Cairo – Ancient Egypt

 

A few days after being in Cairo I made my way with a tour group to the Pyramids and the Sphinx. I have wanted to see both of these wonders since I was about 7 years old. This was finally the culmination of a dream come true. The Pyramids are in Giza, a suburb of Cairo. Interestingly, the suburb comes up very close to both the Sphinx and the Pyramids. They are not in fact in the middle of nowehere.
 

 
There are no surprises regarding the Pyramids or the Sphinx. I have seen so many pictures of them that nothing was left to be discovered. In that way there was never a moment of awe-inspiring revelation. I was here, finally, at the Pyramids, and that was the only thing my brain registered. The Pyramids are massive structures indeed. Their immense scale still strikes you even though you have seen pictures and are prepared for it.
 

 
I will continue this theme in posts to come, but since the Revolution in Egypt tourism has been almost non-existent. It is an amazing sight to see the Pyramids, but more amazing is the lack of tourists there. Instead of tourists outnumbering touts 100 to 1, it is now closer to 10 to 1. This has struck Egypt hard as the tourist business brings in a large sum of money. It is strange to see touts trying to pick through the meager tourists and offer a camel ride or a carriage ride. With a 100 to 1 ratio, if 99 tourists said no, there was still at least one tourist who paid to ride a camel. With a 10 to 1 ratio it is meager pickings indeed. That doesn’t stop the touts from asserting their presence and trying to get you to buy something. It just adds an air of perhaps sadness as dejected touts try to make their way through the crowds.
 

 
I will say one thing: I don’t mind people being there to sell you stuff. What I do mind is the aggressiveness in which they pursue their sales. It is annoying to swat off touts as they persist you buy something, sometimes walking with you 50 or 100 yards trying to bargain a purchase. If you engage in conversation it is even worse. They will keep talking and trying to strike a deal. The best option is to ignore them or cut them off with a quick “No Thank You” (La Shukran in Arabic).
 

 
There were two pyramids that were open and you could pay to enter. The Great Pyramid of Khufu, and the smallest pyramid, that of Menkaure. There was an entrance fee for both pyramids, so I chose Menkaure, which was the cheaper option. There is not much to see inside. You walk down a ramp into a few chambers, including the burial chamber. There were not more than four rooms inside the pyramid of Menkaure. Still, it was very worthwhile to go inside and see it. The pyramid of Menkaure has a long gouge or laceration on it’s north face. This was because the son of Saladin tried to deface the pyramid and tear it down. Clearly he was unsuccesful.
 

 
After visiting the Pyramids and the Sphinx we went to the Egyptian Museum. It was here that finally my wish to see all of King Tut’s treasures came true. It was worth the wait. I was entranced as I made my way around the area and drunk in all the objects that I had previously only seen in pictures from articles in National Geographic or on the History Channel. It was a surreal moment to stand face-to-face with the golden death mask of Tut. This piece is extraodinary, and even more so in real life. The jewelry of Tut were no less extraordinary, and what particularly caught my eye were necklaces, the flail and crook, and the dagger of Pharoah Ahmose.
 

 
We continued as a group on from the Egyptian Museum to a papyrus shop, where we were shown how papryus is made and then given a chance to look around and purchase a papyrus if we wanted. I ended up buying a small papyrus that has my name in a cartouche in the middle and is surrounded by the hieroglyphic alphabet.
 

 
We ended the night by taking a sleeper train from Cairo to Aswan. My bunk-mate was a man from Ireland who was on holiday. He had flown from Dublin to London and then on to Cairo, but upon reaching Cairo his bags were lost. He was downtrodden and had only his carry-on bag which consisted of his money and not much else. I ended up giving him some of my things, including some medicine since he was suffering from a head cold. He really was having a bad start to his trip and was making his way to Luxor. It’s hard to stay upbeat when so many bad things happen to you so I hope his time in Luxor was better.
 
We boarded the train around 8:45PM and rolled into Aswan, a much different city than Cairo, around 9:50AM the next day.