Egypt (Cairo and the Pyramids)

I got back this morning from Cairo, Egypt which was definitely the craziest (and most exhausting!) experience of my life. I woke up at 6:45 Saturday morning to go for my run before work per usual. I packed up everything I would need and brought it to work with me. I left work at 3:00 and caught a 5:00 bus ride to Eilat. It was 5 hours, but quite uneventful. Leora and I met up with Rose and Evan (who live in Tel Aviv) in Eilat and got dinner and walked around when we waited for our tour group to pick us up at the bus station at midnight. We paid $230 for a guided tour of Cairo, and I am so glad we did! No matter how cheaper it would have been if we had done it by ourselves, Egypt is so sketchy that this was worth it! An Israeli from the tour company we hired picked us up and drove us to the border (a 10, 15 minute ride). She got us through the Israeli border and instructed us that someone would meet us when we walked to the Egyptian border control. The trip started out interesting immediately, as a drunk Israeli also crossing the border said to me "At yaffa" ("you're beautiful") and kept staring at me and smiling this crazy grin!! Oh, Israel.
An Egyptian, who spoke English, met us at the Egyptian border control--an old, somewhat sketchy, un-airconditioned building-- took our passports, dealt with the Egyptian authorities, we converted some shekels into Egyptian pounds, and then we were in Egypt! The passport guy brought us to a 14 person van, told us to get in, we all hopped in, said it would be about a 6 hour ride, he left, and then 3 random men got in. It was about 1:30 AM at this point. We assumed one of these men was our tour guide but none of the Egyptian men said anything to us, and we very quickly learned that their English capabilities were none to limited. We were pretty much thinking this was going to be a fantastic trip, considering our tour guide didn't speak English and had not even bothered to introduce himself to us. Because it was only the four of us, we each got our own row and settled down to sleep. We soon realized sleep would not come easily. I'm not sure if it was the road, the van, the driving, or more than likely a combination, but this was the bumpiest ride I had ever been on--by far. Sleep was next to impossible. There was nothing but expansive desert out the window (and a gorgeous nighttime sky). We basically put our entire trust in these random Egyptian men--they could have been taking us anywhere and we would have had no idea! Sometime about 5:30, 6:00 AM we stop at a rest stop, and our drivers get out, have some coffee, do whatever else they do, for about 40 minutes while we are all sitting in the van wondering what the hell was going on. We continue on the way for another 2 hours until we come to a city that we assume is Cairo, but since no one has said anything to us, we really have no idea. Some parts of Cairo are actually quite nice, with some beautiful architecture. Most of the women are wearing hijabs (head scarves where the face is in view--come in many colors or designs) or niqabs (dressed entirely in black--only the eyes are visible). The Nile runs right through the city. We pull up to the Egyptian museum, and --at last--we meet our English speaking tour guide!! It turns out that two of the men in the van were our drivers,and one was a security guard. So now we basically have a tour staff of 4 with the 4 of us. The Egyptian museum is a huge museum (people of all nationalities, speaking all languages visiting there)which is pretty much exactly what you would expect. Beautiful artifacts from King Tut and the other ancient Egyptians--jewelry, statues, burial chambers, mummies. It is very similar to what most of us have seen at traveling exhibits of one type or another, except all these were (supposedly!) the genuine thing as opposed to replicas. Following the museum, we went to both an ancient church and an ancient synagogue, both beautiful. The church is still used today, but the synagogue is preserved solely for tourist purposes. The Egyptian who worked there was actually Jewish, and said that there are about 200 Jews in Cairo (out of a population of 20 million). And I thought Jews as a proportion of the population in El Paso was bad!! We were then taken to a very nice restaurant where a buffet was laid out before us. This meal was included in the price we paid for the tour, and we were starving, but we were all quite weary about eating food in Egypt. We had been told by a few people who had previously visited that we should not eat anything at all. But it looked legitimate and we were so hungry that we all ate full meals. It was actually quite good (vegetables, rice, chicken, pasta, jello and rice pudding for dessert), but the entire time we were eating we kept saying that we really hoped we didn't get sick! I think we just had psyched ourselves out and become paranoid, but we were all (thank god) completely fine. We were then taken to a papyrus museum, where we were shown how genuine papyrus paper is made from the plant. According to our tour guide, Egyptians are all very hospitable people who must comfort their guests, so we were bought tea and juice. Then we all basically got suckered into buying papyrus art! I bought a portrait that is supposed to be King Tut and his wife (symbolizing true love and all that beautiful stuff!). While the four of us were trying to figure out what to buy, we kept talking about how many shekels it would be, and who would owe who how many shekels, etc, and the woman working there asked us why we kept talking about shekels. As we had decided it would be wise to downplay the fact that we were living in Israel, we told her we were just "confused."
Then we were finally on to the pyramids! The pyramids look pretty much exactly as you would expect them to from all the pictures we have seen of them. The only thing that might be surprising to many people is that the pyramids are not in the middle of the desert--they are right on the edge of the city. In fact, homes and buildings are actually surrounding the pyramids on some sides. Our tour guide pointed out that the "Mediterranean is over there, Morocco and Tunisia this way, and Palestine this way." We thought it would be wisest to not confront him about that!! It was quite hot at the pyramids--again, not unexpected. There are Egyptian men, women, and children everywhere trying to sell tourists a bunch of random souvenirs (mostly crap!). One man told Leora, Rose, and I that we were beautiful and worth 10 million camels (so that is quite the compliment I gather!) Apparently comparing the worth of women to camels is a favorite past time of Egyptian men. One men came up to me and tried to sell me postcards. Unfortunately for myself I kind of wanted some postcards! He asked me where I was from and I said America and he said "Ah! I love Obama! Here..have more." And he threw more postcards in my hand as well as some pyramid paper weights. I asked him how much, and he said whatever you want to pay. I said well, how much and he said whatever, whatever. I only had a 50 Egyptian pound bill, so I took it out and he grabbed it and I was pretty sure I was out 50 pounds! (About $10, no huge thing, but still!). So I insisted he give me some change, but instead he just threw a cheap head scarf at me. I told him I didn't want this, could he please give me change. So he gave me a 20 pound note. I asked for 10 more pounds but he just gave me some more postcards! So eventually I just grabbed the postcards, the paper weights and the head scarf (what the hell?) and took off. It was worth the 6 or 7 dollars just for the experience!!! But at all three pyramids and at the Sphinx these hustlers are everywhere (including children, which is quite sad). The men (after calling you "sweet sugar", will actually grab your hand and try to grab your camera while telling you they will take a picture of you and your friends!) There are also camels literally everywhere. The sphinx is really cool. It is directly situated between two of the pyramids, so it makes for a great shot. Basically, it just felt surreal the entire time there--I couldn't believe I was actually at one of the great wonders of the world. When you are that close, and you see these massive bricks built one on top of the other you cannot help but wonder how human beings thousands of years ago possibly built these! While the pyramids are amazing, there is honestly only so long you can spend at them. So we went to a "lotus perfume center" where a nice Egyptian man (we were served hibiscus flower juice--delicious!) taught us about Egyptian perfumes and let us try some. They all smelled beautiful. At this point it was about 5:00 PM, so our tour guide left us, and we settled in for another 6 hour bumpy road ahead of us. Again, very little sleep was had by any of us. We reached the Israeli border at 11:00 PM, and got through both the Egyptian and Israeli passport control quite uneventfully. I must say it was a huge relief to be back in Israel. Although I never felt in danger in Egypt, there was a little bit of unease, and I could relax and feel safe back on Israeli soil. Someone from our tour company was waiting for us, and took us back to the bus station. We hung around for a while and caught a 1 AM bus to Tel Aviv (no night buses go to Jerusalem). I slept sporadically for the next five hours, and we we arrived in Tel Aviv about 6 AM. Leora and I caught a bus to Jerusalem (I slept the entire 45 minute ride) and then caught another bus from the Jerusalem bus station to our apartment! So we arrived home at about 7:30, 8:00 and promptly fell into bed! So it was an exhausting 48 hour journey (half of which was spent on buses!), but I am so glad that I went and saw Cairo and the pyramids. Overall, a very interesting, but successful excursion!!