By the time I had woken up properly in the morning we were in Cairo station. Which was in a state of semi repair and basically had an open building site in the middle of it that you had to walk through to exit the station…no “health and safety gone mad ” in this country.
After ignoring many an offer of a taxi ride I got onto the metro system, that was surprisingly efficient and less crowded that the London underground. A couple of stops later I was in the downtown area and started looking for a cheap hotel. After 30 mins of searching and lots of help from people in the street I found one that was listed in the guidebook. A decent enough place with clean rooms and wi-fi. I also booked a driver to take me to the pyramids the following day with them.
By the time I had chilled out for a bit it was early afternoon and I set off for the Egyptian Museum that was just down the road. The heat of the afternoon was intense and so was the traffic in the streets. Crossing the road anywhere in Cairo is like the old school videogame “frogger”. People just walk out into the street in front of cars, the only rule seems to be that if you change your pace as a pedestrian crosser you are in more danger. Not easy to get used to.
Outside the museum building I was told by a well meaning local that the musuem was closed for “siesta” for forty minutes but that was the perfect amount of time to visit the last day of the Egyptian market …hmmm that old chestnut . I just laughed at the guy and told him I had already been to the last day of the market yesterday…he found this amusing and wished me a good time in Egypt ….
The museum itself was packed with tour groups and was more crowded at times than the Sistine chapel in Rome had been. There was plenty of cool stuff in there but the backing information clearly hadn’t been updated since the early 70’s and not long after getting inside I felt the last couple of days catching up with me….My legs were burning with pain after being cramped up on the overnighter and I felt generally exhausted. Forced myself to spend a couple of hours going round all the areas of the building and was honestly unsure afterward whether I had the energy to get back to the hostel.
I did make it back after stopping for food in the dreaded McDonalds. I was way to tired to try and find a decent meal and decided to opt for an evil I knew ( had been hoping my 2 cheeseburger meal days were behind me after being skint in Europe). On the plus side they still super size meals in Egypt so I got A decent fill at a cheaper than normal rate.
Back a the hostel I flaked out on my bed then soon realised that my general tiredness may be part of some wider plot of unhealth against me. A few trips to the toilet later I knew that I once again had the unavoidable 3rd world stomach problems. Spent the night in a state of semi fever with constant trips to the bog and an unquenchable thirst. Was praying I would be okay for the pyramid trip in the morning…….
My prayers must have been answered by Anubis ( Egyptian god ) as in the morning, after coffee and a light breakfast, I felt solid enough to make it out for the tour. I was met in the lobby of the hostel by my driver for the day who called himself “(Egyptian ) Bob “. My slight disappointment about being the only person on the tour ( hadn’t yet meet any other like minded travellers in Cairo and this seemed like a good opportunity) disappeared after Bobs car turned out to be a souped up Mitsubishi….ahh yeah drivin in style!
So we hit the highway on the way to Giza and the great pyramid/sphinx first. On the motorway the true madness of the Egyptian highway code became apparent. No lanes, some strange beeping as you overtake system, and pedestrians crossing the motorway in suicide gambles to get to work in the morning. The true size of the city became clear after a while .Cairo is the biggest city in Africa and Bob reckoned about 20million people lived there….mind boggling considering the conditions most of the population lived in. Soon we could see the pyramids rising above the urban slums of the city. Fairplay they were huge….. a lot bigger than I had been expecting.
On the way Bob had been trying to up sell me a tour round Giza by horse or camel…I had heard of scams where the camel driver takes you to the desert and then demands more money for your return to the site…I made it pretty clear I wasn’t interested and made my way from the “government “ stable car park to the entrance on foot.
Luckily I still had my 8 year out of date student card and managed to use it to get half price entry to all the sites. After a very Egyptian style security check on the gates I was inside the pyramid site and staring at the Sphinx! The pyramids at Giza are really mind blowing, the coolest place I have ever been to on earth as of this date! Despite the persistent touts and tour groups the site was magical…… right on the edge of the desert with blue skies as backdrop to the amazing constructions….spent about 2.5 hours walking around taking photos and refusing offers of camel rides, but easily could have spent a whole day there. There really was a lot to see…. even more impressive when you consider the age of the site.
Next stop was the oldest pyramid in Egypt , the step pyramid at Saqqara (only after I told Bob we could skip the papyrus “museum” though) . On the way my driver was clocking speeds of around 120km per hour on clear stretches of the no lane two way road and then pulling all kinds of crazy Manoeuvres in traffic… After narrowly avoiding what I though would be a head on collision he smiled at me with a thumbs up gesture and said triumphantly “ Bob Schumacher!!”…madness…
The step pyramid was almost equally as cool as Giza and also almost equally as full of tourist touts. I had by this point come to view the touts as cold callers who read from a pre set script ….they all had the same objection handling answers and could be annoying but effectively were just as easy to ignore as someone calling your home from an Indian call centre. The usual introduction went as follows:
Tout “where are you coming from ? “
Tourist/Victim “X ( insert country here)”
Tout “ah X…number one country ..me no like people from Y( insert another country ) X is nicest peoples”
Tourist/Victim “thank you”
Tout “ you want to take camel ride today its cheap price….“ etc
According to one of the corrupt guards I was talking to later that day “Have a Guess” was the number one country in all the world…hilarious!
After Saqqara I went to an open air museum at Memphis and then the pyramids at Dahshur. Here I could go inside for free ( was an extra tenner at Giza). The ramp down into the centre of the stones seemed to go on forever through a very low ceilinged passageway ….was pretty uncomfortable for someone my height. Once inside the air became acrid and hot. However the vault was impressive and inside you could see graffiti from other visitors going back hundreds of years …..pretty cool.
Took about a hour and a half to get back into central Cairo through the surrounding villages and rush hour traffic. Gave Bob a tip when we got back for not hard selling the camel tour and papyrus museum to me.
All and all I can say the pyramids are the coolest historical site Ive been to by a log way …not just because of the uniqueness of the monuments but also because of the amazing location and all the crazy locals running around the place. Its also surreal when you think about the amount of money they draw in for the government in light of the poverty of the surrounding towns.
That evening I got the metro to the old part of the city that was the Christian capital until the 11th century. Unfortunately the oldest buildings in Coptic Cairo were now all inside a closed for the evening museum so I had to make due with strolling around the site, saw the oldest mosque in the city and also talked to a few of the locals who were happy enough to chat. Even the taxi drivers were helpful once I had explained that their cheap price of a ride back into town could not beat the metro for value.
Spent the rest of the evening wandering around the street in the downtown area. Stopped off for a beer in a local bar that was showing Spurs getting beaten by Man U. I don’t know why I bother watching football on the road …..always seems to disappoint when you could be doing something more interesting. Should have learnt my lesson after last summers world cup debacle.
The streets of Cairo are vibrant pretty much all night long. It is definitely a lot more modern in places than I was expecting and there is something about it that I really like but its hard to describe exactly what that is after such a short time spent there …wish I had a few more days to get to know the city better. The vast majority of people I met were extremely friendly, honest and helpful.
Had an early-ish night again after deciding my stomach and wallet were not quite up to testing the nightlife out in more detail ….got a decent night of sleep and a rare lie in before catching the train the Alexandria the next day…
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