Activity level: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Modes of transportation: 🚗 🥾 🚂
Editor’s note: If you’re wondering why there was a delay between posts, buckle up, because the next few days are packed.
Our hotel worker, Noura, woke us up with breakfast, and we had a little time to eat on the balcony (since all our clothes were in the wash, it was easy to pack). Our guide for the day also couldn’t find the hotel (so it wasn’t just us), so we ended up starting the tour a little late (around 8:15).
We really enjoyed our tour guide Amira, who had recently gotten her PhD in Egyptology. She could read hieroglyphics, and taught us all kinds of history of the pyramids, the kings of ancient Egypt, and the relation to other periods in history.
Our first stop was the great pyramid—the largest one (pyramid Khufu). It’s even bigger in person! We paid a little extra to go inside, and it was a long tunnel up (with 4 foot ceilings) to the center. Some people say it’s not worth it, but we thought it was really neat being that far inside the pyramid (not much to see inside though). It’s also insane that the structure was built 4500 years ago and is still standing. One king even tried to demolish them, but it turned out to be wildly unpopular and too expensive (he did get some chunks out though).
We also got sort of scammed by a guy who took our phone to get pictures of us. That’s where we learned that you need to make change before you give a tip, because they will not give you much back (luckily it was only a few bucks).
We walked over to the pyramid of Khafre, built by the son of Khufu, the builder of the great pyramid. It’s recognizable because it’s the only one that still has the limestone covering on the top of it. Also very cool (and much less crowded).
On the walk between the pyramids, a group of teenagers spotted one of the newer wonders of the world and ran up to Sarah to take a photo.
We then went on our way to a better view of the pyramids. Our guide took us to a “friend” who insisted Sarah try a headscarf. Luckily after all of our travels we were very comfortable saying no thank you. It was fun to try though.
Of course, we had to do a camel ride, so we negotiated a good rate and took a short ride over to the lookout point and back. The photos say it all.
While we waited for our guide to figure something out with the camel dude after our ride, we took in some awesome views.
We quickly stopped for a view of the third pyramid, but our real goal was the sphinx. It was put there to ward against grave robbers, and obviously didn’t do its job. Very cool though.
We got shuttled once again into a shop—perfume this time—to be hard-sold. Sarah actually liked one of the scents, so we made an insultingly low offer and ended up buying a very small amount. The guy didn’t seem to happy with the sell at the end of it, but we were happy with the purchase (and we are 100% sure that he made a hefty profit). Our guide got in the car with us and said something while laughing to the driver—oh how we wish we understood Arabic. We were also supposed to go to a papyrus shop, but we told our guide we weren’t going to buy anything; in the interest of time, she nixed it.
From there, it was about an hour to Dashur through the date palm fields. Dashur contains the bent pyramid (the failed first-attempt non-step pyramid), the red pyramid (a successful second attempt), as well as various other small, half-destroyed pyramids. These were the staging grounds for King Khufu so that he could build the great pyramid.
Our cab driver told us to “save our energy” for the journey into the pyramid, and he wasn’t wrong. It was a long walk down about a 25 degree incline in another 4-foot square tunnel. Sarah got a little claustrophobic (somehow, more than she did in the tight caves of Belize). At the bottom, there was a burial room at the top of a staircase—but honestly, also not much to see (as we learned later, the pyramids were too conspicuous and got entirely looted, unlike the later tombs). Our legs were burning by the end, but it was awesome.
On the way back, we asked to try some dates, so our driver stopped by the side of the road and picked us up some. We didn’t even know, but apparently there are two types of dates: soft ones (the ones we can get dried), and hard ones (which have the consistency more like apples). We ate them all the way to our next stop, Memphis, and they were delicious!
Memphis was the old capital city of Egypt founded in 3200BC. We didn’t stay there long, but we saw a cool large statue of Ramses they found nearby. We also saw some ancient home remains and some baboon statues (a baboon was the judgment god who would gobble you up if you lived a bad life), but had to be gone pretty quickly.
We rushed to make sure we could get into Saqqara before it closed at 4 to see the step pyramid, which was the first pyramid built. While the other pyramids generally had tunnels going upwards, at this time, this pyramid had tunnels going downwards. We were both amazed at how perfectly the workers (aliens?) dug straight tunnels through pure limestone, hundreds of feet horizontally and straight down. Kind of amazing for 5000 years ago.
A note on aliens: every tour guide has brought up the aliens theory of things, which is pretty funny (they quickly debunk it by saying we have evidence of worker camps, but what are they really trying to hide?).
Before we left, we got to explore the grounds a little.
We had held our lunch until the end to have enough time at the stops, so we finally drove to a restaurant to eat. We got some Egyptian style meats on a grill, which were so tasty and delicious.
We think we ended up taking too long, and we missed our chance to go to another shop (oh no!). In fact, we Google translated our guides talking, and we think they were lamenting that we ate too slowly (or at least that’s what we could piece together—but it’s up for interpretation).
We had an amazing time on the tour, so we tipped them well and they dropped us off at our hotel. By then, our laundry was ready, so the concierge very graciously let us pack in the common area even though we had checked out that morning (and even brought us tea and drinks). We had asked if it would be possible to shower in an empty room, but he said that they were all booked, unfortunately.
He asked us how we liked Egypt because the ministry of tourism wanted surveys (which we had heard a few times). We learned that Egypt has been having tourism problems, so there are a bunch of very recent programs to help make the tourist experience better—so that’s pretty nice!
We weren’t done just yet. We had to get to the train station to catch our overnight train. We got dropped off in the square in front of the station and had to walk through an extremely crowded walkway to the station. Sarah held onto Eric and they made it without incident (except one guy yelled FU to Eric then started laughing for no reason).
We got a quick dinner of shawarma (which was just ok) before heading to our train platform.
A policeman spotted us in the station and asked if we were on the night train. He then found our name on a list and then escorted us to the train (it sort of seemed like a few of the police men were guarding the tourists, interestingly). Sarah offered him a date, and he just laughed.
The train actually arrived and left on time, which was apparently a miracle. We got to our cabin and settled in, though the cabin may have settled on us too quickly.
It was definitely an old train from an era when men were men and everyone smoked two packs a day (don’t get us wrong, Egyptians still smoke—but not in their rooms). It was fun, though. We ate before the train, so we didn’t each much of the dinner (which we heard would be interesting)—though we did order tea.
There was this hilarious Brazilian woman in the room next to us loudly pantomiming and telling us the room was “trash” in broken English (with a smile and many grimaces). She kept saying “don’t turn on light!” because her room was pretty dirty. She also kept saying she was freezing, so Sarah let her borrow her jacket until they could get the heat fixed. She was very appreciative from what Eric could piece together from his limited Spanish (though it was Portuguese).
There were no showers on the train either, so we just had to wet wipe shower for the night and hope we could get a regular shower soon.
<let’s just say it’s a good thing we didn’t get a photo of the bathroom>
The train was extraordinarily bumpy, but it rocked us to sleep (good thing we had earplugs, though). We were arriving in Luxor in the morning to start our Nile cruise.
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