Apparently there's somehing called "pyramids" here

Ahh, classic Egypt. The Great Pyramid and the Sphinx

So my second week of classes was generally uneventful, as I've started to fall into a regular weekday routine of bus, class, library, bus, dinner, study, sleep. Waking up at 7 or 8 AM and getting back after 6 PM every weekday leaves little time for exploring these nights, so only expect exciting new developments after the weekend.

On Friday, my friends and I decided to see the most famous of Egypt's historical/tourist sites: The Pyramids at Giza. After getting up bright and early Friday morning, we walked to the nearest Metro stop and took the train to the Giza station. Once we exited the station, we were confronted by many a cab driver that offered to take us to the Pyramids. However, we declined all of these offers, and one man that walked up to us offered to show us how to take the bus to the Pyramids. This man, Abdul, escorted us to the bus stop and then explained that we could either take the tourist entrance to the Pyramid complex, where we would have to pay several fees to see everything, or the entrance used by Egyptians that included a camel ride for a one-time fee. We opted to take the road less traveled, and Abdul came with us on the bus to show us where we could pay this fee and pick up camels to ride around the Pyramids.

When we got off the bus, it was very surprising to see the Pyramids rising up from behind the buildings of Giza that go right up to the walls of the complex. Abdul brought us to a small tour business, and we paid 120 LE ($22) for a 2-hour camel ride around the Pyramids.

When the camels were brought to us and I mounted mine, I immediately regretted wearing my tighter pair of jeans that day. Camels are slightly wider and much taller than horses, so riding them is not very uncomfortable and requires a pretty wide stance. However, camels also don't travel nearly as fast as horses, so I found myself not really holding on to anything most of the ride since my camel always opted to walk.


This was another camel in our group named Tiger. My camel was named Moses.

After we got on our camels, a man came up to us and offered us soda, even opening the bottle cap and placing them in our hands so it would be really difficult to refuse. While this soda seemed free for about a minute, it actually cost 10 LE, which made me recall that the Pyramids were a prime location for swindlers in Egypt. We continued, being lead by two guides that knew how to make sounds that would make the camels move faster or kneel down so we could dismount.

During the Pyramid tour, we stopped multiple times to take pictures, and at one point got right up the the Pyramid of Khafre/Chephren (The Pyramid with the capstone that's actually the second largest but looks the largest because it's on a hill). I have to say that the Pyramids are a lot larger than I expected them to be, and it's amazing to think that something of their size was built around 5000 years ago using 1.5 ton limestone blocks. The Pyramids are also incredibly precise, with the largest size disparity on any side being 2 inches (this means it's pretty much a perfect square). I took several pictures, which I'll have to post the link to in the future, and really enjoyed being able to ride a camel around potentially the world's most famous historical site while the calls to prayer resounded from the nearby mosques.


My friends and I standing on the base of the Pyramid of Khafre


This is more to scale. Click on it to see full-size

While I didn't get to see everything I wanted on the camel ride, such as getting close to the Sphinx or going inside any of the Pyramids, I can't say that I wasn't satisfied in the end. I figure I'll probably come back at a future date to see everything I missed, but will probably opt to travel on a horse when I do.

When we got back to the place where we picked up our camels, we found Abdul, who invited us to lunch and tea at his house. Since behavior like this is very rare in the U.S. and we felt we would be intruding, we declined at first, but we eventually accepted as he sincerely insisted we join him. I'll admit that due to the fact that he knew all about the camel tour business and the presence of people like the soda vendor, I thought that Abdul just wanted to bring the camel tour business new customers at first. However, it turns out that Abdul was a genuinely nice person that wasn't really interested in selling us anything and just wanted to share his home and food with outsiders.

When we went to Abdul's village (it turned out to be a Bedouin village) a short ride away from the Pyramids, he showed us his home where he lived with his wife, his siblings, and their families. His apartment, though small, was very nicely furnished and decorated, and he introduced us to his wife (the two of them were both very young, I'd say around 25). He served us a delicious lunch consisting of pita bread, falafel (the best I've had, it kind of reminded me of chicken nuggets), mashed potatoes, fuul (beans), a cheesy-salad thing (people know I abstain from these), and fruits and vegetables (I also avoid these). He also served us some very good tea, and we discussed the Arabic language, family culture, and his own background (he worked in a jeans factory downtown and his father taught English, which is why he spoke it so well). We'll probably see him in the future to return the favor.

While Adbul was leading us out of his village, we stopped at a small cafe where he offered my friends and I free shisha. I abstained, since my allergies were still recovering, but the ability to sit outside on the cafe's deck gave us the opportunity to witness a wedding procession where dozens of cars, laden with people and gifts passed through the narrow street in front of us. Then, several of the village's women came in a procession, carrying wedding gifts on their head. It was kind of surreal, since I had never seen anything like it before. After this procession, a flock of the village's children came to our table and treated us the way the kids treated the ice cream man at the summer camp where I worked a few summers ago. They came up to us and talked to us with what English they knew, and we talked to them with what Arabic we could. Since the village really didn't appear to receive many tourists or foreigners, I have a feeling they rarely see outsiders just sitting on the street, and they were very excited to talk to us and kept asking us to take their picture. When we tried leaving, they followed us to the minibus, where we spent a few minutes saying goodbye to all of them.


The wedding procession

Nothing too eventful happened when we got back or the next day, aside from me eating some delicious chocolate and banana feteer (like crepes), and this week looks to be a normal class week. Hopefully I'll have more adventures to come.