First Day in Cairo

First day of touring in Cairo

We arrived and made it through the airport with a minimum of hassle. Of course anytime you are in a new country and new airport, it causes some uncertainty. After customs we spotted our driver with the famous "Nancy Friedrich" sign. Drive to hotel, long, lots of traffic, some interesting city sites. Saw the pyramids from a distance. Turns out you can see the biggest one very clearly from our hotel. Check in to hotel. Security. Metal detector. 3 guys sitting there no seeming to do anything. Rooms look great. Suites. Tremendous view of pyramid. Guy from travel agency arrives and walks us through the program. Collects money. Then asks about dinner. He says he's got a great place in mind. Comes back to pick us up in about 30 minutes. In meantime we have gotten bellman to walk us around the corner to get some water. Not a lot of welcoming faces in the crowd.

Travel agency guy then walks us around same corner, cars almost hitting us, load into a smaller car. Make big loop around the block. Literally a mile. Arrive at same place, just other side of the road. Can't turn left at our crazy intersection. Takes us to "Top of World" restaurant, rooftop, full view of all three pyramids. Tremendous wow factor. Can't see the Sphinx but during light show we can see the head is illuminated with a green color. The sun sets behind the pyramids. Awesome. Temperature is not bad. Light breeze blowing. Food is pretty good, I get mixed grill, Craig gets the fish. Lots of hummus and pita bread. Order a beer, turns out to be a near beer. Return to hotel, at that point we begin to hear the noise from the intersection. Crazy intersection with not traffic light and only one police officer directing traffic…in the dark. Drivers rely completely on their horns. It went on all night long. One beep, five beeps, a special sound effects horn. The noise would die down and I would think "thank goodness they've all gone to bed now" and then it would start up again. You know it was loud and troublesome if Nancy and I both couldn't sleep.

The next morning we "woke up" and packed. Breakfast in basement, not a bad spread but the room/smell made it kind of sketchy. We were seated at a big round table and as a group of French tourists arrived they sat at our table, of course not making any connection with us. In the small lobby we met our guide Makhmed and loaded into our van. It was already hot. We arranged to start at 8 rather than 8:30 since we figured with jet lag/time change we'd be up anyway. First stop was the ticket booth at the Pyramids and we were happy to find that tickets were still available to go inside the grand pyramid. This was a crazy thing, with the tunnel being not much more than 3' by 3' with wooden hand rails. Also, this is the only tunnel, so it is used for both up and down. Since there was no coordination of anything, we did a lot of squeezing past tourists coming in the other direction. It climbs up at a consistent angle (26 degrees)for 130', then opens onto a room, then connects to another inclined passageway with a high ceiling. Inside this "gallery" you could see how all the blocks lined up exactly with just the slightest gap between them. It was warm enough in these passages, then you add the body heat from the climb and we were cooking. The gallery is 157' long.

We wandered around the outside of the pyramid, checked out the boat pits where the funeral boats were found, and continued around the base to the boat museum. The boat museum looks like some sort of industrial production facility from the outside with a vertical/sheet metal appearance. I'm sure the architect would object to this description but it's pretty ugly. We got our tickets, went through the obligatory metal detector and scanner (as always, they both beeped like crazy but the tourism police just waved us through). Immediately we were confronted by a man handing our cloth booties to protect the wooden floor from grit) and he told Nancy that there was an additional charge of 5 pounds for each. This was just typical of what we found, there was always someone wanting to get extra money from you, either for showing you around the corner or leading you somewhere you didn't want to go, or posing for/taking a picture. It was all about getting money. It was rare that anyone did you the slightest favor without immediately demanding money. It's a shame but this really became a barrier to our connecting with most of the local people we met.

Back to the boat museum. The boats were used to transport the mummies of the pharohs up and down the Nile in a sort of victory lap to give all the common people a last chance to worship the pharoh/god. The boats were then buried in elaborate pits alongside the pyramids. After the boats were put into place, the ceiling was laid of huge limestone blocks, fitted tightly together, then covered with sand and rock. I assume that these boats would then be used in the afterlife for transportation. The boat museum was funded by the Japanese, meaning it was a reasonable quality museum with good displays and explanations. You entered through a series of displays explaining how the boats were recovered and preserved, and at one point you could look down through the floor and see the limestone blocks positioned over one of the pits. You then climbed to the next level which was a huge open atrium with the boat suspended in the middle. The boat is huge, I'd guess over 90 feet long. Though it has big curly cue ends, it is very plain in appearance without any ornamentation. It is made from cypress wood, and Jacob commented that the wood was carved into the curving bow shape of the boat rather than being bent. Except for a few boards bending out slightly at major joint lines, the boat was in great shape. A construction detail…the boat was made without any nails, just pegs and rope.

We hopped back in the van and went for our camel ride. The camel depot, featuring several dozen camels and a small bazaar, was located on a hill overlooking the pyramids, so that was quite a viewpoint. Of course the camel rides are a big tourist racket but you just have to take one. Our camels were escorted by two little boys, I'd guess no more than 6 or 7, and their supervisor told us they were the sons of the boss. They had that attitude of being in charge. It was a bit scary when the camel when from the down to the up position, since it rocked from front to back like a bucking bronco, but otherwise it provided a reasonably relaxing ride. My camel did have a tendency to side swipe Craig's, and that was a bit disconcerting to have your leg being crushed between two camels. Our camels didn't stink like I thought they would, but it was early in the day and perhaps they hadn't had a chance to really lather up yet. We went for a little tour through the sand dunes to several photo spots. We all noticed that the sand was littered throughout with crushed and weathered plastic bottles. All the water that you as a tourist drink in Egypt is bottled, and from what we've seen thus far also branded (I.e. Disani). It's funny to be driving down a dusty road in the middle of nowhere here and see a tall stack of Disani boxes outside a shop using only Arabic lettering.

As we approached the end of the camel ride the supervisor asked us repeatedly if we enjoyed the ride. This was a technique used repeatedly to set you up for the tip. When we dismounted we were met by the big boss, dressed in a much nicer flowing outfit than the rest of the workers. Nancy gave each of the small boys and the supervisor a tip, and then the big boss held out his hand for a tip, and told her she needed to give everyone more. It parallels the experience in America of giving someone on the street a dollar and then having them tell you they want more. It's hard to get used to. I will add that the tips here are usually a dollar or two, more for a guide. So it's not like you are just handing them a dime.

From there it was a short drive to the Sphinx. Compared to the pyramids the Sphinx is a tiny little thing. I also believe we think of it as being truly huge because of all the low angle pictures showing it in the foreground with the pyramids in the background. It also looks somewhat small because it sits in a depression in front of the pyramids. With that said, the Sphinx is still quite impressive, showing the signs of weathering and human abuse. We were most impressed by the guys laying the causeway out of stone in front of the Sphinx. They wee doing it completely by hand, using a pick to chip away the stone to make a flat surface, and a length of twine to check the positioning. Though there was more massive excavation going on in the area, we noticed there were guys carrying baskets of sand out from around the sides of the Valley Temple, which is situated directly below the Sphinx. Talk about job security, take on the job of bailing out the sand from around the Sphinx! We blundered around the Valley Temple several times, and walked around the sides, being harassed by the camel ride salesman and the trinket guys, before we finally figured out how to reach the causeway extending above the temple to the Sphinx. I wondered why the camel ride salesman was bugging me so much, until I realized that the path we were taking went only to his little plot of land reserved for his business. There were quite a few goofy tourists on the platform beside the Sphinx, but I figure this to be one of the most recognized tourist spots in the world so it was only natural you'd have this perfect gathering.
From there we had a fairly long van ride to Memphis, where we saw the Colossus of Ramses statue. This huge statue was recovered from a marsh in Memphis and is immense…that is, immense if you haven't been to Abu Simbel yet. After seeing the statues there, most everything else is just big. The Colossus is missing it's lower legs and is displayed horizontally in a covered open air gallery. The left side of the pharoh shows severe weathering, while the middle and right sides are well preserved. The theory is that the statue was covered by dirt and water on one side while being subjected to the elements elsewhere.

We cooked in the sun walking through the courtyard while hearing about many other statues. On the way out I stopped in the WC and was most impressed by the relaxed way of demanding a tip from the attendant. As I walked out past the ladies room, the door swung open slowly, and two women were stretch out on the floor. The one nearest the door rapped on it and held out her hand. When I gave her a few coins she made a disapproving noise, but did not roll over or get up to state her case. What a life to live! If only they had satellite TV in the women's room then she would have it completely made.