Pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx on Horseback

It was Ryan’s last day today, so we had to – just had to – make it to the pyramids, the Pyramids of Giza.

I mean, who comes to Egypt and doesn’t see the pyramids?!

My point exactly.

His flight was leaving that afternoon, so off we went bright’n’early to go see ourselves some pyramids.

As per usual, we were some of the only Caucasian tourists, although there were a lot of locals there since it was a holiday for the birth of the prophet Mohammed.

We were told not to have a guide inside, but one of the guides insisted that he would provide us with a tour for no extra cost and proceeded to take our tickets without us realizing, so we went along with him.

In present day, the Nile River is quite far from the Pyramids of Giza. However, back in the day, the Nile would swell all the way to its location, which is how they transported all of the stones to build the pyramids – by boat.

The pyramids actually used to be completely smooth alabaster, but now they look more like step pyramids since most of it has been taken away. They really are ginormous – pictures just can’t capture their grandeur. It’s weird though, because I felt like it was kind of no big deal that we were there. Although they were big, there wasn’t a very big presence in this area. It’s as if there has been so many people trampling the ground that the energy that was once there no longer exists. I don’t really know how to explain it, but it just didn’t felt the way that I had expected.

I told my Momster this, and she agreed. She said that she felt a much stronger presence while she visited the Valley of the Kings near Luxor and Aswan in ‘Upper Egypt’, which is located in the South of the country. I don’t think that I will be able to make it down there this trip, but it’s definitely on my list of things to do at some point in my life!

After a quick photo shoot on the pyramids – we climbed up a bit far and were scolded by one of the security guards – we moved on to one of the tombs underground.

It was a tight squeeze to get down there – we went down tiny stairs backwards into a tomb below, which used to house the lady of the King who built the Pyramids of Giza. Our guide said that the mummy used to be housed in this area, along with all of her treasure and mummied cats, but this had all been taken many years ago by grave robbers.

One of Sherri’s roommates Egyptian friends was with us, and the guide looked knowingly at him when he said this. “Egyptians know why this is” with a wink.

We then realised that we were super tight on time, since we still needed to get Ryan to the airport on time, but we still wanted to see the Sphinx.

Our guide ensured us that it was much too far to walk given our time constraints, and that cars couldn’t take us to where we wanted to go.

Solution: horses.

We had a hilarious ride on horses, which trotted about as they wished – mine didn’t really like being told what to do, so I just let it go and do its thing. We made it to the sphinx in no time, and then were told that our car was coming to pick us up there.

“But…I thought that cars couldn’t drive here?”

Either way, it was fun times and we got a couple of kissing pics with the Sphinx, which is much smaller in person than you would think.

Dinner

Once Ryan caught his flight, we went for dinner with one of the families that was with us in Dahab.

They live in a place called Katameya, which is where my Mom and Sherri work and will soon be moving(!!).

Their bus ride in the mornings and afternoons are quite long going to-and-from Ma’adi, at least an hour each way, so they decided to find a place around the school where they teach.

The villa where they live is beautiful, and even has a heated pool in the back. Paradise.

We had real burgers and chocolate. Pretty much the best meal of all time, and the perfect way to be introduced to my Mom’s new area :)

Khan Al Khalili Market in Cairo, Egypt

We had tried to go to the market area in Garbage City, APE, the day before, but our driver told us that the van would get stuck in the mud.

It rained randomly a few days before, which is pretty disastrous in Cairo – everything becomes a bit of a muddy pond. Cairo is quite a flat city, without any noticeable sewer drains, so the water doesn’t really have anywhere to go.

So, it turns to mud.

Anyway, he promised us that another driver would take us the next day in ‘a proper car’ that wouldn’t get stuck in the mud.

The drive through Garbage City was just as interesting the next time around. All of the buildings have big garage-like areas at the bottom in which they store the big garbage bags and then sort them. Each family is in charge of a certain type of material: one area will do only cardboard, whereas another will do a certain type of plastic, and others will do the less –than-appealing (in my opinion) task of recycling cat carcasses. For reals.

We had driven with our windows up the day before, I think our driver was a bit snobby, but we went through with our windows down this time and it actually didn’t smell that badly. I can only imagine what it gets like in the heat of the summer. It is crazy to imagine growing up in this type of environment, but humans are amazingly able to adjust to different circumstances.

We made it all the way to APE only to discover that it was closed for Egyptian Christmas time.

Sad trombone.

Our driver was extremely sorry that he didn’t foresee this, and asked if there was anything else that we wanted to see.

Heck yes!

Khan Al Khalili Market

Khan Al Khalili market, typically called the Khan market (as opposed to the ‘con market’, which I thought everyone kept calling it) is a big area in Cairo where you can buy all sorts of goodies – lamps, obsidian candle holders, bags, clothes, jewelry, bags, scarves…the list goes on!

We spent forever wandering around the tiny alleyways filled with all sorts of treasures, with Egyptians yelling things like “you dropped something…my heart”, “come take a look in my shop…looking is free!”, and “you want to spend more money here, my friend?”

Again, we were kind of like a walking circus as the only tourists in the area, but everyone was very nice and we were able to haggle with a few nice shop owners and got some good deals.

We then had the bright idea of taking the metro back to Ma’adi.

My Mom and Sherri brought it up as an option as if they had done it before, but turns out they hadn’t haha so, as per usual, we relied on the kindness of strangers to point us in the right direction.

The next thing we know, we’re packed into the back of a mini bus with two teenaged drivers who didn’t speak a word of English and thought that we wanted to get to the Metro grocery store, so lots of hand motions and chug-a-chug-choo-choo sounds later, they dropped us off in the middle of a crowded square and exclaimed ‘metro!’

This is where I start to wonder why we listened to complete strangers.

Then I see a big ‘M’ sign and tell Ryan to walk towards it like he owns the place. We push our way through the crowd and turns out it really was the metro – Halleluiah! We even somehow figured out how to buy tickets and get on the right train all by ourselves, although we all piled into the men’s car since we didn’t want to leave Ryan by himself in case he got off at the wrong stop or something while we were on the women’s car.

Another eventful day ;)

ATVing to the Abu Seer Pyramids, the Pyramids of Imhotep and Cave Church in Garbage City

Hi friends!

It has been another loooong while since I have posted anything…sorry about that. I honestly feel like I could do multiple blog posts every day here since we do SO MUCH every single day, but that would obviously cut into my ‘activity’ time ;)

The best piece of blogging advice that I have ever received is to make sure that blogging never gets in the way of living. I am truly taking that to heart these days. And it feels awesome!

We have actually calmed down on the activities for the past couple of days, but every day still seems so full since everything is so different here – I find myself reaching for my camera while doing relatively basic things like grocery shopping since I am constantly noticing things that are still so new to me. Loves it :)

ATVing to the Abu Seer Pyramids

We went ATVing in the desert again, obvi.

It was one of the last days that Sherri’s son, Ryan, was going to be in Egypt, so we decided to see ourselves some pyramids.

We jumped at the opportunity to go ripping around in the sand dunes, with Ryan as our fearless leader. We went hella fast and were happy to go fast through the random garbage patch that surrounds the Abu Seer pyramids.

We arrived at the Abu Seer pyramids, happily covered in dust. They are a collection of three pyramids from the 5^th dynasty, which is the Old Kingdom as our guide explained.

He also explained that archaeologists have not found any remains of Kings other than King Tut, which was found in the Royal Ontario Museum randomly. The rest of the mummies that have been found are all nobles since grave robbers have wiped out the pyramids over the centuries.

The Kings of Egypt made the pyramids first in this area and then created their tombs in the Valley of the Kings, which is located in ‘Upper Egypt’ which counterintuitively located in the South.

Pyramid of Imhotep in Saqqara

We then moved on to Saqqara, which was built during the 3^rd dynasty.

Our guide explained that the first tombs in Egypt were first mastalas, which is more like a tomb stone similar to what you would find in the Western world, and then pyramids became the go-to way to enshrine Kings and nobles.

The Pyramid of Imhotep was the first step pyramid to be built in Egypt. It was also the first to use limestone.

There is only one real entrance, with many other ‘fake’ ones. It was built to look like the Nile River, with vegetation and then desert surrounding it.

We had some fun taking pictures in front of the pyramids.

We were the only tourists in sight, as per usual. The tourism industry has taken a major beating since the revolution. It is crazy to think that the sights that we have been seeing are usually crawling with tourists. I feel privileged to have the opportunity to take in such amazing locations without having to fight off crowds of people, but it also makes me very sad to think of the large amount of people that the lack of tourists affects. Many people rely on the tourist industry as their livelihoods in Egypt, and have been forced to look to other ways of making a living since the revolution.

We thought that we were going to also see the Pyramids of Giza during this trip, but we were mistaken. Instead, we went four-wheeling through some of the local villages, which was amazing. It was just a tiny view into the daily lives of people who live in this area, and something I will never forget.

Cave Church in Garbage City 

We then changed speeds a little bit and headed off to Garbage City in Cairo.

It is called that since the people who live in this area of Cairo are all garbage collectors who sort through about 40% of Cairo’s garbage in order to recycle it by hand into other things that they can then sell.

The area is Coptic Christian, and has been ostracized in the past due to their profession.

However, since there is minimal formal garbage collecting methods in Cairo, I see it as a blessing that these people are able to make a living off of the recycled material and also help reduce the amount of waste on the streets of Cairo.

The roads are crazy narrow and windy, but our driver drove through like a boss. We made our way to the Cave Church, which has been carved into the side of a mountain.

Initially, there were no organized schools, clinics or churches in Garbage City. In the 1980s, a Minister was sent there by the Coptic Pope in order to preach the word of God to the people. Soon afterwards, he was able to bring some ‘order’ to the area, after which these institutions were established.

They decided to make use of the space starting in the 1990s, which was crowded enough as it is, to build a church right into the mountain behind the area that houses the garbage collector’s community. A Polish artist moved to the area at around the same time to start carving huge images into the walls surrounding the church, which continues to this day.

As we were sitting listening to someone explain the history of the area, he actually passed by. I had a bit of a star-struck moment ;)

It was a huge day, and we were all pretty pooped afterwards.

Felucca Ride on the Nile in New Cairo, Egypt

Bonjour tout le monde :) 

As promised, here's a wee little recap of our felucca ride on the Nile. 

We caught a taxi to the Nile in the Corniche, New Cairo. 

We haggled the guys there for a bit, and settled on a price of 80 Egyptian pounds (approx $12 - the exchange rate is $1 = 7 LE). 

We had the cutest sailor guy steering us around. He knew no English, so we communicated with him by our normal minor Arabic vocab and lots of hand gestures. 

Turns out there was no wind yesterday, so we literally just pushed ourselves out (well, our guy did) and then dropped anchor. 

Sad trombone. 

Nothing a good photo-op can't fix ;) 

We also prepared ourselves with a few cocktails. 

 

Felucca ride essentials ;) 

Overall, it was a gorgeous day since it wasn't windy out, so we just hung out and enjoyed the view. 

 

Maybe next time we will actually be able to go somewhere ;) 

We then had a big dinner with a bunch of my moms coworkers at Gaya - an awesome South Korean restaurant that you MUST try if you're in Maadi. 

I'll be back later tonight with a recap from today. Spoiler alert: it involves pyramid and ATVs ;)

Looking for a Flat (Apartment) in Qattamaya, Egypt

Guten morning!

Well, more like afternoon for us ;) 

We had an uber productive morning today - I woke up a bit early and decided to run up and down the stairs in my mom's building since she refused to let me go out running on the street here. 

I think that it would be fine running outside around here, and I have seen many Caucasians doing it since this is an expat area, but I didn't want to make her nervous, so I just annoyed her neighbours instead ;) 

Early morning mist 

We gobbled up some breakfast and then hopped in a cab that we had arranged the night before since not all of the taxi guys here know where Qattamaya is, which is where my mom's school is located, and some of them have very poor English skills and our Arabic still leaves something to be desired ;) 

The area is super lovely, with really nice white washed buildings everywhere. 

The view from the back balcony shows all of the laundry balconies and a kids  garderie next door. Super cute. 

The landlord was the sweetest lady ever, and the guy who found the place for my mom and her friend Sherri - we call him 'B' - was ridiculously helpful and translated for us. 

He have us a ride back in his BMW, and I almost wish that there had been Seatbelts. People were right when they said that you don't know crazy siring until you've driven in Cairo. He was burning rubber, for reals. Crazy cray. 

Once my Momster had settled everything for her new apartment, which they decided to move to in order to reduce their commuting time to get to work and back, she took me out to taste koshary for the first time. 

Koshary is a mixture of pasta, noodles, lentils, rice, chickpeas, tomato sauce and caramelized onions on top. It is called the cheap man's meal, and is ridiculously filling since it is carb city, but so delicious! 

I left feeling satisfied...with a selfie, obvi ;) 

We are having a bit of down time back at my Mom's flat (what they call apartments here) and then we are going to go out for a felucca - an Egyptian boat - ride on the Nile. 

He ain't goin nowhere fast

We were planning on going to a big market place in Cairo today, but Fridays tend to be the big protest day here after morning prayers so we wanted to take it a bit easy today to avoid any ruckus. 

Covers for the cars here since everything gets covered in dust. Bowaps - essentially doormen - usually wash their tenants cars daily to keep them nice and shiny. 

Fun fact: weekends here are Friday and Saturday, so there was barely anyone on the street this morning. It's hard to get used to since Saturday and Sunday are so engrained in our minds as the days of the weekend. 

Anywho, I'll let you know how the felucca ride goes this afternoon, and I pray for a safe Friday for everyone in Cairo today, Inshallah - God willing.