Siag Pyramids Giza

... but do get the final price in writing. Cairo in comparison to Luxor is rip-off central. I've met some pretty cash obsessed folks in Marrakesh and Delhi but Cairo takes the medal for sheer breathtaking avarice. <br><br>The central question for me is should you visit Cairo and my answer would be no. The Museum and the pyramids are worth seeing but the pain of getting across Cairo, the pollution, the downright ordinariness of the city makes me say avoid it. It ...

... diet of airplane food and boring hotel breakfasts. We drove to a farm in Giza,Sakkara Nest, and had a wonderful meal of grilled meats, fresh bread and various grilled vegetables and dips. It was very tasty. The restaurant was obviously used to feeding large tour groups, it could have seated hundreds yet it was completely empty except for our group of 14 and another small group sitting at the back. It made me wonder about the state of tourism in Egypt and if ...

... sign who I figured was our airport transfer and waved him over. He told us to switch lines and we started moving faster after that. Finally we got through after nearly 2 hours and drove to our hotel with another Canadian couple from Vancouver who were going on one of the other Gap Egypt tours leaving in a few days.<br><br>We got to the hotel late and checked it, then were told that the ...

... back to Egypt.<br><br>Now any time I have traveled and I hear the term free my Spidey sense starts tingling and I become extremely skeptical but the guy was insistent and he said they would make sure I was on time for my flight and take care of the Visa for free.<br><br>So the first thing was to return the one I bought which wasn't too hard and see if the Visa was really free. Myself and a few Germans who had heard me getting this deal were put in the VIP line and bypassed all ...

... the boat. With the waves, the bumper would rub agains the support boat making a squeek that was excrutiating but only Kristen and I could really hear. I had to flip around and sleep in the opposite direction of everyone else. I slept maybe 2 and a half hours that night, which was pretty standard in the group poll. I woke up around 5:00 and did get to see the sunrise, which was cool, but I needed more sleep. Everyone was completely awake by 6:00 am when the ...

... about the food on board was not great. That part was true...<br><br>The attendant then started to get our bed ready. The top berth was fixed in a jiffy and soon Chris was pretending to be "ladderman" climbing up and down the ladder - that boy sure has imagination. He can play with almost anything.....<br><br>We retired early and it was a nice smooth ride back to Cairo and soon we're back to dusty , crowded , overpopulated city.

... is eight- or ninth-world. I haven't been to Paris, or Romania for that matter. But I can tell you this place reaks in history, spices and bright dreams, yet is still probably Mr. Clean's nightmare incarnate. Maybe if he and the Brawny guy got together? But I digress. It's hot, but not stifling so - and this is still the warm time of year. basically you sweat, but not so much that you wish you were dead. The people are, well, people. Rich and poor, well-dressed and simple. At ...

... ahead I understood what he was really on about. Through the dusty haze, and so close it must have snuck up on me when I wasn&#8217;t looking, was the jagged edge of the largest of the pyramids &#8211; the Great Pyramid of Khufu. <br><br>There are those iconic man-made landmarks which you can look at briefly then tick them off the list, satisfied that you&#8217;ve now been there and done that. The Leaning Tower of Pisa, for example. And then there are those which ...

... and they were all permanently honking as if to compensate. Every building we passed looked condemned, crumbling towards complete ruin as if they had just been bombed. When we were on the elevated roadways trundling past open third and fourth floor windows things looked just as decayed inside. Huge billboards in Arabic advertised goods and services I mostly couldn&#8217;t comprehend, and of those I could it mostly only by deduction. Endless streets of shops and stalls ...

... of death and mummification, or just the accumulated body odor of thousands of years of tourists? Probably something more banal, but it was interesting to consider. The climb down and back was fairly long, and much of it had to be accomplished in a crouched position. This maxed out some apparently flaccid thigh muscles. They&#8217;ve been taking their revenge ever since&#8230;. <br><br ...