Cairo and a Dubious Day at the Pyramids

After the Valley of the Kings, we returned to our hostel, tired and smelly, for our afternoon naps. Later that night we took an overnight sleeper train to Cairo – my first sleeper train experience. We boarded around 10:30 pm, and were promptly fed a warm meal before being rocked to sleep by the motion of the train. The ride cost us $57 US, but it was well worth the experience to sleep well and travel at the same time.

Seeing the Egyptian countryside along the path of the Nile was eye-opening. We saw farmers in the fields very early in the morning, cultivating the land like people have done for many thousands of years. There were no tractors in sight, but an occasional farmer did have a mule-pulled cart. We saw fields of recently-harvested grains with golden bundles of hand-tied wheat on the ground. The Egyptian countryside seemed completely forsaken by 20th century technology, and I realized how spoiled I am as an American.

We reached Cairo around 7:30 a.m. and were greeted by an eager taxi cab driver who would take us anywhere we wanted to go. Not knowing our way around, he suggested a hostel to us and then took us there. Unfortunately, there was no room for us at the inn. Fortunately, there are plenty of people milling around downtown Cairo looking to take unsuspecting tourists to their hotels. We were convinced by one such fellow to visit a hotel near the Egyptian museum, and ended up staying there for the rest of trip.

Thursday afternoon we had the chance to visit the Egyptian Museum. Built at the turn of the 20th century, the museum reminded me of what a museum ought to be like: plenty of dusty artifacts, very few organized displays (the pieces were instead arranged in hallways by date), and thousands upon thousands of relics packed into large corridors. I spent several hours at the museum, going from hall to hall and doing my best to take in all the wonders of Ancient Egypt. From mighty statues of the pharaohs to humble peasant tools, the museum encapsulated millennia of Egyptian history. The most awe-inspiring part of the museum was the large section devoted to King Tut’s tomb. Countless priceless artifacts, most covered in gold, dazzled the eye and testified to the power of Tut’s position. I saw his famous death masks, which were even brighter and more colorful in real life than they appear in magazines. All in all, the range, quality, and quantity of ancient objects in the Egyptian Museum left my jaw wide-open and my eyes as large as an owl’s in disbelief.

Friday we awoke early for a morning at the pyramids. The same fellow who led us to our hotel was there again, ready to take us on what seemed like a grand adventure. He had a map drawn out for us and promised that he would take us to see the important sites around Giza, the Cairo suburb where the pyramids stand. We were grateful for his guidance as he took us on a bus (that he even paid for!) to a place outside the Wonder of the Ancient World. Our guide showed us to a small Bedouin business, where we were offered tea and an itinerary for the day (see the pyramids, other tombs, the Great Sphinx, lunch, other archaeological sites, the Pyramid light show). Foolishly, none of us asked what the price would be for the day’s excitement. We assumed, very wrongly, that a visit to the Bedouin shop afterwards would be payment enough. The shop’s owner then suited us up with a guide, two camels, and three horses. Once saddled up and ready to go, the Giza trickster told us the price for the day: 350 Egyptian pounds per person. Our jaws dropped, and we told him we were only interested in seeing the pyramids. The man offered to show us the Sphinx and pyramids for 200 E.P. (still an outrageous price), but we had to accept his offer. We were stuck in an Egyptian suburb, still very far from the pyramids, and were incredibly vulnerable to the money-sucking Egyptian’s fancy for foreign cash.

Our caravan began slowly as we learned how to handle our horses and camels. We traveled through a Giza neighborhood, tracing a border fence that the Egyptian government erected to keep non-paying people out of the pyramids complex. After leaving the town, we entered the Egyptian desert and continued to follow the contours of the pyramid park’s fence. Half an hour later, we approached a hole in the fence and turned inside. It seemed sketchy to me, since I didn’t see any ticket kiosks to pay for our entrance. My suspicions of the tour's shadiness were confirmed minutes later when our caravan was approached by gun-toting Egyptian guards. Our guide spoke with them, worked out an understanding (bribe, I’m certain of it), and we were allowed to continue on our way. We approached the pyramids from the back door, but that didn’t impact the way they looked to us. The monuments were enormous, rising high above the dry desert dunes. We walked around for some time, gazing at the pyramids we had seen in pictures. After journeying into the center of one of the pyramids, we returned to our criminal caravan and continued on our way back, stopping long enough only to see and take pictures with the Sphinx.

Camels are really uncomfortable to ride. There are no stirrups on the saddle to support your feet, and your rear must bear the brunt of every bump along the way. When you add the thigh-squeezing that is necessary to prevent yourself from falling off the camel, the ride becomes a monstrously effective workout for your inner legs. Our guide joked that riding on a camel would help us walk like an Egyptian afterwards. I was sore for several days, but the pictures were well worth the pain.

We returned to our shady Bedouin’s shop and demanded he give us lunch. A long moment later he brought us Koshary, an Egyptian fast-food speciality with noodles, lentils, and tomato sauces. We quickly ate, and then escaped from his slimy grasp while he was praying at the mosque.