The Great Pyramids and the not so great Sphinx

After Libya, we went to Egypt by walking across the Libya – Egypt border.  Gebriel could only take us as far as the first Egyptian border police stop and we were told that just one taxi ride would take us from the Egypt border to Alexandria which was over 500km away.  We definitely did not expect the 10+ police stops and the 1km walk to reach the border custom officers.  At every stop we were asked the same questions, ‘passports?’, ‘Japanese?’, ‘Is she your sister or friend?’, ‘Where are you going in Egypt?’, and we were then passed around from officer to officer, sometimes a group of up to 6 officers all at once who just want to say hi and converse with us in broken English.  Eug had to say ‘wife’ a few times and my “birthday present ring” became very handy.  An hour and a half later, we were surprised we actually got through to Egypt!  And with the help of the nice custom officer, we found out we needed three shared taxi rides to get to Alexandria.  The first shared taxi took us to a small town called Saloum (not in Lonely Planet).  Then two other kind locals helped us to find the second shared taxi from Saloum to Matruh (again, not in Lonely Planet).  In Matruh, one of them also helped us find the third shared taxi and negotiated a deal for us to go to Alexnadria.  While waiting for another 5 passengers to fill up the taxi, he treated us to Egyptian tea and sandwiches.  The only meal we ate that day was breakfast at 8am and this was already around 6pm, the sandwiches were a life saver.  His English was not so good, but he definitely went out of his way to make sure we were ok.  His final sentence stuck with us, it was “I Egyptian, you China, all same, all people”.  After hearing about how Egypt has tourist scammers everywhere, we couldn’t believe our luck and we were very thankful.

There wasn’t much in Alexandria to see, which totally suited us fine since we needed a break from the 9 full day tour in Libya.  We enjoyed our complete freedom and took it slow. 

After the crappy hotels we stayed at in Libya, Eug was nice enough to book the Radisson Blu hotel in Alexandria.  Needless to say, I was ecstatic just to stay in a cockroach free room with running water that was not brown.  But the hotel was more than I could ask for.  It was a great relief to be able to sleep in a bed with clean sheets without having to use our sleeping bag liner, and it had wifi too!  Some of the other simple pleasures we had here were: Seeing Starbucks for the first time since Spain, and finding familiar brands of facial products which I desperately needed.  We also checked out Midan Ramla and Midan Saad Zaghloul and chilled at Delicies, a coffee shop that had a cool retro tearoom ambience.

We trained from Alexandria to Cairo a couple days later.  Eug had been to Cairo before and told me about the craziness of the city.  But our luck stuck with us and our hotel ended up being on an island called Zamalek where most of the embassies are just across the bridge from the busy city centre.  It was actually pleasant to walk around the area and we found some nice coffee shops and restaurants too.  We decided to stay for an extra day in Cairo before going to Giza to see the pyramids so we asked to stay another night and the hotel agreed.   However, the next day our room was given away due to a big tour group booking.  That was annoying, but our hotel ended up moving us to a more expensive 5 star hotel without charging us extra, and they gave us a Nile view room too!  The one night we stayed in Giza (only a few kms out from downtown Cairo but we thought we’d stay by the pyramids for one night), we got upgraded to the club lounge floor at Le Meridien with a pyramid view as well.  We were both wondering ‘What’s going on?!’, we must’ve done something right.  I love Egypt!

Giza has three main pyramids and a few smaller ones known as the Queen’s pyramids (bummer for the queens), and the sphinx.  The pyramids are incredible to see with your own eyes no matter how many times you’ve seen them in pictures or on TV.  You just can’t help but stare in awe and wonder how they were built.  The Great Pyramid Khufu is humongous.  It’s the oldest and the largest of the Giza pyramids.  The Pyramid of Khafre seemed taller than Khufu but only because it stands on higher ground.  You could still see a bit of the leftover limestone on the very tip of the pyramid.  The smallest pyramid (Menkaure) was built with limestone and granite.  It does not sit in line with the first two.  Eug explained that his previous guide told him it was done on purpose to be in line with Orion’s Belt.  Then there’s the Great Sphinx of Giza which was quite disappointing.  Those who’ve seen it would know what I mean.  It looks big in pictures, but in real life it’s puny in comparison!  But we had a few fun shots with the sphinx, you can see the pictures on flickr (click the 2^nd last icon underneath the profile on the right).

We are having a great time in Egypt so far.  Most people are friendly and helpful.  We’ve had many ‘welcome to Egypt’ greetings just from random strangers on the street.  There were tons of taxi drivers honking at us to see if we wanted rides, but most just smiled and waved goodbye once we motioned ‘no thanks’.  And the rich history itself leaves you in wonder and admiration.  You have to come and see for yourself if you haven’t already.