This is one Cairazy Town

 Saturday was one of those Hurry Up and Wait days. First a 7:15 shuttle to the airport in Amman followed by a 2 hour wait for our flight to Cairo. We did spend the time fruitfully though- stuffing our faces with french fries and ice cream in an effort to use up the remainder of our Jordanian Dinars.

The flight ( EgyptAir ) took a U shaped flight path, heading south over the same desert areas we had driven through last week, before crossing the Red Sea into Egypt. 

The course completely avoided any risk of overflying any part of Israel- illustrating that while the two countries are no longer at war, they are not really at peace either.

After landing and obtaining our visas ($25US) we collected or luggage and boarded a shuttle for the longest 10 Km trip (as the crow flies) to our hotel- about 45 minutes through a sea of madness. Missing each other by inches (and sometimes not missing at all) vehicles jockeyed for position as the traffic got denser ( in terms of volume, and possibly brain capacity also!)

We arrived at our hotel around 1:30pm and, as I expected, the rooms weren’t ready- more hurry up and wait. 

We eventually checked in around 2:45pm. 

Our 10th floor room had 2 massive balconies, one overlooking the Nile and the other the city centre.

The room itself, more of a suite, was bigger than most one bedroom apartments but clearly needed some updating. The hotel, the Ramses Hilton was probably where the old guy stayed while waiting for them to build his pyramid.

Deciding to take a walk downtown, the hotel concierge more or less told us we were risking our lives attempting to cross roughly 4 streets of heavy traffic so we followed his advice and took a taxi ( $5 fare for 4 of us)

After seeing our lives flash before us several times in the course of 1.5 Km we got out and spent a couple of hours Walking Like Egyptians- meaning looking both ways on one way streets and running like hell at crosswalks.

 

After a couple of hours looking at shops- (3 out of every 5 seemed to be shoe shops, the other two being men’s suits and bakeries) we found what seemed to be the most popular shawarma shop in town and filled up for a little over $20 for 4 of us.

We decided that walking was cheaper than a taxi and possibly less dangerous so we hoofed it back to the hotel and crossed streets at the same time as the locals. Even though it was dark, half the cars had no lights on, 90% had collision damage and motorcycles seemed to get extra points for attempts to mow down pedestrians. Amazingly we made it unscathed across streets with 5 or 6 lanes of traffic, although we did come pretty close to leaving brown streaks on the pavement.

With our bus tour the following morning scheduled to start at 7:15am we headed for bed early, the sound of angry car horns providing a steady backbeat until well into the night.

Another early start today (Sunday) found us heading for the section of the city known as Giza, where we spent a couple of hours viewing a complex that included several pyramids as well as the Sphinx. The largest of the 7 (?) located there is the Pyramid of Khufu. Constructed in the Fourth Dynasty (2570BC)  it is supposedly the biggest of all the Egyptian pyramids.

Taking a pre-arranged carriage ride out into the desert for a “really amazing view” we joined a throng of other carriage riders and tourists on camels to have our photos taken with all 7 of the pyramids in the background. 

Of course tips were expected for the task, and many of the carriage drivers were quick to point out that our tips were “ unacceptable.” After forking over a couple of extra bucks things began to get a little heated as the driver demanded even more. Having heard stories of drivers dropping people off further out in the desert I was expecting a serious altercation but he realized he wasn’t going to win so he returned us to our pickup point. 

Lodging a complaint with our guide, we were told that such actions were not to be tolerated. He reimbursed us for the extra $$ that we and some others in our group had paid. He also took copies of our photos of the offending drivers and planned to get his money back from them on his next visit. A hard lesson learned! 

Following our pyramid visit we made a stop at a papyrus museum where we were shown how papyrus paper was made -something we already learned last year at a similar museum in Syracuse, Sicily.

 Of course, we couldn’t leave empty handed ! So Susanna and her friend Bonnie spent some time negotiating a reduced price on two fairly intricate papyrus paintings. The price for both started at $800 US and we ultimately settled on $300 with 2 large decorative calendars “thrown in for free”! I imagine framing and matting the two pieces (roughly 14 x30 inches) will more than double the price but you only live once!

Our final stop was the Cairo museum for a two hour guided tour. The buildings contents are slowly being moved to an even grander site which is not quite ready for opening, but there were still plenty of pieces on display from the various dynasties of ancient Egypt.