Today was the most fun day of Egypt thus far. I went to the pyramids with Adrienne, Christy, and Skyler and got to ride a camel! The whole group is going on Monday but being in such a large group for this excursion didn’t sound so appealing. Large numbers can really complicate things so it seemed much wise to go in a small group and have a much pleasurable time.
We had called up our cab driver who took us to the mall because he overheard us talking about going and offered to take us all around for a day for 200 pounds. Then since we were just going to the pyramids we got it down to 150. Now I didn’t notice on our trip to the mall but man does his taxi struggle. We were driving painfully slow the whole way and you couldn’t even tell how slow we were going due to the fact that his speed-o-meter didn’t even work.
People here are constantly trying to haggle you and trick you into things so when we were almost there. He pulled over in front of this papyrus shop. He told us the pyramids didn’t open until 10 so we should kill some time here. First off I’m pretty sure that’s a lie and the pyramids were already open and secondly it was of course his friend’s shop and they have a deal where he bring people in and they share the profits of something. It was too early in the am for us to strong-willed when dealing with such blasphemy so we went in.
It was cool though. They gave us a demonstration on the 12 day process of making papyrus. And then when looking around at all the paintings I decided on buying one for a present. When we got to the pyramids, he again tried to take us to his friend to ride camels. This time we were ready and we told him. We had no interest in riding camels and to just take us to the entrance. We had been told there were tons of camels and the ones outside are a rip off so you need to shop around.
Inside, we first went to the Sphinx and took some pictures here. There were all different kinds of people selling souvenirs inside the compound which I find crazy that they allow. They are constantly yelling out sales pitches in all different language trying to best guess where the next group of tourists were from.
After that we walked up to the pyramids. We started at the Great Pyramid of Khufu, the largest of the tree, and I climbed up on the first tier of stones. I then got yelled at and had to jump down. Hahaha I didn’t know it wasn’t allowed! They look massive from far but up close you see just how crazy huge they are. Each stone is at least 20 inches tall.
One of my goals for my trip here was to ride a camel. Right by the pyramid we found this young 15 year old, Muhammed, on his camel and bartered a deal with him. He ran to find a friend to bring another camel over. Adrienne and I rode together on Micheal. Meet Michael!
We felt very bad for him. The animals just seem so exploited and not happy at all. I was so stoked to ride one even if it was slightly scary.
When you get on them they fall down on there knees and then stand up so fast and jerky it is really startling. They are also so tall so it is a pretty far drop if you were to fall off. As they walk, it is a bumpy ride along the rocky sandy terrain. The camel ride was for thirty minutes which was plenty long for me. They want you to ride for one or two hours and provide you with a guide to explain everything. This, while informative, would have just been too long for me with the heat and uncomfortable seating arrangement. There was a carpet we were sitting on that was very scratchy and annoying my legs. Our ride took us from the largest pyramid over to the smallest one and then back towards the sphinx.
It was a very fun day and I got to check off my top two goals for my time here in Egypt: seeing the pyramids and riding a camel!
1 comment:
I am J! And way to stay on top of the bartering and the tricks.
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