,
this is the story of Egypt and the Nile.
We're in Egypt!
So we arrived in Cairo
and Contiki had arranged for someone to help us
with our visas and to get us to the hotel.
As we're leaving the airport,
I see someone holding a sign that says Gunnarolla on it
which is super confusing to me
because we already had someone escorting us to the hotel.
As it turned out, one of my viewers Karim,
came to the airport to greet us.
I was so shocked, it was just the most amazing welcome.
Cairo at night kind of reminded me
of Bangkok, of Jakarta,
it had this big city, street vendors,
cars everywhere kind of feeling to it.
Like this is not gonna be scary,
you've been through this before.
It's not gonna feel foreign to you.
That is until we got to the elevator at the hotel.
Here we go I am jumping in the--
Oh there's no door! Oh my God, that moves.
Do we have to push it?
- [Woman] I think it just opens.
Oh no! Oh no!
It's going down! It's 11.
We should have opened it.
- [Woman] We don't know how to operate this!
Okay, push. Okay hurry.
No wait, we're not,
when it gets to the-- Go go go.
Okay, hi.
- [Woman] We messed up.
Okay.
Getting into the room.
Where's the light?
Nope, there we go.
Nice.
Clean.
I feel like I'm on a movie set.
We had the option of going to Alexandria in the morning
but I decided to stay in Cairo.
We weren't meeting up with the group until 7pm,
so I actually met up with Karim
and he took us to lunch to a place called Felfela.
Middle Eastern food is like very close
to the top of the list for me.
When I was in high school we used to go for shawarmas
and falafels all the time.
They had some other items
that I'd never seen before like pigeon,
which I really wanted to try
but I figured I shouldn't risk it
so close to the beginning of the trip
but I did get to try something new.
(laughing)
We met up with the group that evening
and with our tour guide,
the legendary Sherif.
- [Sherif] Wakey wakey Contiki!
Contiki, guys!
Coming along baby!
This man has over 15 years of experience.
He just knew everything
and if we had a question, he could answer it.
And most importantly he was fun!
The next morning we went to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
I wasn't allowed to bring a camera inside
but I did get some footage of the outside.
It was incredible,
the amount of statues and artifacts,
and the contents of King Tut's tomb,
and mummies, just kind of chillin out
in this huge museum.
Then we got to go to the pyramids.
- [Sherif] It's raining a little bit outside.
Well, we're at the pyramids today
and there they are in the back.
It's starting to rain, of course.
Knowing that this was gonna be
such a visually rich experience,
I upgraded my gear.
Ah, selfie stick!
Who cares? Why?
You know.
Alright, we're gonna go to the pyramid.
I think here we go, here we go,
here we go, here we go.
Pyramid.
(crowd chattering)
Here's what I wanna know,
how many selfie sticks do we have on the Contiki tour?
- [Woman] Ooh, good question.
- [Woman] We counted two people, so we don't need one.
I see three here.
No that other guy has a-- There's a fourth one.
There're a popular accessory.
I'm not gonna lie,
I was a little self conscious using the selfie stick
because even the Egyptians laughed
at ridiculous we looked.
Are they laughing at us?
They're laughing at my stick.
(laughing)
I told you it was stupid.
They're laughing at me.
Okay, we're going up the pyramid
with a selfie stick.
Sorry!
(crowd chattering)
Incredible.
Pretty high.
Trying to find a way down.
Did everyone leave?
No.
Just us and the pyramid.
Why did I wear white pants today?
Should also note that it's lightly raining
cause it wouldn't be a Gunnarolla trip
if it didn't rain.
It's massively raining.
I'm such a girl right now!
(yelling)
- [Woman] Oh my God!
- [Gunnarolla] So wet.
It's massive. It is.
It's just a pyramid.
Chillin out.
They're following... (foreign language)
some of the girls on our tour.
Cause they want a photo with them.
(yelling in foreign language)
After that we got to go inside a pyramid.
Just went inside that thing.
Couldn't bring a camera
but it was pretty incredible.
Jewels,
and mummies,
and,
there was nothing in there.
And then it was finally time to ride a camel.
(speaking in foreign language)
Okay, okay.
(laughing)
- [Man] I could do better than--
Okay okay, let's try it again.
- [Man] Was too big, your head.
(laughing)
- [Man] Is it that you have a big head or something?
I have a big head?
(laughing)
Geeee.
I was the first one to get on a camel,
but somehow the last one to actually move anywhere.
Okay, a bunch of camels around.
Oh, are you pooping?
(camel grunts)
(laughing)
How come everyone else's is standing up
and mine's still sitting down?
Mine's being lazy.
(camels grunting)
(laughing) Dang he doesn't like you.
Okay, we gotta go soon.
(yelling in foreign language)
I can hear someone screaming.
(camel grunts)
Oh yeah?
(camel grunts loudly) I think my camel's broken.
Oh.
Oh gosh there're pigeons flying around, too.
So much Egyptian wildlife.
(laughs) His camel's peeing.
See ya!
(speaking in foreign language)
Oh no. (camel grunts)
- [Man] He's up.
Oh my God.
- [Man] How about getting the food out of your teeth?
Okay, it's okay. Open wide.
It's getting the food out of it's teeth.
- [Woman] Human centipede!
But once we got going it was pretty epic.
(Egyptian music)
Aww. I don't think that's cute.
- [Gunnarolla] Oh no?
- [Woman] I think that's anger and disgust.
(laughing)
- [Gunnarolla] See ya.
Okay, time to go.
Thanks for not-- Bye, my ride!
- [Gunnarolla] Bye.
And if that were not enough,
we got to cap off the day by visiting the Sphinx,
which along with the pyramids of Giza
are like one of the freakin
seven wonders of the world.
And because I'm evil,
I actually became pretty interested
in seeing how people were taking photos
of themselves with the monuments.
My favorite thing right now
is just like watching everyone try
to take pictures with the pyramids.
(crowd chattering)
(camera shutter clicks)
So we went to the museum,
we saw pyramids, we saw the Sphinx,
and we rode a camel
and that was just day one.
Next Friday on Gunnarolla.
We took an overnight train from Cairo
to Aswan and the train just stopped moving
for a couple hours in the middle of the night.
This is like nicer than most hotels that I stay in.
- [All] Felucca!
(singing in foreign language)
- [Gunnarolla] I almost got pickpocketed.
They put this piece of paper over my bag
and the next thing I knew it was unzipped.
(yelling in foreign language)
Did he just call us China? (laughs)
He just called us China.