On our first day in Egypt we stayed in Giza, a part of greater Cairo, you can read the account of our arrival into Cairo in my last post. I woke up early because our hotel had a beautiful rooftop overlooking the great pyramids and I hoped to see them at sunrise. However, alas, the sun sets on the pyramids, it does not rise. But I still enjoyed walking upstairs and casting my eyes on the pyramids looming on the horizon larger than life in the early morning light. I sat there drinking my coffee and checking my Instagram as I do every morning.
A single woman in her 40’s also came up to the rooftop, she was traveling alone but worked for the disease control and had spent the last three months in Congo fighting Eboli. Yeah, I think she can handle Egypt as a woman solo traveler. She had paid a male hotel employee to accompany her to dinner and shopping. She wanted to buy Egyptian gold. Today she had a guide and driver for the day. We seemed to mirror her day of travel and we would see her again and again throughout the day.
Soon our hotel brought us our breakfast of coffee, orange juice, a hot cereal in sweetened milk, a basket of bread, a bowl of fruit and a tray of mixed meats and cheeses. We enjoyed our breakfast while watching the Pyramids come alive with archeologists entering the site for work (a new room was found under one of the pyramids lately), the horses and camels with their riders trotting to take their stations near the pyramids for the tourists and security guards arriving in full weapon regalia.
The gates opened at 8:00 am and all we needed to do was stroll out of our hotel door and enter the gates. Not many tourists had arrived yet so we had the place to ourselves in the cool morning air. I had read that you can walk unassisted all around the pyramids and there was no need for a guide if you had done your research ahead of time. I also had read that you will be accosted regularly by locals trying to sell you their services as guides, picture takers, house carriages and camel rides. I was determined not to be their next victim.
Right away a man with an official badge started walking with us and chatting us up. It always starts the same: “Hi, how are you? Welcome to Egypt, where are you from? Ohhhhh, America! It’s #1! You are welcome! We love Americans!….do you want a guide? How about a horse chariot? Or a camel?”
“No, shokran, we just want to walk around the pyramids”. “oh! But it’s so far, you can’t walk that far! We will take you on the camel to a special look out point…” we must have repeated ourselves 20 times that we just wanted to walk. Finally he gave up and introduced us to his friend, he said “If you are going to ride a camel, make sure you use this guy” and he points to his friend. Everything here works on commission.
We continued walking and made it around the Sphinx and inside and started walking to the next pyramid. It was a beautiful late November day, it wasn’t hot and it was still in the cool of the morning, Jeff and I are used to walking 15,000 to 20,000 steps most days so we know we can handle it. Soon a different Egyptian man riding a camel approached us and started chatting with us. We found his personality enjoyable but we tried not to engage him but also to be polite and friendly, a task very difficult to accomplish. At this point Jeff started waivering on his resolve not to ride a camel. The huge lumbering beast with his split tors and big front teeth saddled with brightly colored Egyptian rugs was just too much to resist. He started engaging the man a little too much even though I was trying to remain firm.
The man would say “come ride my camel, I give you good price”. We would firmly refuse (actually, I would firmly refuse, Jeff was looking at the animal admiringly) I said “ I just want to walk over and look at the pyramid”, the man said “ ok, I will wait here for you when you come out”. I just kept walking, not acknowledging him, Jeff said “OK”. I said “Jeff! Why did you say “ok”? You are encouraging him to keep following us!” Jeff said “I kinda want to have a camel ride…” oh man, I knew the battle was lost, we would be riding a camel. So when we got out of the pyramid our friend was waiting for us. Jeff paid him 300 Egyptian pounds which is $25 for both of us to ride the camel. The official rate was 350 per person, so other people paid 700 pounds for their ride. So I guess our determination to say “no” paid off after all.
The man introduced us to Mickey Mouse, the camel. He had the camel kneel down and Jeff mounted the camel first. I put my foot in the stir up and swung my other leg over and just like that I was sitting on a camel. I felt comfortable with Jeff securely behind me. But what they don’t tell you is that is the easy part! The hard part is when the camel stands up! First he stands in his back legs and you lunge forward, suddenly I wasn’t very secure that my 190 pound husband was lurching on me and I was sandwiched between him and the camel! Then the camel rises on his front two legs and you lurch back, now you are sitting on a standing camel VERY high off the ground!
Our Egyptian guide starts to lead us through the desert to the “look out point” over the Pyramids. Our guide is wearing the long grey traditional “dress” for men of the Muslim faith. He has his head wrapped with the headdress of the desert and he looks positively biblical pulling our camel. Mickey, the camel, starts to sway and jostle from underneath me and I can’t help but squeal like a little girl. It took me a little while to get used to it but our guide kept things light and humorous. It only got scary when the camel went downhill because suddenly I would lurch down and it would feel like I would tumble headfirst over the camels head. But I really enjoyed the camel ride through the dessert and our guides good nature. I felt cozy nestled in front of my husband on this big beast of burden. I again felt like Rachel in the Bible arriving on her camels to meet Jacob for the first time. Soon our hour long ride was over and we had taken all of the photographs. I was glad I did it, sometimes you just have to say “yes” to what life offers.
We finished our tours of the pyramids and marveled at the ingenuity of humans to construct these monumental buildings over four thousand years ago. The pyramids of Giza (Cairo) are a complex of three pyramids: Khafre, Menkaure, Giza and the Sphinx, built from 2589-2560 BC. These are the largest pyramids in Egypt and are one of the Ancient Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and the only “wonder” still in existence.
The pyramids are tombs of the Pharoahs, it is possible to enter the tombs by entering a small dark passage leading down into the pyramid. It’s not for the claustrophobic! In the tombs there would have been the giant stone sarcophagus’ that house the mummy inside. The mummy was wrapped in cloths and embalming herbs with many trinkets places between the layers of cloth. Each mummies face was covered with a funeral mask, the most famous being King Tuts gorgeous gold and blue mask. Then the body was placed inside a “coffin” that resembled the person in full regalia. No mummies were ever found in the pyramids, the theory is they would have been stolen or moved before modern man found them. Instead many mummies were found in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor.
Often several coffins were placed one inside another like the wooden Russian dolls. Finally it was placed in the Sarcophagus. Nearby they often found small coffins the size of a doll that held the heart, liver and internal organs of the embalmed Pharoah. I guess they thought they may need those organs in the afterlife. Anyone of the royal family would have his or her arms crossed in front of their body, over their chest. Often their hands were clinched holding a dagger or other ruling emblem. In the tomb archeologists would find items they thought the dead would want in the afterlife, things like a chariot, a boat, a throne, games to play and even food they may want on the “journey”. The food was also mummified amd placed in a little coffin that looked like the food it was, like a chicken.
Of course all of these items are no longer in the pyramids, they are all found at the Egyptian Museum or other museums around the world. Much of what we know about life 4000 years ago comes from the items in these tombs. For example, we have all heard of King Tut, but he is only famous because they found his tomb completely intact, no one had found it or pillaged it during all of the centuries since it was buried. King Tut was only 19 when he died, he is known as the Boy King. He was married to his half sister (as were his parents, married to their half sister) as was the custom for royalty. Possibly because of this union he was not very well, it was found that he had a club foot, a cleft pallet, scoliosis of the spine and several strands of malaria. Maybe this is why he died at 19. He did bear two daughters but neither lived after birth. Their little coffins can also be seen. In his tomb they found games, canes, chariots, thrones, much jewelry and wealth.
We toured the Egyptian Museum after our walk around the pyramids, more about that later! During our time at the pyramids, tour buses started to arrive around 10:00 am, more and more people started arriving. Buses full of Egyptian students started arriving and I became the thing they were interested in! I’m not sure if it was the blonde hair or the fact that it was not covered, or because I was an American woman but they all wanted to take selfies with me! If I let one do it, soon a mob formed around me with teenagers all wanting their picture with me! First a group of boys, then a group of girls. Then random children here and there, it really made me wonder if they had seen a blonde before!
That was quite strange and a little unsettling but it was time to leave the complex and get some lunch, especially since the wind was picking up and a sandstorm started to brew. Suddenly as the sand penetrated into my hair and I could feel the grit of sand between my teeth, I started to understand the wisdom in wearing a Burka and Hijab! Having your hair, face and body covered in a sandstorm is not such a bad idea!
We returned to the shelter of our hotel, took a quick shower to rinse away the grit and started our journey to the Egyptian Museum in the center of Cairo. In Cairo it is very easy to get around using Uber! All you need is a local SIM card and you are ready to move about the city! It’s a great thing because we were quoted $95 per person for a guided tour of the Giza Pyramids and the Cairo Museum. But the Pyramids were across the street from our hotel and the 30 minute trip to the museum using Uber is only $10 total for the two of us. Our driver dropped us off right in front of the Museum so it all should have run perfectly smoothly…but it didn’t.
First we wanted to eat, so we crossed the very busy seven lane road (probably should only have been 4 lanes but there really isn’t lanes in Cairo). This meant dodging and weaving our way through simi moving cars in traffic. No crosswalks and no lights to assist us in an orderly fashion. We walked the busy, loud, chaotic, dirty streets of Cairo looking for a place to eat. We finally found a place that made kabab so we ordered some and enjoyed our fist “purchased” meal in Egypt. (Our other meal had been breakfast at the hotel). We felt quite accomplished after eating, proud of our travel savviness and headed to the museum.
Only a few steps into our journey we were stopped by an Egyptian that asked us the standard questions: “Hi, how are you? Welcome to Egypt, where are you from? Ohhhhh, America! It’s #1! You are welcome! We love Americans!….do you want a guide?” We told him “No, we are going to the museum”. He said “oh no! This is not the right time to go to the museum! You should go after you have seen the pyramids and Aswan and Luxor!” He didn’t know we had already seen the pyramids so we said “no, we are fine, shokran”. He said “No! You are going the wrong way, the museum is this way…” probably his tourist shop was that way.
We said “No, we know where the museum is, it’s this way, and indicated the way we were going. He said “No! I will show it to you!” I said “We know what it looks like, it’s the pink building” at that he realized he lost his prey so let us go. Now we only needed to cross the crazy seven lane street. As we were waiting on the edge of the road eyeing the right opportunity to cross, we were stopped by another mature looking man, he said “Hi, how are you? Welcome to Egypt, where are you from? Ohhhhh, America! It’s #1! You are welcome! We love Americans!….do you want a guide?” We said “No, we are just going to the museum, shokran”. He said “the museum?! No! You can’t go now! It’s closed! This is a Muslim country, it’s closed for prayer, it will open in 30 minutes” oh man, ok,
Jeff needed to go to the bathroom and a cup of coffee sounded nice, he was now accustomed to his after lunch coffee. So while this man was trying to coax us over to his shop, we had other ideas. We decided to go have a cup of coffee at a cute little cafe across from the museum. The man was exasperated that we were walking the opposite direction than his shop but he had no choice but to let us go. We found out later that it was all a lie. The museum does not close during the day, it was open, he was just trying to lure us to his shop. Dupped again! After our coffee we decided it was time to get to the museum.
We finally crossed the seven lanes of traffic “chicken” style, dodging the moving cars. We go through several checks of security and finally approach to buy our tickets, “what? They don’t accept credit card? Or Euro or dollars?” We were told they usually accept those currencies but nope, not at the museum. What museum of this size doesn’t take credit card?! This one, that what. “No problem” says they guy at the kiosk, “we have an ATM machine right here”. Ok, great, we walked over to it and attempted to get money two times. Finally an American girl says “Is it working for you? Because it hasn’t worked for anyone else…” oh. ok. We look around and finally a guard tells us “just 500 meters that way you can find an ATM”. So around and around Cairo we go, dodging traffic and criss crossing busy street until frustrated, dusty and haggled we find our ATM machine. We get our money and crisscross back through honking beeping crazy traffic. We once again approach the pink museum and this time we make our way through the security checks like pros. Finally we are inside.
The artifacts inside the museum come from the Pyramids and other graves of the kings. We meander through all of the artifacts marveling at both the grandeur and intricacies of the artifacts. Soon this museum will be moving to Giza, near the pyramids. They are already packing up the artifacts, which is no easy task! I wonder how it will be once the museum moves to Giza, it will certainly affect the tourism of Cairo. What will the large hotels around the Museum do? Such names as The Four Seasons, The Ritz Carlton and Hilton. These huge fancy hotels, will they also move to Giza? Will tourists stop coming to Cairo? I really wouldn’t mind if no tourists every had to go to Cairo again, it’s much too insane!
However, once the museum moves to Giza it should impact the surrounding area, at this point Giza is a “one hit wonder” with the pyramids, the infrastructure is terrible and it’s full of dusty roads, trash and mangy animals. There will need to be a lot of changes here to bring it up to a “World Class” tourist destination, but I guess everyone starts somewhere. I think about Mexico or Thailand, they attract tourist with fine taste and a delicate constitution so I guess Giza can too. That would be an improvement indeed!
After the museum we call an Uber driver and take a short drive to the famous outdoor market in Cairo Khan Kaleli. Wow! This place is even crazier! Bustling with locals all wearing traditional attire, women covered head to toe, some in full hajib, the black long dress with only a narrow slit for their eyes. Even some of the men are wearing the long dress to their toes. I was a sitting duck. After being asked the standard questions one million times Jeff finally asked me to cover my hair! Can you believe it? So I did, it may have helped a little….no not really, I was still absolutely causing attention everywhere I went. For the most part I just smiled and went with it, they seemed good hearted and mostly curious. Just so you know, I was also completely covered, from ankle to neck and arms, but when you are a foreigner you are a foreigner.
I bought a rug and some earrings and really wanted a hanging copper light, but that will have to wait until another crazy market. We finally ducked into a random door that Jeff had researched as a good restaurant. It was an oasis inside, TripAdvisor five stars! We enjoyed a delicious appetizer of pita bread, babaganush, humus, timboule, and falafel. We had a mint tea to drink, I tried to order a beer and almost caused an international incident. Oh, I forgot, this is a “dry” country. Let’s go home.
No, it was good, for dinner we had Kafta (grilled minced meat on a stick), grilled chicken and lamb kabab with rice and grilled vegetables). A band came in and played local music with a tambourine and wooden banjo type instrument. A lady with a sparkly wine colored gown down to her toes sang in the Egyptian style. It was the real deal. We sat just one table from the music and after an hour Jeff’s Apple Watch told him he had sustained an hour of a loud repetitive sound, we could sustain hearing loss, ok, it’s time to go.
We caught an Uber home and completed our first crazy action packed day day in Egypt!
