Cairo, Egypt

In front of the sphinx

Inside the pyramid where J once again ignores the 'no pictures' rules

And on the 8th day Jeff created the pyramids





Sitting on the pyramid with our new freind Rebecca



It was time for us to leave the quiet of Farafra to the chaos of Cairo.  Our host Ahmed dropped us off where the bus would be pickin g us up.   As soon as he left, we were approached by a tourist police guy who told us he knew of a minibus that was leaving to Cairo right away.  After some haggling, we decided to take the minibus because there seemed to be more leg room and it would get there quicker then the big bus.  Our stuff got strapped to the top and we climb in with the other 11 passengers.  The driver made two more stops before we left to pick up two more passengers.  Jeff and I are now in a minibus with 12 seats and 13 passengers, so much for having more space.      The minibus speeds, and I mean speeds through the desert so fast at times I’m white-knuckling the seat in front of me.

After several hours, we arrived at Bahariya Oasis and we stop for a break.  I really have to pee, but have no idea where a restroom is and no one else on the minibus speaks English.  There is an older lady on the bus, who thankfully took me under her wing.  She tapped me on the shoulder and signaled for me to follow her.  She talked several local ladies and we find a toilet in a little café.  I go back to the minibus where Jeff is waiting and point him in the direction of the W/C.  After he returns, we buy a bag of chips and a Coke from the nearby kiosk, never going out of site of the minibus.   We didn’t want to be left behind! 

Everyone loads back into the minibus and off we go again and the white-knuckling continues!  The lady who helped me find the bathroom was traveling with what we assumed was her husband, son, and grandson.  During our stop, they had been brave enough to venture out of site of the minibus and had bought more food and shared sandwiches with Jeff and I.  Despite we couldn’t communicate with spoken language, this family made our speedy minibus experience much more pleasant.  We arrive into Cairo and after battling the crazy traffic, we say good-bye to our minibus friends and check into our hostel.

The next day we spend our time exploring the Egyptian museum.  This museum is where all the ancient Egyptian artifacts from all the temples, tombs, and pyramids can be seen.  We saw the King Tut exhibit, the royal jewelry exhibit, lots of tombs and coffins that the mummies were buried in and of coarse mummies.  We visited the animal mummy exhibit, which was pretty neat.  The Egyptians used to mummify their favorite pets or exotic animals to be buried with them.  There was a dog, that still had its fur (this might Sitka-dog's fate after she goes), a cute little monkey, a huge Nile crocodile, a goat, and many other animals.  We also visited the royal mummy room, where the famous Ramses II is on display.  This is the guy who was responsible for not only building a bunch of the temples we visited, but for also kicking Moses and the chosen people out of Egypt.  There he was under a display case, with his hair, eyelashes, fingernails, toes, and the rest of him all in place.  He looks like a creep!

We have decided to go to India after we are done in the Middle East in a couple of weeks.  So the following day, we brave walking the streets of Cairo to go the Indian Embassy.  In Cairo, there are suggested crosswalks but no one, especially drivers pays much attention too.  So to cross the street, we’d stand next to a local and when they’d cross, we’d cross at the same time using them as a human shield until we made it to the other side.  We made it to the Indian Embassy, but they turn around and send us back to Indian Consulate which was just several blocks up from our hotel.  We filled out our paperwork, and hopefully if all goes well, we can pick up our visas next week.

After filing all that paperwork, we take the metro to Giza station.  Cairo has a pretty nice and easy to use metro system, which is why I was kind of surprised that Jeff and I were the only two foreigners on the train.    At the Giza station, we find a taxi driver, who gave us the scariest taxi ride of my entire life!  He literally hit two people, one with his side mirror as we were leaving the station and another with his front bumper.  Neither was hurt, but lots of angry Arabic words were exchanged and we thankfully made it to the pyramids and the sphinx without killing anyone.  We spent the afternoon wandering around the area.  There was a large group of Egyptian school kids there on a field trip and they all wanted photos with Jeff and I.  Jeff keeping asking them for baksheesh after the photo was taken, which the kids all laughed at.  There was also a lot of people trying to sell us rides on camels or horses.  We got into a weird encounter with one guy who had me and a girl named Rebecca, who we had meet at our hostel, sit on his camel for photos.  Then he had the camel get up with us on him and had walked the camel around in a circle, all the while telling Jeff to take pictures and us insisting that we don’t want a camel ride.  So we finally get off the camel and the guy of course wants baksheesh.  The amount Jeff offered was not want the guy wanted and he started yelling at us about how he was trying to make a living.  He was so angry he was frothing at the mouth and shaking.  Jeff wouldn’t back down to his bullying and the guy finally went away with the offered baksheesh after the tourist police came over to see what was going on.  The rest of the afternoon was very pleasant.  We went inside the pyramid that was open, which was hot and a bit claustrophobic.  Our taxi ride back to the metro didn’t even come close to killing anyone, so it was much less stressful.

This one is for you Jessalynn