The Pyramids and the end of Ramadan

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  Cairo, Egypt
Sunday, October 22, 2006

After 10 hours on a bus and a couple of bomb checks, (which required us unloading the whole bus standing by our bags while they walk around with an antenna) we arrived in Cairo. We went to a hostel called Venice to meet a friend from Israel. Everyone warned us that this was the dirties hotel in town and when we arrived they were right... the owner was 100 percent shady and sleazy so we high tailed it out of there the next morning. That day we ended up getting our student cards which give us huge discounts all over Cairo and the world. The best part is that they are real!, in the 2 days of owning this student card it has already paid for itself.
Since it was the last day of Ramadan everything was closing early so we had to scramble to make it to the world famous Egyptian artifacts museum. This place was awesome so much to see and learn. The best part was the mummies and their tombs.. We had to pay 10 bucks just to see 8 mummies but it was worth it because these guys are all major historical figures, including Rames and the Pharaoh they think enslaved the Israelites

10) Camel herder

. The highlights were ( I'll fill this in later) but it was cool! When the sun went down that night it was the official end of Ramadan for the entire Islamic world and the city of Cairo went crazy! Well as crazy as sober people go.. There were people all over the streets, cars could barley move and everyone stayed up all night. The best part was the call to prayers.. As you know Muslim countries have the call to prayer 5 times a day and it's loud!!! But the best part is that the first prayer is at 4AM... this is normally only a small problem as it only scares the shit out of you for 5 min and then it's over.. Oh yeah the cheap hostels are always located right by the mega phone that broadcast the prayer. Since Ramadan was ending the call to prayer lasted from 4 to 430 and then from 5-7 AM it was insane we could not sleep at all!!! It was like he was screeching out the call in our room!
Sleep deprived we set out the next day with two Canadians, a Kiwi and an American to explore the Pyramids... It was maddness since it was holiday for all Egyptians and they were everywhere trying to shake our hands and ask our name ( in a good way not an Vietnamese way) The pyramids in Giza were easily the best and Dave and I went inside one. It was small long passage way that was hot, stinky, small and crowded.. It led to the coffin of one of the kings.. The craziest part of the day was when our driver took us to a hole in the wall restruant that was simply packed to the gills with kids that were all trying to touch and talk to us in the loudest craziest way possible

1) Camel aution

. It was like we were a boy band being swamped by fans.. The restaurant was so dirty that it looked like cans of tomatoes had exploded all over every surface and we were told to stop taking pictures so that the restraunt would not get in trouble. For some reason our driver kept yelling at us to leave because the police were coming..... but when they got there they just wanted to shake our hands and ask us our names... it was a super crazy intense experience...and for some reason 90 percent of the kids we saw this day had brand new plastic pellet guns that looked like AK-47.. They loved shooting us.
Driving around the different pyramid sites was a great way to see Cairo but I do think this is the dirtiest place I have ever been in my life. The amount of trash on the street and in the water puts Asia to shame...but that could also be due to that Cairo has the highest amount of people in Africa...

That night over beer with people in our hostel we found out about a place called Garbage city... its not in the guide book and all we had heard were a couple of stories... A Kiwi guy and a German both confirmed the story and told us it took their friends 3 days to track down the place... So we set out the next day to find this crazy place. Me, Dave, a Kiwi, a German bicyclist and a tall Aussie. We ended up going the wrong way oh the subway and wasted 4 hours but it only cost us 25 cents

2) Camel Auction

. The people in Egypt stare at us like we are Gods/freak/and rock stars and they do this with no shame (open mouthed and 1 foot away...in groups) but on a packed subway they got to stare at us from 1 inch away. I have never been the subject of so many pictures in my life. We finally got a taxi there and it was everything we expected. It was a huge slum with trash everywhere... The people in this city sort out paper, plastics and other recyclables by hand to sell to Europe... the place reeks but the people were so nice and wanted their picture taken...(unlike fucking Moroccans) There was a Coptic Christian Church at the top of garbage mountain that was simply huge and we had to say we were Christians to get in. I ended up playing a huge game of couples duck goose with an Egyptian youth group.. when they invited me to play and I said yes all 25 of them cheered like I was a dream come true.( which I am....) The church was a massive underground cathedral dug into a mountain, I guess this is Coptic style. I don't know much about it because everything was in Arabic... we walked down into garbage city after this and wondered around taking pictures. It was awesome, we even had lunch at place for 20 cents.
After leaving garbage city.. We found the city of the dead. This place is a massive grave yard that has 300 million people buried there. They say each person gets 18cm of space. People live in these graveyards so it's a weird mix of slummy city mixed with head stones

3) More camel auction,.. with guy from sudan

. As we wondered back to our place.. We (5 guys) were invited into this woman's house for tea.. well it turned out that their dark dingy place was filled with woman and we were having tea with the Madam, (who by the way looked and smelled like Jabba the Hut) we would have had stayed for JUST tea but I could smell her fat wrinkles....
That night was still a huge street party in Cairo.. Due to the 3 day holiday of the end of Ramadan. So we went out for another stroll. "Welcome to Egypt" "what your name" and "where you from" is the extent of everyone's English but we get these questions every 3 seconds (this is not an exaggeration) People are so amazed to see us they have literally walked into or off of things. Grown men and woman want to shake our hands and give us the thumbs up. It's very tiring but fun.
The next morning we got early to check out a camel market on the out skirts of Cairo. These camels are driven in herds from all over Africa and as we got closer to the Camel auction we could see dead carcases along the rode way with dogs and birds eating them.. These are the not so lucky ones. The auction was pretty unique. There were camels everywhere. They were paraded around in front of potential buyers while the herders beat the holy hell out of them. Once they are paid for they are beaten into a truck and hauled off somewhere. The herders beat these guys so bad that they open sores and are quite terrifed of humans

4) Check out the size of his hump!

. Such is life in 3rd world countries.
Later that day, we went to the desert to Hash with the Cairo Hash House Harriers. This was a great experince because we were running in the actual desert that over looks Cario... the run was hot and super strenous due to huge ravines..but like always the hashers where nice and the beer was cold (Plus we got to see the pyramids in the distance while we ran). We ended up going to the after party for the hash (called the ON ON) at some rich Expats house, he had a pool, pizza, pooltable and more beer. We brought 5 people from our hostel to this hash including a guy from Germany who is riding his bike from Germany to South Africa. Dave bet this guy that he could not eat 5 hamburgers with 5 portions of fries. This guy had already drank 5 big beers but he threw down those hamburgers like nothing. This guy (Thomas) is a machine.. he has been biking the world for 15 years and his pictures and stories are unbeilvable! Oh yeah he rode across the states 4 times.. he thinks its easy.... We got so hammerd at this hash that we missed our train to Luxor and had to spend one more day in Cairo... Well at least I got to finish the entry! Off to catch a the night train.....

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5) Camel Auction	6) Camel herders on break	7) Me looking at the merchandise	8) The auction
9) Men that wanted their picture taken	a) The sphix and the pyramids	b) just to prove I was there	c)
d) camel and pyramid	e)	f) I wish we could!	g) Jumping the pyramids
h) Dave jumping	i) camel tatoos	j)Canadian and Kiwi we hung with for 4 days	k) We had to look into a peep hole for this guy
l) Colums in a ruins near oldest pyramid	z) Me kissing the sphinx	z1) Coptic Church on top of Trash Moutain	z11) Camel traffic Jam
z11) Kids in cairo	z12) Bakery in Cairo	z12) Dead Camels	z13) Sheesha pipes for sale
z13) Time to eat	z14) on the road to the camel market	z2) Youth group I played with	z22) Dont park your car here
z23) Call to prayer on a street corner in Cairo	z24) Group from our hostel that did the hash	z25) We ran down this to finish the hash	z26) Hot and sweaty after the hash run
z3) Citidel through the pollution	z33) Cheers at the hash,	z34) Getting loaded with hashers	z35) More loaded
z36) Read the explanation!	z4) Looking down on trash city	z5) More trash city	z6) trash city people
z7) more trash city people	z8) Trash city streets	z9) Trash city family	zz1) Trash city laundry and workers
zz2) Trash city paper sorters	zz3) Bread man in city of the dead	zz4) Graves in city of the dead	zz4) Stupid sovenirs found everywhere
zz5) Muslim boys in city of the dead	zz6) more graves in city of the dead	zzz1) Family in old Cario	zzz2) Guy who wanted his photo taken
zzz5) Nile river boat ramadan cruises	zzz6) Fez hat maker in Citidel	zzz7) Worlds largest Muslim Citidel	zzz8) Inside dome of Citidel
zzz9) Egyptian girls that wanted pictures with me	zzzz1) Group of guys taking our pictures again	zzzz2) These are the plastic guns everyone has	zzzz4) Islamic Cario

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