The pyramids at Giza

After a good night's sleep, we decided to start our exploration with the most famous of attractions - the pyramids at Giza. None the wiser for our experiences last night, we once more decided to brave the Cairo public transport system, and take a bus.

Finding the right bus took us a good while again, as only the third bus station turned out to be the right one! But we eventually managed to get the right one, so off we went to Giza (the pyramids are located at the outskirts of greater Cairo, about 10 kilometres from the centre).



We met a helpful chap called Mahmoud on the bus, who told us we should not go to the main entrance, rather we should go to an alternative “official ticket booth for travellers and students”. This turned out to be his friend Mahmoud (II), who offered camel services! Having been to the pyramids before, I figured it might not actually be a bad idea to go by camel, since the touts around the pyramids can be a real pain in the backside. And, according to Mahmoud II, he was even recommended in Lonely planet (actually, Lonely Planet recommends MG stables, whereas Mahmoud II’s outfit was called FG stables – but according to Mahmoud II the “G” means they are from the same family ;-).



The camel ride was good fun actually, although I have to say Moses (my camel) wasn’t very co-operative. He seemed to go exactly where he wanted, and when he wanted (on the whole, Mickey Mouse, Mathilde’s beast, seemed more genial, or maybe Mathilde was just the better rider). The pyramids were very impressive, of course. Most people say the same thing about the Sphinx – it’s a lot smaller than expected (also, it came as a revelation to me that the sphinx is actually male – he just lost his beard over the years).

The trip back was quite an adventure as well. As we were trying to decipher the numbers of the buses passing by, a helpful chap called Mahmoud III (I kid you not!) suddenly showed up, and told us we could take a mini-bus with him to the main road, and then take the big bus to Cairo. We though: “why not”. Quite quickly the bus turned onto a side road, and suddenly Mahmoud III told us that we would first go and see his sister’s new born baby! We thought, “OK, let’s see what happens”. So eventually, we ended up in a small Bedouin village god knows where. After following Mahmoud III for a while, we decided we’d wasted enough time and asked him to take us to the bus stop. We did eventually (after meeting his family!) manage to get a bus, which surprise, took us back to where we started near the pyramids!

Later in the evening, we booked a trip to the desert for the weekend. Guess what the name of the travel agent was?



After this we took the metro down to Maadi, to meet up with my friends from Edinburgh (Pablo and Olga). Maadi was certainly different from downtown Cairo, a lot less chaotic (even the driving is nearly civilised). Maadi is where the well-offs of Cairo live (including the expats). I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many SUV’s in one area… We had a very nice Thai takeaway at their place (felt almost like being back in the UK), and talked about the good old days…