Giza, Egypt
Wednesday, February 6th, 2008
After a 10-day stint in France and Italy, Shelly and I arrived in Cairo, Egypt, to start the Africa leg of our trip. It’s very hard to describe everything we’ve experienced, but we’ll do the best we can.
We spent our first few days in Egypt about 10 km south of Cairo in the town of Giza. Our goal was to quickly check out the Pyramids and spend a couple days resting by the pool and drinking Sakkara beer. From our hotel room, we could step out on our balcony and get a full few of the pyramids. It was amazing. To think that just last month we were in Machu Picchu and now at the base of the Egyptian pyramids was a pretty cool thing to have experienced.
For our only full day in Giza, we spent about three hours touring the pyramids. Our hotel offered to get us a car for the day and a guide but we opted to head out a take the pyramids on our own. After dodging through traffic, past persistent taxi drivers that hung out outside of our hotel, and through the dozens of camels and donkeys, we made it to the pyramids unscathed. It was great to see them up close and it’s hard to imagine how the ancient Egyptians could build them. After walking around the pyramids and taking some action shots (see below) we walked down to the Sphynx and back to the hotel. That night we went to a local “sheesha” bar and smoked apple tobacco out of a hooka… which is basically a three-foot water pipe. We sat with a bunch of Egyptian men who were puffing furiously on their hookas as they watched a local soccer match on T.V. When in Egypt, do as the Egyptians, I guess. The next morning, we caught a 6 a.m. flight to Luxor on EgyptAir to begin our 4 day cruise down the Nile River.
Our impression of Egypt is that it’s a place rich in history and the people are extremely friendly. As a whole, they are probably the nicest we’ve met so far on our trip. Everyone is generous to us and they all have a smile. We are constantly talking to random people and everyone wants to tell us their story and talk about their family. Most surprisingly, everyone in Egypt loves Americans and loves America. Unbelievably, we didn’t see any other Americans although there were a few other Westerners (British, French, Australian). Therefore, we were a bit of a treasure to the locals as their eyes would light up with happiness upon hearing we were American.
nkurtz