I spent Friday the 29th just resting from all the Istanbul walking and sightseeing. After breakfast, I returned to my room and spent the time writing, reading, and some just sitting on the balcony soaking up some sun and relaxing with my leg up. Dinner Friday was a decent chicken quesadilla in the bar downstairs with a Negroni like substance to drink – it was definitely missing something. I later learned that the bar does not have sweet vermouth and used a sweet red wine instead – feel free to shudder, I did! The bartender said that the issue was simply due to import difficulties and I can imagine that alcohol import to Muslim countries might be a bit problematic, but they did have gin, whisky, whiskey, vodka etc. Apparently, there has been no urgency to address the problem since people who have never had a Negroni liked the drink they were served. Another shudder!

The Pyramid tour was scheduled for Saturday March 30th with a pick up around 9 am. I had breakfast early and was in the restaurant when my guide, texted via WhatsApp. I met my guide, Michael, and our driver, Ahmed and we rode on the Cairo ring road to Giza in about 40 minutes. Some observations on driving around Cairo… It’s semi-controlled chaos or bedlam! Slow vehicles drive the left lanes without a care; they get passed by faster vehicles with or without turn signals. Cars, trucks, motorcycles and mini-buses often whip across two or more lanes of traffic to get to an exit. Buses, used to transport workers, stop at places with no bus stop signage and partially block lanes to pick up passengers. Scooters with three or more people, trucks piled high with packages and people riding on top and on the sides weave through traffic. Our driver had no comment about the chaos and took it in stride – Calmer traffic on a Saturday, he said. I cannot imagine weekday traffic! Boston traffic is positively boring and sedate compared to this! 

Michael and I were dropped off near the Pyramids, while the driver parked and waited somewhere nearby. Having a guide made everything so much easier; we just seemed to flow thru Security, and up the path to the Great Pyramid with Michael giving educational content which I only partially listed to.  The pictures I’d seen before coming here; they did not capture how large these structures are or maybe I just did not notice the cues. They are huge!

The physical presence of these structures is so captivating that I really wasn’t paying much attention to Michael. They are about 5 millennia old, constructed of blocks of stone which fit together tightly and are, at the base, nearly as tall as I am. I’d heard and read about the Pyramids throughout my life, but that did not prepare me for actually seeing the three most famous ones. There are many others throughout Egypt and likely more buried under the sand and undiscovered.  Note, according to Michael the largest of the three pyramids has never been opened. It is not for lack of trying, rather no one has found an entrance. 

From there, we got back in the car and drove a short way to a place where I rode a camel. Note for all: the gait of a camel is NOT like that of a horse. My legs and back would be very sore after a camel ride over any real distance.

Another short drive took us to to see the Sphinx. It was smaller than I expected – I thought that it was about the same size as the Pyramids. Instead it was about the same size as the smallest of the three Great Pyramids.

We visited a government sanctioned purveyor of essential oils and then went to see how papyrus was made. I enjoyed seeing how one striped the green skin from the plant and then crushed and rolled the inner white portion into strips to make it more flexible. The flexible strips are then soaked in water for 10 or 30 days and then woven into rectangular sheets, pressed and dried. I’m amazed at the durability of papyrus but I guess the papyrus is not food for insects and as long as it is dry, bacteria doesn’t affect it. 

We drove back to Cairo after lunch, past a huge cemetery for the people of Cairo, the City of the Dead. It dates back several thousand years; I can believe it since it took more than 20 minutes ON THE HIGHWAY to pass this place. We drove past the Cairo Khan El Khalili bazaar; Michael said that it is the largest or oldest largest open air market in the Middle East (we would have stopped but I was not interested in any more shopping). Our last stop was the Egyptian Museum.

I was pretty tired and my knee was getting more stiff and painful by this point so we toured the first floor with Michael adding useful commentary. Notice that the scribe statue found in the Saqqara necropolis is on Egyptian money (https://www.worldbanknotescoins.com/2015/06/egypt-200-pounds-banknote-2007-seated-scribe.html ; https://egypt-museum.com/statue-of-seated-scribe/)

We walked up the stairs to the second floor where I could see some items from King Tut’s tomb. I know that I saw the gold head and face mask many decades ago when my mother took my sister and I to see the traveling King Tut exhibit – it was nice to think on that occasion and to see the piece again. There were too many people in the way to get a good photo of it this time.

I was done in at that point so we made our way out to the street where our driver picked us up and drove us back to the hotel. It was only about 3 or 4 in the afternoon so I had a shorter tour than planned; I still gave Michael a sizable tip to split with the driver – the tour had been worth the money I’d paid and they definitely added value.