Five hours later, the plane slowly landed at Cairo International Airport, Egypt. The group stepped off the plane with their bags, and Tom looked at Alyosha's bags and suddenly felt that this adventure might not be like the one he remembered...
Once they had their bags, they took the minibus Peter had hired in advance to the hotel Hal Hunter had booked. The bus looked rickety, but started up incredibly smoothly and comfortably. By the time the group arrived at the hotel, it was almost dusk, and there was a minor hiccup at check-in.
"Did a water pipe burst?" Dr. Hunter's heart burst at the news, and he had visions of his own shower when the pipes burst, and wanted to change hotels as he imagined the yellow water gushing out.
But finding a new hotel for twelve people in an unfamiliar Cairo at sunset was not easy, so Hal had to suck it up.
Dr. Hunter had originally booked a luxurious six double rooms, but when the hotel's water pipes burst and flooded one floor, there were not enough suites.
The end result was that the five Alyosha siblings shared one super-sized suite, Dr. Hunter and Peter, the bespectacled interpreter, shared one, leaving two queen rooms....
"In that case, there's only one answer." Tom thought, in this case, was there a choice?
"Yes, yes." Hermione thought the same thing, and they both watched dumbfounded as Sarah, Will and Alan entered the same room.
Tom: ???
Is it really necessary for students to know each other so well? Sara really is a girl with a smile on her face! Is it really okay for Will and Alan to be so manipulative?
"I must be thinking too much." Tom took a moment to calm himself.
But he had a real problem before him: there was only one king-sized room left, and there were two other people in the group.
"What an enviable bond between partners," Hermione pushed open the door to the hotel room with a forced air of calm, "So let's go in too."
The suite was small, the master bedroom was about four meters square, with an Egyptian style rug on the floor and a six foot wide carved bed in the center, which looked very fluffy. Directly in front of the bed was a table, in front of which two hanging lamps were the only source of light after dark. Although there were few lights, the room was well lit and there was a large window through which the dome of the monastery could be seen in the distance.
Tom sulkily carried his luggage inside and, once the door was closed, there was silence between the two of them.
"So... I bought some magic items, why don't you take a look." Tom broke the silence by pulling out the items he had bought in Diagon Alley a few days earlier and presenting them to Hermione one by one.
Indeed, Hermione took notice of him. She looked intently at Tom's purchases and listened to his presentation.
"So you bought a crystal ball as well?"
"A gift." Tom corrected.
"Then let's do fortune telling tonight!" Hermione became very interested in this topic.
Before they could speak, there was a knock on the door and it was Hunter, who had come to call everyone in for dinner. The owner of the hotel recommended a small restaurant nearby, which was not very crowded, and Tom and the others went in and sat at two large tables, which took up almost half of the restaurant.
The owner of the restaurant was a middle-aged man, slightly balding, with dark-rimmed glasses and a slight mustache, and he seemed very friendly. He greeted everyone personally in his thickly accented English and served each table a dozen juices, each jar the size of an adult's arm. Two baskets of Egyptian staples followed, a round flatbread made without yeast and sesame seeds, and two earthenware pots filled with beer.
Tom wasn't interested in the beer in the jars, he poured himself a glass of juice - an Egyptian juice is not the same as a juice with water or flavored,
Most Egyptian juices are pure and natural, with only fresh fruit. Tom chose a mango juice, which had a lot of pulp and a pure flavor. Hermione poured herself a glass of grape juice and sipped it slowly, her lips tinged with a purple hue.
Soon, with a rich, exotic aroma, the owner entered again, carrying a huge tray with several bags of fine, oily linen.
"It's a specialty of Bukhara (Uzbekistan), which is cooked in a cloth bag and requires a lot of work, four to six or even eight hours. But the locals don't opt to cook the bags slowly in hot water and then go out to visit friends: by the time it gets late, they've finished the party and come home to a steaming hot meal."
"Wow...", was the unmistakable exclamation from those present. Will took a big gulp of his beer, "It's a taste that's been passed down for thousands of years, you can't beat it."
At that moment, the owner set the tray down on the table, picked up a spatula he had placed on top and began to gently tap the bag to break up the rice. He then opened the bag and the aroma was overpowering.
He overheard the conversation between Will and the group and said, "The rice expands with the heat and squeezes the juices out of the other ingredients, which end up being absorbed by the rice grains, and as the rice soaks up the juices, it tastes fuller and more flavorful."
As he described the dish, he picked up a corner of the bag, turned the opening down and shook it gently, all the while tapping the bag with a spatula, shaking the rice out of the bag onto a large silver plate and pouring a large plate of rice from a small bag. Again and again, the plate, the length of an adult's arm, was filled with rice.
"May you find good nourishment in a happy and joyful life." He picked up the plate and approached Alyosha's table.
In addition to the bakhsh, the owner served a pot of green soup, a stew of mallow, a common plant on the banks of the Nile, mixed with rice and garlic, called molokia, an Egyptian specialty. In addition, there was a large plate of kebab, a big bowl of fruit salad and a bowl of thick yogurt with honey and sultanas.
"This time, I found a clue about the ancient city when I happened to be flipping through a photocopy of a papyrus that, according to the papyrus, belonged to the god of time and the early pharaohs, and in the record there was this strange figure." As the group feasted, Dr. Hunter related the origin of the trip.