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Published: October 10th 2007
"Baksheesh, baksheesh!" Anyone who has ever travelled Egypt, whether as a package tourist or a backpacker, will be familiar with this call - TIPS! Whether it is for pointing out a good spot to take a photo, helping you cross the road, or handing you toilet paper as you enter a restaurant bathroom, the ultimate goal seems to be to extract as much money from you in baksheesh as is humanly possible!
Having said that, we are really enjoying Egypt so far. It is a nice change from East Africa as it feels so safe. You can walk the streets at night and you don't always have to look over your shoulder to make sure no-one is following you. The biggest hazard, however, is the traffic. It is crazy! In fact, I think it is truly the worst driving I have seen anywhere, including India (which is definitely saying something!) Our strategy for crossing the road is to find a local and then use them as a human shield, crossing next to them on the side away from oncoming traffic. It sounds mean, but they have been practicing this all their lives, and they are still here. We figure they
must be doing something right!
Today was an exhausting but truly Egyptian day - we visited the Giza pyramids. We got a super early start as i forgot that the alarm clock was still on Kenyan time. When it went off at 6:30 this morning, it was really 5:30am. We didn't realize this until we were all dressed and ready for the day and I put on my watch. By this point, we decided to make the most of our extra time and head out even earlier.
We arrived at the pyramids at 7:30am but were told that we had to wait until 8am for the gate to open. In the meantime, lots of big tour buses were starting to line up. We were fearful that they would bulk purchase all of the tickets for the Great Pyramid as we had read that they are limited to 300 per day. To our delight, the tourist police took pity on us, standing there sucking in the fumes of the huge tour buses, and let us go in 15 minutes early! We raced up the hill to the main ticket office and got our entry ticket before racing off to
the Grand Pyramid to buy our ticket, before racing off to enter it. We were the first ones there, so managed to see the pyramids (well, the first one at least) with no other tourists on it - fantastic! We were also the first ones to go into the pyramid, which meant it had the eerie quiet that you would imagine. We were even let into a "secret passage" by a cleaner who made a big deal of telling us to keep it under wraps, for a little baksheesh of course! I totally fell for it! On the way back out later, I saw him offering every other tourist a look into the "secret passage" - darn!
We did get a whole 10 minutes to ourselves in the sarcophagus room at the top of the pyramid, however. Scott decided to practice his Buddhist "oms" and it actually sounded really amazing with the echo effect. We thought about hiding behind the sarcophagus and doing it as the first tour group arrived to creep them out, but then chickened out of it!
We spent the morning exploring the area, fending off numerous people selling everything from camel rides to plastic
pyramids to cheesy 1960s photography postcards. We managed, quite easily, to bargain the camel people down from the initial 80 Egyptian pounds to 5 Egyptian pounds for a camel ride. Hmm, and they claim they don't try to overcharge tourists! It is just something you HAVE to do at the pyramids, and is great for the photo opportunities!
We have also spent some time in Cairo on general errands. One of the major ones was organizing a new passport for me at the UK embassy. It hasn't expired, it is just running out of pages. Africa is very liberal when it comes to using whole pages for visas, and my pages are dwindling fast. The crunch came when we decided to reroute our trip. Instead of flying to Bangkok in November as planned, we just bought plane tickets to Johannesburg, South Africa! We had just heard so many great stories from other travellers that we were itching to go!
Tonight we are leaving for Dahab on the Red Sea for some beach and snorkel time - looking forward to that! We had planned to stay longer in Cairo but overlooked the fact that it is Ramadan, meaning everything
Taking Scott for a Walk
You can see who wears the pants in this relationship!!!is closed! It took us ages even to find breakfast on our first morning. We will try it again at the end of our time in Egypt, minus the Ramadan complications!
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Born to travel
Sharon and Scott
Barbara Kelly
John has graciously been sharing your blogs with me. I have enjoyed just looking and reading about your travels-can not imagine how wonderful it really must be. Barbara