"Take a left at the Pyramids..."

Arrived in Cairo to... traffic. LOTS of traffic. Insane traffic in the middle of the day for no apparent reason (not rush hour, no accidents). So, take this statement as a monumental one coming from someone who battles traffic on the 401 twice daily... it's BAD. Why?? Because the lovely (read: dirty and loud!) capital city of Cairo has 25 million people (almost the population of Canada!) and it is quite normal for every member of a family in the city to have their own car. So there is constant traffic, at all hours of the day here. Pretty crazy. So that was our first impression of Cairo, but it got simultaneously better and worse from there. Our first venture out onto the streets was to find a famous shwarma place that Samir (the really nice, really old Egyptian dude from our China trip) recommended. It was a long ride (in traffic, of course!) but the shwarmas were good, the pitas and hummous even better. Next we were off to the Egyptian Museum. Our favourite parts of the massive collection there: King Tut's tomb treasures (the boy had a LOT of bling!), the Royal Mummy room (complete with 8 mummies inside... they were really interesting but really really creepy!), and, of course, the collection of ancient royal jewellery. After getting a good orientation of the Egyptian relics, we headed to the reason d'etre of Cairo: The Pyramids of Giza.

I woke up the first morning we were in the city and felt REALLY excited. Like a kid on Christmas type of excitement. We were going to see the pyramids today... something I had always been fascinated by and vowed to see before I died. So, as we got into the cab (after much haggling) we were on our way to the other side of the Nile... to the land of the dead. As we weaved through town I was sitting in the cab looking out the front window when Mars leaned over me and pointed and made an excited noise. I turned around to see the Great Pyramid emerge over the rooftops of the crowded city skyline. As we gawked with awe at the last remaining wonder of the ancient world, our cab driver threw a lazy hand out the window and dead paned "Pyramids." That's it.. "Pyramids" with a flick of his wrist. Like he was showing us around the city and was pointing out a 7/11 we just passed in case we wanted a snack. The freaking PYRAMIDS! It was indescribable to see them, and really strange to see them in the middle of a city. You just drive right off one of the main roads and Bam! you're at the base of the pyramids. We were joking later to each other, wondering if the locals here gave directions like "Take a left on the next street and drive for 5 minutes, if you hit the pyramids, you've gone too far." It's amazing that these pyramids have even survived, and equally amazing that now they are directly across from a KFC. So we paid our under-enthusiastic cabbie, got out and discovered.. that the pyramids had closed for the day! Desperate to see more of perhaps the most stunning ruins we've ever seen, we did something that neither of us are proud of and that we both will claim that the Sphinx made us do it: We paid a local street hustler 100 Egyptian Pounds ($20CDN) each to take a horse ride up to a cliff to see the pyramids at sunset with a private guide. We've traveled enough to know that this was a bad decision, but I guess we were just tired of making good ones :) Originally, we wanted to take camels, but refused once we saw the poor conditions of the animals. We should have said no at this point, but as I said, the Sphinx was calling. We piled onto horses that were marginally better off than the camels, and off we went. The "Experienced Guide" was just the street dude who sold us the ride, and within the first 10 minutes of the ride, we were lead through the back alleys of the city and saw a dead horse lying off to the side of the sandy road. We were horrified. As the guide lead Marissa's horse behind him, he wasn't paying attention and her knee kept going up his horse's butt, so she kept saying "Sir! Can you move the horse? Sir! Watch it!" As is befitting in a culture that is male dominated with little respect for women, the "Guide" started yelling at Mars, telling her to "you stop talking!! You shut up!" We rode up the hill in relative silence, and all was temporarily forgiven when we saw the pyramids in a row. They are stunning at sunset. After bad photos where the guide dropped my camera, we headed back and, in the direct vicinity of the dead horse, the guide stopped us and demanded backsheesh. Side note: backsheesh is "tipping" in Egypt, and, unlike other cultures, tipping is not optional. Anyone here who even comes in remote contact with you is not shy about demanding backsheesh, often telling you how much they want. Bathroom use, asking directions, pointing to something interesting... all require the payment of backsheesh. NOTHING is free in Egypt. So, we persuaded our guide to lead us away from the poor horse and then when we were at the end of the trip, we gave him about 1/10 of the outrageous tip he asked for and took off. He was not pleased!

With a few hours to kill before the sound and light show that goes on every night at the pyramids (touristy we know, but hey, we only live once!), we sat down at a local cafe and started chatting with some of the Giza natives. They were quite funny, helping Mars with her new SIM card and helping me order Egyptian tea (when I ordered it, the guy brought out Lipton tea). As we talked about how amazing the pyramids were, one of the guys glanced up from his big shisha pipe and said "Ah, the pyramids... nobody cares." All the other locals around agreed! haha. (This is the typical feeling in Cairo that we heard from the locals.. they don't exactly love their city. As one cabbie driving us said: "In the morning, it's dust. In the evening, mosquitos. Welcome to Cairo.") Then one of the guys showed us a very local felafel stand, where we bought our dinner for exactly 20 cents CDN each! We watched as he used his dirty hands to put likely unwashed food in our pitas and prayed we didn't get violently ill. The felafels were yummy, and so far our stomachs have been good. Woo hoo! The sound and light show was cheesy (narrated by the Sphinx!) but good fun.

By staying to watch the show, we missed our group meeting. No big loss, as we discovered the next day that - shockingly! - we had another less than ideal (read: crappy/old/annoying/strange) group. Surpassing 70 year old Samir who wouldn't eat any of the food (China) and 72 year old Darryl who was a crotchety old man (India), we now had 70-something Marj, who had trouble keeping up with the group because of her cane. HER CANE. WTF Intrepid?? I'm all for people traveling into old age - hell, I hope I'm still doing it - but don't be on a freaking basic budget trip through Egypt. As icing on the cake, there is also Rolf, the creepy looking German retiree who speaks limited English and looks like he may have committed some crimes in the past. Seriously. If we don't get a good group for Africa, I'm gonna lose it.

Anyway, the next day we traveled with our group back to the pyramids. We went inside of one, which was a great experience, despite the inner tombs being very simple and undecorated. We walked around the base of the pyramids, climbed on one, saw them from a bunch of cool angles, and hung out with the Sphinx, all while getting great facts about ancient Egypt from our local guide. I think I've raved enough about them, but sufficed to say, it was one of the best travel experiences I've ever had!

Above: We got so many cool photos... they don't look real, but trust me we were there! And, you may ask, how did we get so many fun shots? Well, it's all in the self timer set-up....!!