and finally…the Pyramids!
I had another night in Dahab before heading back to Cairo to meet Mum, it was also Brian’s last night so we meet up and watched a bit of fightclub at one of the bars then both headed to bed as we were shattered from the climb the night before. I said goodbye in the morning as he headed off to Jordan and I jumped on a 9 hour bus ride back to Cairo. So ended our group, great to have good people to travel with but time to go separate ways and move into the next part of my trip with my lovely mother.
I didn’t arrive in Cairo till late at night, and mum didn’t fly in till 3am so I saw her briefly when she got in but soon fell asleep enjoying my first night with air-conditioning. Our hostel is on the 5th floor of this big old building with the most old school elevator of all time, literally straight from the 18th century, I cannot believe how it keeps going, but a you can see its very cool looking. It just goes straight up the middle of the stair well, crazy times
(our amazingly old but still working hostel lift)
That morning we headed off to do what everyone does in Egypt, go see the Pyramids! We took the metro half way then ended up in a taxi with possibly the only driver in Cairo who didn’t know where the pyramids were, a lot of asking questions and suddenly, there they were! The pyramids are actually in Cairo, like in the city, not in some huge dessert in the middle of nowhere, so out from being apartment buildings and hotels the points of them stick out in a kind of surreal way.
We somehow managed to come in a back entrance avoiding getting scammed by anyone, I had heard of people ending up paying stupid amounts for guides and camels but all we had to pay was the relatively cheap entrance fee. It was hot, but not as hot as Aswan or the Luxor and they were amazing, more amazing than some monuments which are a bit disappointing in real life. We could climb up a bit of the way on the big one then wandered around the are looking at the 2 smaller ones and the sphinx, luckily it wasn’t too busy which was nice. We spent a couple of hours taking the required cheesy photos and being amazed at the enormity of them. They really were very cool.
Afterward we wandered around the streets a bit more grabbing some bread straight out of the oven then the most dangerous taxi ride ever with a driver intent on crashing his car. Luckily we made it and after a break from the heat at our hotel we walked down to see the Egyptian museum, which unlike the Pyramids, was busy-very very busy. But definitely worth seeing. All the empty tombs from Luxor had their contents here in the museum and the coolest of all, everything from king tut’s tomb including the famous death mask made from gold. It was all really amazing to see the detail and effort put into burying kings and royalty. The mummy goes inside about 4 different coffins then another 5 different box things, then inside a huge tomb with lots of stuff, gold and pots and tables and everything else you can think of. Very interesting and things are amazingly well preserved.
The other things were cool, lots of old old old things from all around the place, eventually it gets all similar, you know just another 2000 year old mummy, so we headed back home then out for a quick bite to eat, nice and cheap-around $2.50 for huge plates of falafel, bread, eggplant and salads. We then jumped in a taxi to see the Islamic area and market which I saw on my first time in the city. We wandered around the stalls almost getting talked into to buying plastic pyramids with glitter, but just couldn’t do it. Its really nice in the evening as lots of people are out and its nice and cool.
Mum of course had to see the Nile so we headed down there to see if we could get on a felucca for a short cruise. The river was packed with disco part boats, full of Egyptians, sitting calmly with terrible arab pop blaring from speakers and flashing lights all over the boat, it was incredible that anyone would actually pay to go on one. We found a plain felucca with no lights and negotiated a 30 minute cruise which ended up meaning we crossed to the other side then came back again. It was weird, I guess there wasn’t really any wind so we couldn’t go anywhere, but it was really very strange and we pretty much got ripped off. But we saw the Nile!
So a huge day with mum and packed lots into one day, Cairo was as busy and dirty as I remembered but good to be around some real culture after Dahab….however once getting mum the next day we headed back to Dahab for a few nights before crossing to Jordan
Tags: blogsherpa, cairo, Egypt, pyramids, TRAVELS 2008
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I’m in awe!
And I just hit the wrong button & sent that too soon. You and your mom did in one day what it took me three days to do! And it exhausted me. Good job!