Egypt Part II: Cairo and Pyramids

Part I: Getting There

Part III: Temples

Part IV: Sailing Down the Nile

Part V: The Red Sea

Part VI: Jeff Climbs a Mountain

Cairo is huge.  I mean ginormous.  I mean gargantuan.  I mean there are gazillions of people there.  The population of the region is around 20 million people (with 8 million in the metro area alone).  Where ever you are in Cairo, you see people and cars and buildings and stray animals and trash.  It's crazy to think that this city can survive on the edge of a vast and empty desert.  I'm pretty sure it has reached its carrying capacity, but I don't think there is going to be an exodus of people.  The people of Cairo (and Egypt in general) are, for the most part, not very wealthy.  They are tied to their land and families, and as our guide told us when I asked if he has ever traveled outside of Egypt, "why would I leave when every country comes to me?"  Ahmed is the youngest of 7 children and he is expected to send his earnings to his family who work a farm in the Aswan region of Egypt.  I don't know if he plans to marry - it would probably cost too much for him and his family.  But he seems to like his job as a guide - taking care of us "inept" tourists.  Luckily for Ahmed, this time, the majority of his tour group (12 out of 14) were expats: us four Americans living in Bulgaria, 2 Columbians living in the UK, 2 Scots who lived in Tasmania for 30 years, and an American family living in Hong Kong.  We were all fairly well traveled and pretty good at taking care of ourselves in foreign lands.  So, although Ahmed worried every second of every day about us (I think worrying is part of his slightly high-strung nature), he didn't need to.  We all took to Cairo immediately.  We spent two days there before catching a train to the south.

Cairo Day 1
Our first stop of the day was the "first" pyramid: the step pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara.  Built by Imhotep - the cursed mummy from the movie - a famous architect, high priest, and physician.  He is apparently one of the few non-pharaohs who was depicted on a pharaoh's statue.  A pretty important dude.

At the step pyramid we got our first taste of the "hard sell."  There were touts for everything: bracelets, scarves, maps, postcards, donkey/camel/horse rides, photographs of forbidden things, etc.  Here is also where we learned not to catch the eye of anyone unless we know we want to start bargaining.  And finally, we got a very distant view of the Pyramids of Giza coming out of the smog of the city.  Giza comes later.

Near the step pyramid are other smaller monuments.  We got to climb inside one of the smaller tombs.  I figured it wouldn't be too claustrophobic, but I was wrong.  When you have around 30 people trying to squeeze through a roughly 3-foot by 3-foot by 40-foot tunnel in both directions, a person with even a minor case of claustrophobia can have a panic attack.  Luckily mine just kept to hyperventilating instead of completely freaking out.  At the end of the tunnel were a couple of crypts with beautiful hieroglyphics in brilliant color.  The ceilings were especially cool - painted dark blue with golden stars over every inch, to represent the night sky.  I had to hold my breath to go back through that tunnel again and unfortunately right after the guide said, "watch your head!" I slammed my head into the top of the tunnel.  Ouch!  Double ouch!  Maybe those weren't painted stars I was seeing.

Our next stop was the Pyramids of Giza.  Everyone has seen pictures of these three famous pyramids and the sphinx.  Now we got to get up close and personal.  In fact, one of the Tourism Police asked us if wanted to run up and touch the Great Pyramid (that was being protected by a roped boundary and said Tourism Police).  Although we did actually want to run up and touch the pyramid, we didn't want to have to pay "baksheesh" to this guard (throughout the trip we learned that ANYTHING is OK as long as you pay for it).

The Great Pyramid is so big and so cool!  The other two pyramids are cool too.  The largest of the three was for Khufu, while the next two were for his son and grandson respectively.  All of them used to be covered by a layer of limestone covered by hieroglyphics.  Standing next to these monstrous monuments in no way helps you comprehend the scope of work done to erect and decorate them.  The manpower used must have been phenomenal!

Well, since we didn't run up and touch the pyramids, we did run across the street and climb around on ancient structures that were probably part of a burial complex for the nobles.  But no rope boundaries or tourism police in this area to tell you that you really shouldn't be climbing on a 5000 year old pillar!  Honestly, actually being in Egypt and seeing how things are (or are not) taken care of, I understand why the Royal British Museum and others refuse to give any of their Egyptian finds back.  If we hadn't been right next to the Pyramids of Giza, these pillars and blocks were were climbing on would be priceless ancient treasures - they actually are priceless ancient treasures!

We visited all three of the pyramids and Jeff even went inside the third and smallest one.  He said it smelled like humanity and had some interesting hieroglyphics.  I was glad I didn't attempt another tomb myself.  Instead I enjoyed the people watching and the tourism police on camels.  I would believe that every language in the world has been spoken at the pyramids.

Our last stop on this day was to see the Sphinx up close and personal.  No climbing on the sphinx!  We just got to see it rise up in front of the pyramids and then we got to watch the sun set over the whole beautiful tableau.

Cairo Day 2 (Merry Christmas)
Today we got a tour around the city including visits to the Hanging Church (purportedly one of the places that Joseph, Mary, and Jesus stayed while in Exile from Herod), the Citadel, a Mosque, a papyrus "museum" (that turned out to be a major tourist trap - all of us fell for it and now are the happy owners of some papyrus artwork, the Khan al Khalili Bazaar, and the Egyptian Museum.  Seriously, if you get a chance to see this museum before they open the new one, you really should.  It's dark.  It's not labeled well.  It's stuffed to the gills with mummies, sarcophagi, statues, enormous statues, pots, ankhs, scarabs, and ancient Egyptian history.  The stuff found in King Tut's tomb is there - and no picture I have ever seen of Tut's head mask does it justice - it is brilliant and amazing, covered in jewels and gold.  The other reason this is worth seeing is that you can practically touch anything (I didn't, of course, for the most part).  I guess that's the thing that surprised me so much about all of our Egypt tour is that these ancient treasures are not preserved and protected in a manner that I expect. 

We didn't pay extra for the mummies room, but we did get to see the animal mummies room.  And later in the trip, Jeff and Pei Pei met the curator of the animal mummies room.  There was a mummified alligator in there (at least 10 feet long).

After two long days of getting on the bus, getting off the bus, walking around a place with our guide, getting back on the bus, getting off the bus, seeing another site with our guide, etc., we were looking forward to the over night train ride to Aswan...