Giza pyramids Monday October 16, 2006

Trip Start May 01, 2002
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Trip End May 01, 2009


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Flag of Egypt  ,
Saturday, October 28, 2006

if you walk out of the hilton pyramids you will see three or four decrepit taxis waiting for business. it costs about 10 egp for a trip to the pyramids of giza. we did not have this information and so ordered a taxi from the hilton concierge desk. a decrepit taxi with no air conditioning drove up right on time to take us to the pyramids. the contract price was 80 egp for the round trip and two hours of waiting time at the pyramids. the driver was a bedouin named abdo and quite a character. for one thing, he convinced us that we did not need two hours to look at the pyramids in his very quaint but entertaining way. just look and go back - take a nap, he said. it sounded reasonable and the nap was very inviting as we were suffering from jet lag.

at the entrance there was chaos. we had to get out of the car and buy admission tickets jostling with beefy german tourists to get to the tiny ticket window that must have been itself about 5000 years old Pyramids
Pyramids
 . then we went through a security check point manned by a woman who only spoke arabic. then back to the car and on to the pyramids.

abdo parked the car in the very large parking lot and told us to go ahead and take a look around and prompty went to sleep. we walked first to the boat and we were followed by a guy on a camel who insisted that we go on a camel ride. we said no no no no no and he said yes yes yes yes yes and then we said no no no no no and then he said yes yes yes yes yes and so on and so forth until we finally walked into the boat building. there once again we went through a security check and had to put on giant mocassins over our shoes only to learn that we had to go out to another ancient ticket booth with tiny windows secured by iron bars. on the way there my sweet wife pencil lost patience and we decided to just look at the boat from the outside for free. here is our impression of the boat: it is one big boat. it's huge.

then we went for a stroll right along a pyramid marvelling at the size of those stones when along came another salesman and we tried our best to get rid of him but could not and ended up buying an arabic headdress. (later we spotted quite a few fellow suckers with arabic headdresses.) i told pencil that it was her fault because she had made eye contact with that guy and i had warned her that it would be trouble if she did and then i went on and on lecturing her about that. it got to her. she said, that's enough and that she did not want to hear about that stuff any more. i apologized. i'm sorry sweetheart, i said, maybe i am an asshole. "not maybe" she replied. ok, so i'm an asshole. i accept it. thanks a lot. now i know.

anyway we went around for about an hour and saw all there was to see including the sphinx. walking through the innards of a pyramid that had fallen apart gave us a lot of insight into the construction of the insides of pyramids, their chambers and their passageways and so on. i think that is the most amazing part of the pyramids.

by the way, did you know that the reason the sphinx is so badly damaged is that it was once used for target practice by cannoneers. i get the feeling that the egyptians did not really value their antiquity until the foreigners started taking away what could be moved and coming to see what could not. of course, now they are crying alligator tears that the british took all their antiquity away but at that time they really did not give a damn. look at india. the only complete survey of all antiquities in all of india was the one done by the british in 1896. until then the indians did not really know what historical treasures they had.

anyway, back to the scene of the sphinx. we were amazed and amused by the number of tour groups with their own tour guide all of them talking in their own native tongue creating quite a cacophony. we heard greek, german, spanish, chinese, korean, japanese, and russian. we didn't hear any arabic.

finally we got back to the hotel and paid abdo well. pencil even gave him a tip of 10 egp. he was a very handsome man and a little firtatious with her. how can he not? pencil is a pretty woman. she got a lot of attention from the men on this trip and i think she enjoyed it. she told me that egyptian men were handsome. i think they are very handsome and very gracious and polite as well.

ok, enough of that. when we got to our room we found a belated welcome gift from the hotel. it was a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket and two champagne glasses along with some bread rolls and other baked goodies. we put the welcome gift to very good use and then sank deep into our bed for a very well deserved nap. hello jet lag.
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