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Published: August 14th 2011
When we arrived in Cairo, both Tad and I didn't think that the driver from the hostel would we waiting for us at the airport. While we were in Amman we reserved a double room in Cairo at a small hostel for three nights, and as a result they were willing to pick us up for free. Trying to coordinate the driver from Amman over Skype was a painful experience. Example: "No, thats Ian, I-A-N, No not I-I-A-N, No, not I-A-N-A-N.!!!!" Tad and I shrugged our shoulders, figuring we could figure things out if the driver didn't come through. Surprisingly enough, our driver was waiting for us when we got out of the airport with a sign with the hotel's name and my name spelled properly. Surprises of surprises.
As we were exiting the airport, a fight was breaking out in front of us on an elevated roadway. Our driver asked us if we wanted to get a look so we got closer to see what was going on. It turns out that one guy touched a girl, and some other guy started fighting him - or something. It was hard to tell exactly what was going on, and we
lost interest and headed to the car.
We jumped into his car (from the early 1980s I think) and began to drive to the hotel. Our driver was quite crazy, but I think you need to be at least a little crazy to drive in Cairo. He was regaling us with stories of his fights and showed off the scars from his prior combats. Perhaps it was all a show, but it was entertaining. A few single-finger salutes and we were on the road. Since we traveled on a Friday (equivalent of a Sunday in US), the traffic was relatively light, and we sailed into the hotel with only a handful of close calls.
The hotel is on the 6th floor of a building pretty close to Tahrir square where all the revolution was going on a few months ago. When we got here the first time we decided to walk up the stairs to the hotel, but since we have always taken the elevator. The room is nice enough, with very high ceilings, and since we overlook the street we have a balcony that we have used as the kitchen for slicing up the mangos that we
bought on the street.
We dropped our stuff off at the hostel and made a bee-line to the Pyramids by taking a metro from Sadat to El Giza, and then a service from El Giza to the Pyramids. Total cost per person: 3 LE, or about $0.50. When we arrived at the Pyramids we were saddened to find that they closed at 3:00 pm due to Ramadan, and it was 3:30pm. A couple of guys tried to tell us that it was closed as we were walking up, but we discarded their comments out of hand since this is a common setup for a scam. In this case, we probably should have listened. We resigned ourselves to coming back the next day and took the metro back to Opera, and walked around Zamalek.
Zamalek is a nice, old part of Cairo, and feels like a tropical, beaten-down version of Paris. There were very few people on the streets (I think because it was Friday), and we were able to find a place to get a bottle of water. Tad had a strawberry drink that was basically just blended strawberries, and somehow was even further concentrated. Quite an odd
texture.
We wandered over to the Cairo Tower and decided against mounting it because a) we didn't have the requisite funds and b) we didn't want to pay the requisite price (70LE). So we wandered around Zamalek some more and ultimately wandered back to near our hotel, passing some buildings that had been burnt during the revolution, and we made it back to Cafe Riche for dinner. I had sliced veal in a gravy-like sauce. I'm not usually a fan of gravy-like sauces, but I was starving and it was pretty tasty.
Both of us were exhausted after dinner. I think I fell asleep at around 9, woke up at 4am, and went back to sleep at 5am.
We awoke with a renewed desire to make it to the Pyramids after being stymied the day before. So first stop of the day was a retracing of our path to the Pyramids. Metro to El Giza, service to the Pyramids. Tad and I are not 100% sure exactly what happened in the next element of this story, but here goes as best as we can recollect.
When you arrive at the El Giza metro stop and exit
to the street there are a bunch of guys standing around and shouting, pairing vehicles (in this case old VW buses with the sliding door chopped off) with passengers. We yelled our destination, and a guy pointed us to a vehicle and got in with us. There are two benches and two passengers sit in front, so the total occupancy is about 11 or so. The guy got into the front of the bus. After going some ways, most of the people had gotten out, and it was just this guy, Tad and I and the driver. He was talking with us about how there is this other entrance to the Pyramids for non-tourists, how he works at the Sheraton as the head of security, and then all of a sudden we are off the main streets in a small alley and are being welcomed into a non-descript building. Tad and I recollect that in this moment both of us thought there was a finite risk that we were about to get mugged. We wouldn't have had a chance. We were relieved when the sleepy proprietor brought his plywood map out to show possible routes around the Pyramids and Sphinx,
and gave us the choice of horses or camels for a ride around the pyramids. We ended up paying 150 LE each for an hour and a half (or thereabouts) ride around the Pyramids. The Pyramids really are quite impressive, each stone hewn from a rock face miles away, transported along the Nile, then hauled up into location, without the benefit of modern earth-moving tools. As they say in The History of The World "It's good to be the king". Or in this case, pharoah.
During our ride around the pyramids, we got to one of the pyramids, and there was a guy with a camel. He got Tad to stand next to his camel, but I let him get me on the camel and walk around a little bit. He got some pretty great photos of me with my camera on the camel. The noises that camels make all sound like they are in mortal agony. Anyway, he walked me around for like 2 minutes, and at the end of it, wanted me to give him 100 LE ($16.6). Get out of town. I gave him 20 LE, which he was none to pleased with, and walked away.
Even 20 LE was probably overly generous. Luckily I had some smaller bills. I was glad that I had been able to ride on the camel, but the price was still a bit steep.
We got back to the main city near the Pyramids, and our guide took us to two shops (where he would get a commission), and we took a service and a bus to Giza. While we were on the bus we got hit from behind by something, probably a car, at slow speed. Motor accident #2 of the trip!
From Giza we took the metro to Attaba with the goal of wandering the Islamic Quarter of the city. What we had miscalculated was how insanely difficult it is to get anywhere between the Islamic Quarter and Attaba. The traffic is the worst that I have seen anywhere that I have been. It was almost impossible to cross the street due to the complete congestion of cars, trucks, horse carts, guys with carts, people, etc. I wish I had a video to do justice to the insanity. We walked something like 3 to 5 km, but it was exhausting. Eventually we made it to Al-Azhar, a large mosque in the south of Islamic Cairo. We walked around the mosque for a few minutes, and sat down about 40 minutes to the call to prayer. We were both quite exhausted by our hike to the mosque and decided to chill for a few minutes until the next call to prayer. This was a great idea since with the oppressive heat and not being able to eat or drink, it is easy to get very fatigued. The time flew by to the next call to prayer, but when the appointed time for the call to prayer came, no call was heard, so we left, in much better spirits from our relaxation.
After leaving the mosque we wandered the souk in the Islamic Quarter for a while. It was amazingly beautiful the goods that were on display. If and when I have a house I would like to come to Cairo to get some elements for my house like a lantern for the porch. For now, I can't carry much of anything. Really quite beautiful.
We were quite tired and went back to the hotel to clean up and then went out to dinner at a local place where we had tamiyya and foul plates. We both had date juice, a new one for both of us. After dinner we went to a coffee shop and smoked some shisha, and found an abandoned bar on the roof of a hotel and had a few beers, and then made our way back to the hotel for sleep.
What we learned is that traveling during Ramadan it is key to take a break for a while at some point in the heat of the day, even if you can't eat or drink anything. That made the day much more pleasant.
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Nathan
non-member comment
Woah, Egypt sounds intense. The photo of you and Tad on your steeds in front of the pyramids is classic.