So… take 2? From our post from yesterday you can tell that we were less than pleased with our “guide,” so today we will redo the pyramids as we wanted to do them yesterday. Hopefully we can get into them all and explore a bit more. My partner just has to try to sneak out so that our “guide” doesn’t get any ideas. You’d think it would be easy… but since last night my travel partner has probably received about 10 messages and 10 calls from the “guide” wondering where we were, what we were doing, etcetera. A big change from being completely just the two of us for over two months so far….
Anyway!! We decide to do that, but first we want an Egyptian SIM card. The wifi isn’t reliable in our hotel (talking to others at breakfast they agreed with us), so the easiest is to get a SIM card. Or so we thought… get ready for a rant….
So, we get up and go downstairs to the front desk to get a SIM card. When we arrived the manager said we could get a SIM card at the front desk. Well… not entirely true. “We don’t have any right now, but we will get one for you. About one hour.” No problem, we’re not ready yet anyway. We pay the 20 USD and go up and get our breakfast. Another nice breakfast.
We take our time eating, go downstairs and get ready, shower, prepare the cameras and batteries for today. Well… it’s been an hour and a half and the front desk hasn’t come up yet. Hmmm. We go down. “Yes yes! Right away!” We wait upstairs again. Nothing. We go back down and he says that he will go right now and we should wait. My partner complains that he’s already been waiting 2 hours and nothing, let’s go now. The attendant gets uncomfortable, but agrees and we all leave. We literally make it around the corner, and step into a convenience store. What…? Was that it? 10 steps away?? Nope. Not that easy. The hotel guy goes in and buys some nuts and throws them in his pocket and starts eating them and talking to the guy behind the counter. Finally my partner gets annoyed and asks if we’re getting the SIM card here or not, the hotel guy says no so my partner says “let’s go then”. He seems annoyed but agrees and we leave. We’re walking in the same direction as the garage where we got food, away from the pyramids and the hotel. The hotel guy is SO slow. I lost count how many times my partner turned to him and told him to hurry up. We walk and walk. Wow. We pass so many convenience stores all with signs saying they sell SIM cards. We ask about each as we walk past, but the hotel guy says “no, not here”. Wow. We continue walking. With every step my partner is getting more and more annoyed. The hotel guy starts asking my partner if he’s annoyed, wrong move. He tells him that of course he’s annoyed, he’s been waiting this long and the hotel guy wasn’t capable of doing anything. Don’t tell us that you can do something when you can’t, and hurry up!
We continue, haha.
Finally we turn onto a big street, seems like it must be “downtown” Giza or something with the number of big stores, cars, and people. My partner is too annoyed to take a picture, but if you’re curious we’re now on Al Haram Road. Finally the hotel guy points to the store and we walk inside. FINALLY!
The hotel guy comes in with us and immediately starts speaking very quickly to the attendants at the phone company. My partner is so annoyed that he just says “no. You talk to me, I’m the client, he has nothing to do here”. They immediately switch to English and start helping. Wow. Never has a process been so slow. We literally have two male attendants and they really seem like they have no idea what’s going on. My partner has to fill out a ton of paperwork, but they have no idea what to do with it. Finally a woman supervisor comes over and helps a bit. The whole time the hotel guy is talking to them saying who knows what. Finally we ask why it’s taking so long and they say “this is how it is in the Middle East”. Wrong answer. We immediately tell them that that’s not true because we’ve gotten SIM cards in Qatar, Oman, UAE, and Saudi Arabia much much faster than here…
Finally it’s time to pay and we ask the hotel guy for our 20 USD. He doesn’t have them!! What?! We’re so mad that we just say “we want it back at the hotel”. We pay in Egyptian pounds about 8 USD, and get our limited data plan. Then the hotel guy asks us to wait for him while he does his plan!!! WHAT!!! We say there’s no way, so we leave him behind and start walking back. We can’t get rid of the feeling that the hotel guy and the hotel are running a scam to get money, register SIM cards in their name, and then use the minutes/data once the tourists leave. It’s just a feeling… but it’s not a good one to have. We talk to various people and they say that most tourist-related things in Egypt are like this, which is too bad.
Well, we’re on our way! Let’s try to forget about this and get back to the pyramids! We walk back the almost 3 kilometers until we’re in front of the entrance again.
We think that there’s another one if we would have kept walking straight along Al Haram, but at this point it’s better to just stick to what we know since it’s late, and the pyramids aren’t open 24/7. They close pretty early.
Well… another issue. We enter through the opposite side of the line, just like the majority of people are doing. An Egyptian tells us we can’t go in that way. We just ignore him because there are plenty of people doing the same. He tells us again we can’t. We tell him we can, there are others, and we saw people do it yesterday. He then tells us he can help us. “I don’t need help, I know what I’m doing”. He says he can get us the tickets, “no money”. We pass him exact change and get our tickets, we say thank you and walk away, but he asks if we want a guide. We say no, to please leave us alone. He shows us his credentials and says he’s security, he doesn’t want money. We say we don’t have money and walk past him into security. At security they find my partner’s GPS in his bag and tell him he can’t enter with it. My partner says that he can because he did yesterday and there wasn’t a problem. They call the head of security and they say the same thing, my partner answers the same thing. They finally say “no problem” and he can take it in. The security woman asks for money because she let the GPS enter. My partner laughs and says no. We enter, the “security guy” is waiting on the other side and starts to tell us where everything is. We tell him we were here yesterday and don’t need help. He asks for money. We say no. He tells us how he helped us outside, at security, and here. We say we didn’t need it and he didn’t actually do anything. He insists, we give him 10 Egyptian pounds (~50 cents) and he complains it’s too little. We say okay, and go to take it back and he says fine and keeps it and disappears.
What. A. Day. And we’re only about halfway done. But whatever, we’re back at the pyramids!! And we know exactly where we’d like to start today’s adventure!
Let’s go! We’re excited!
We quickly find some new hieroglyphs. My partner just doesn’t get tired of looking around and taking pictures of these things. Plus, we’re walking around where there aren’t many people, so it’s peaceful and easy to get these pictures.
Then we’re approached by a guy that tells us he’s a guide and can show us the boats. We say we already saw them yesterday, but thank you. He asks us for a tip. My partner just laughs and says “for what? You didn’t show us anything?” And we keep going, haha.
Just as we’re about to go into our first area today (with tickets! Hehe) we’re approached by a vendor. So far we’ve been approached by a few vendors, camel rides, and horse rides but my partner just keeps walking and says “laa” which should mean no in Arabic, and they leave him alone. He says it to this one as well, but he says he doesn’t want to sell us anything. (We’re skeptical). He tells my partner that he looks Egyptian, and is identical to his son. He doesn’t believe that my partner doesn’t have any Egyptian blood in him. The vendor even asked about his great grandparents! Haha. And then he was even more shocked that my partner could read his name in Arabic from his badge. It was a funny interaction. When my partner finally said he had to go the vendor gifted him a keffiyeh and an amulet. Of course my partner told him no and that he had no money, but the vendor insisted. But then he tells him about his family and that he has to earn money. My partner tells him he doesn’t have any, and he can take back the “gifts”. He says he can’t take them back because they’re gifts and that would be rude. My partner discreetly takes out the smallest bill and says that that’s what he has, he’s paying everything by card. The vendor thanks him a lot and goes on his way. We’re going to get low on Egyptian pounds if people keep asking for tips every chance they get…
Well, now with a keffiyeh on we can start exploring underground. Our first stop: the Tomb of Qar.
So, we don’t take any pictures entering this one. But it is steeeeeeep. Like yesterday, it’s hard for my partner to get down into the chamber. The best method he figures is to go down sideways, but it’s tiring. But it’s better to be tired than to be hitting the backpack (and everything in it) against the top of the passage, or hit his head every few steps! Haha.
Now that we’ve made it all the way into the heart of this area, we have to start making our way back out. Luckily my partner took the time to capture this path. We start at the very bottom where we have to start by climbing straight up.
Then from here my partner quickly took this picture to show you the inside of this tomb. Quickly because these people wouldn’t leave while we were in there and we didn’t want to take their picture.
But then it was up, and up again, and straight up till the end.
Crawling is the only way to be able to move efficiently. And just like yesterday, people comment on how my partner is able to quickly move up and say that they’ll do the same. One thing though… it feels like an extreme stair master. Hopefully my partner isn’t sore tomorrow! But, one last thing while we’re doing this… you can see someone climbing out way ahead of us in the second picture. Can you see that they take up the entire width of the passageway? Well… there’s only one passageway to go in and the same one to come out. So my partner often has to squish himself against the side of the passageway as someone tries to pass him. It’s definitely not somewhere that a claustrophobe wants to be! Haha. But, we’re back outside and quickly onto our next adventure!
The Great Pyramid (Cheops Pyramid). Here we pause for a little aside, we have zero clue how these are named. The above name is directly from the sign as we wait to climb up and into the pyramid. The sign at the front entrance calls it the Khufu Pyramid. Are both the same thing? Who knows. But regardless of the official name, we’re about to enter!
Well, in we go!! So excited!! We have no idea what we’re getting ourselves into when we approach the gate to actually make our way into the Great Pyramid of Giza!
The start is easy. It’s just a straight walkway into the pyramid, which compared to the entrances from earlier and yesterday, is a breeze. My partner is fully upright! Haha.
And then it’s a comfortable staircase up. He’s still standing, although a bit more cautiously.
But, at the top you can see that the comfortable walk is likely to be gone soon. The person at the top of the steps is fully bent over. Time to start crawling again!
Luckily that doesn’t last long until it completely opens up into a MASSIVE chamber.
Up we go. At this point it is absolutely boiling inside of the pyramid. Outside it was about 10 degrees Celsius and my partner was in a jacket, keffiyeh, and sweater. He absolutely cannot do that in here. Everyone is just staring at each other as everyone is boiling hot. It’s sweaty. And the air within the pyramid is perfectly still. There isn’t any air movement whatsoever, and the air feels heavy. Quite the change. And we’re not even halfway in yet! We continue!
As you saw from the first picture of the two pathways, people stop to take pictures. Well, that slows everyone down, but of course we do the same. But we’re “reasonable” compared to others. A girl that came in at the same time as us just looks at us whenever someone stops for a photoshoot holding all of us up, haha. But that’s part of the tourist experience, so we’re not complaining. Plus we get a bit of space to take a clearer picture.
And then we’re almost at the end. We make it to the top of this walkway and we have to almost crawl on our stomachs through an entryway. It is the smallest opening we’ve been through at the pyramids yet. And then it opens up again, gets small again, and then we’re here!
We were not expecting the place to be empty… but we almost got it! We waited and waited as the security guy was telling us to go… and people started filing out… except for these girls, haha. Whatever, shows that we weren’t alone, how it really is, and it was a lot fuller 30 seconds before this picture!
Well, that’s it! Back down we go!
Believe us when we say that the cold air outside was amazing. Inside was so, so hot. By far the hottest area we’ve been inside at the Giza Plateau, and outside was probably about 10°C, haha. Quite the welcome change! And, on the outside it is also full of these little guys running around, we know many of you will be interested to see them, maybe even more than the pyramids, haha.
Now we leave the Great Pyramid and head to the Khafre Pyramid. It’s where we were able to enter yesterday after paying the guard, but today we can do it officially, which we much prefer.
Since we already showed you this yesterday and described it as well, today will be just a few quick pictures.
Then that’s it! We’re back outside walking around.
My partner walks around the pyramids on his way to the end, and just as we’re approaching the last pyramid, Menkaure’s Pyramid, we’re approached by a camel herder to ride his camels. My partner says “laa” and we’re left alone. The same can’t be said about two ladies that were coming right behind us! They were asked if they wanted a ride, they said no, and the guy insisted and insisted. He followed for the entire walkway, continuously asking. The girls tried ignoring him at first and finally yelled at him “no”. But, in the end, they gave in and took the opportunity to take some pictures with the camels. Here we can say two things; it’s lucky that some people think my partner looks Egyptian because they leave him alone and it’s unfortunate that the ladies were worn down, because then the herder knows that his insistence can lead to him earning money, so he will continue. Haha. (A picture for you to see how the camels ride around the Plateau, not of the camels/people of this situation, haha).
And now let us show you something that we found a bit incredible… someone climbing all the way up one of the smaller pyramids. Can you believe it?
We know that this happens all the time because YouTube is filled with videos like this, but we still find it incredible. With signs all over the place asking people not to do this exact thing, security guards roaming around blowing their whistle at you to stop (not here, but around the bigger pyramids). You’ll have to really zoom in to see them, but believe us that the climber is there.
Well, now my partner takes advantage of the fact that we’re all alone to film the pyramids. He films them one way, and then the other way. Hopefully at least one of the videos looks nice! Eventually he will have to look at them all and decide what to publish and what to keep for ourselves, hehe. (A 360° video has been uploaded to our YouTube page). But now we’re ready to take a classic tourist photo just to show you what everyone has to do while here, hehe.
And now we’re back by the Sphinx.
Why at the Sphinx? Because we could not enter the Tomb of the Architect because we were too late… our morning “excursion” is still causing us headaches…
At least we took the opportunity to take a close look at all of the details of the Sphinx.
But don’t think that we were actually alone at the Sphinx. My partner waited a few minutes to make it look like that. The real atmosphere is like this:
And that’s that! We were quickly asked to leave because they were closing soon, so we went back to the market area where all the souvenirs were. Since we didn’t feel as rushed today, we will show you the “gauntlet” that you navigate.
A little tip, walk out with/behind a tour group. The vendors focus on the large group as a whole rather than on individuals, haha. But this wasn’t bad at all. We finish the market and take our last look at the pyramids and the Giza Plateau for the day.
Or… so we thought. As we were leaving we saw a sign for a sound and light show at the pyramids after dark. With no other plans, of course that sounded like a great idea! We went back to the hotel to eat some snacks and rest a bit while we waited the hour and a half before returning to the pyramids. And what did we return to…?
A great show! It was a light show directly on the pyramids and Sphinx!
The show was quite entertaining. There are three shows a night with the first being in English, a second show in Spanish, and a third show in the language of the majority (usually English). During the show they explained the history of the pyramids, Ancient Egypt, a bunch of the pharaohs/rulers, and how the pyramids were built. Once again here they stressed that the theory is no longer slavery, but rather divine devotion towards their pharaoh/god. They also explained how much of this work area could have been submerged to aid in moving around the different building blocks into place. To us this is super impressive. Like most of you (we imagine) we’ve heard various theories on how and why the pyramids were built, but it’s completely different when you actually see how big the stones used to construct these colossal structures really are.
Luckily for us, my partner speaks more than one language. Why lucky? Because we were able to catch the show in Spanish and in English and get information out of both. Ideal. We have shared a tiny bit of information with you now, but we plan on sharing more at the different sites we still have to visit while in Cairo.
After both shows it’s time to leave for food and rest at the hotel. And now we will leave you with the quote that the light show left us with, “The universe fears time, but time fears the pyramids”. Good night from Cairo!
