Day 3 - Giza/Cairo

Mister is up for sunrise at 5:30 to photograph the pyramids.

I sleep in a little and meet him up on the roof deck for breakfast of falafel, tahini, bread, pepper salad, and mango juice serviced by an old, friendly guy who speaks no English.


After breakfast, Mister meets with Franco to setup the Giza tour for the day and decides on a horse carriage instead of camels.  He is introduced to Sahid who says he will take good care of us.  We gather up our things and go downstairs where Sahid then hands us off to Ahmed (here we go again with the pass off) the carriage driver.  We spend three hours on the plateau wandering and exploring the pyramids.

We are able to go into the Great Pyramid, which is 4,500 years old.  We have to leave our camera at the entrance and are not at all happy about that, but we remove the memory card and risk it.  The climb inside the pyramid is quite difficult and requires that you bend over the entire time. Yes, even I have to bend over.  By the time we reach the tomb, we are both amazed at the technology to build this and exhausted.  Mister jokes that it was done by aliens.  We are soaked from sweat and it is very humid with low oxygen inside.  Just as we are at the entrance to the tomb itself, we pass an English lady on her way back down and suddenly we are totally alone - no guards and no working security cameras.  We stay inside for a little while just trying to understand this need for something this huge simply as a place to be "buried".  Astonishing.  We make our way back down by walking backwards and the outside 105 degrees feels almost nice after being inside.  We get back into the carriage and enjoy the shade and slight breeze as we head to the sphinx.


We make a stop at another tomb and Mister is able to snap a few pictures inside (illegally but with some baksheesh) while I visit with the driver and one of the many peddlers that are constantly after us to buy something.  It is almost noon, and we are dropped off at the Sphinx and send the driver on his way as we can walk back to the hostel from here.  There are tons of souvenir stands  and more tourists as the buses drop people off here.  We walk around the Sphinx and are astounded at the size of it.  We enter into the Sun Temple and explore a little before wandering back out to try and figure out how other people are getting closer to the Sphinx.  We decide that we must have missed something in the Temple and go to enter it again.  There is a huge argument taking place at the entrance as someone apparently does not have the ticket to enter.  The guard makes room for us to pass and we find the passageway that we missed the first time.  The inside of the Sphinx is closed, but we are able to walk fairly close to the exterior.  It is now getting incredibly hot and so I head back to the hostel while Mister sticks around to take more pictures.


We cool off for a little while and then request a taxi to take us into Cairo to the Egyptian Antiquities Museum.  Franco is concerned and thinks it is better for us to have the driver wait at the museum and return with us - we are not thrilled, but go along with it to try it out.


The taxi arrives and Selman the driver stops at the train station in Giza first to get our tickets for the night train to Aswan the next night. 



The sleeper car tickets are sold outside the terminal in a little building.  The man in the ticket office takes US dollars, but inspects each one and is not happy with some of the old ones and wants different ones.  He finally takes the money and we are on our way into Cairo. Selman drops us off, points out the museum, and we set a time to meet him.  We pass what we assume to be a burned-out hotel but later discover it was Mubareks Headquarters and also new hotel construction for a future Ritz as we walk towards the museum.

Once there, we get our tickets and turn in the camera (yes, again) and start our time in Ancient Egypt.  It is an old building with even older exhibits and things are really just put in there haphazardly without care for protecting it from hands, breath, or dirt.  We spend a couple of hours and finish up in the King Tut section - the gold is amazing, but housed in a dirty glass-enclosed room.  At least this one exhibit is climate controlled.  We stop to use the restroom in the museum and Mister is given 4 squares of TP.  Wow.  We phone Selman to tell him we are ready and walk to where the car dropped us off -- only to find that he is at the museum looking for us to walk with us.  We wait and he arrives shortly and we make the trip back to the hostel much quicker than yesterday's run.  We go past the Corniche along the Nile and ask to stop and take pictures, but Selamn doesn't seem to understand.  When we arrive at the hostel, there is an argument over the price that was agreed upon and Franco takes over while Mister comes to the room and then pays Franco later.  Shower time and Mister goes out for Kebabs for dinner while I try and snap pictures of the laser show again.  We eat in the hostel and head for bed.  No problem sleeping tonight.