Yesterday, Pyramids

Waking up pretty late yesterday, 12:30 pm to be exact with Chris' knocking on my bedroom door saying Ginger, get up, we got ourselves together for a trip to the pyramids. My original plan was to go to the Metro and ride to Giza then a short taxi to the 7th ancient wonder of the world. However, with our time constraints, I switched to plan B. This was to find the taxi driver in the underpass who I had ridden with before somewhere. He spoke good English and I learned his name was Mohamed. I had lost his card before but got another one. Bargaining began with the starting price of 200 LE but oh no, I said 100 LE and he said 150 LE, it's a long way and finally, we agreed on 100 LE with waiting for us in addition to taking us to a restaurant called Andrea.

As we were nearly there, I asked how much a camel ride would be and so straight away, we were wisked to the stable area - THE place to get the horses and camels that one rides around the pyramids and sphinx. We had to give 100 LE each for the camels - yes, I know, I had said never again for a camel ride. But I was assured that these particular camels were safe, their owners were good and didn't maltreat their animals. Apprehensive, I agreed since the 100 LE would cover a 45 minute tour around the pyramids. Of course, we had to pay to get into the pyramid area - 30 LE with my ITIC and 60 for Chris and Katie who didn't have one. Katie forgot hers at home, silly girl! The discounts you can get with an ISIC is very good here in Egypt, Turkey and other places, not so much in Europe.

Anyway, we had some intermediary guy who made me promise to visit his "papyrus and perfume" shop. Yadda yadda yadda. Our camels were brought to us in the stable parking lot by Omar, our guide and little Akmed who is in training to learn English. I got to ride Ali Baba, Chris had Mr. Lover, Katie on California. All were boy camels I learned after inquiring. Omar said the girl camels are not allowed for tourists because they cry all the time, no not the tourists but the camels. The tourists cry the next day with inner thigh pain! I was a little apprehensive naturally because of my experience two years ago. Ali Baba was such a nice camel - all white and well behaved. As soon as we got into the pyramid enclosure, Omar got on my camel with me, in front and little Akhmed leapt on the camel in front of Chris. Katie went solo. Those 45 minutes turned into nearly two hours while we slowly made our way around the smaller pyramid of a queen and then were shown a small opening which Zahi Hawass had discovered last year.

There are many many tombs which have been excavated by Hawass, all new since I was here in 2007. Along the way, Omar paid a bit of money to the guards to allow us to climb a little way on the pyramid of Menkaure for photo ops. And the pictures are great. We didn't have time to go into any of the pyramids and that was OK. We also ran out of time to actually get close to the Sphinx and that was OK too. The poor Sphinx is deteriorating before my eyes from the inside with rising groundwater seaping inside and pollution eating away at the limesone surfaces. The face of the Sphinx is definitely less sharp than I noticed only two years ago. I will be posting some great pics soon so stay tuned.

Yes, we did make our way into the papyrus shop with the horrendously and luridly painted Pharaonic scenes. I did my typical art critic evaluation and spouted off all the places I have been on one of the maps painted on the prepared reed plant surface. We drank our cokes provided by the shop and I managed to get us out of there in time. Right before, I asked Omar to get our driver Mohamed so we could make a quick getaway. I to think my way out of a box before the lid closes if you know what I mean. Before we got off our camels and dismounted in view of the intermediary, I had pulled out 110 LE for Omar. Katie and Chris ended up giving little Akhmed around 30 LE. Omar asked me to say I only gave him 20 LE in case anyone asked but no one did. He was a nice guy, around 31 years old. We had the chance to talk about a number of things. He is kind, hates cruelty to animals and despises anyone who is judgmental in a religious way. not your usual touchy grabby sort. And he took really photos of us. So different from when Katie Nemec, Stacie Kranzley, Cathy Holskin and I had our tour from Pack2Egypt hell.

Tired, sweaty and smelling of camels, we showered and got ready to go to our party on the rooftop with artist's studios as part of the Townhouse Gallery initiative. Artists put in an application for a two to three month residency. Jennifer was turning 23, a British artist who has a studio there now. She had a slide show of her work going on. Lots of people were there, one was a belly dancer from Libya named Fatma - she was fabulous, beautiful, young and I took many pictures. The studio managers had lots of beer for sale for 10 LE and food there too. There was dancing and really good music - they even played the Bangles, Walk Like an Egyptian! We made our way home around 2:00 am but Dominique and Shayma stayed there until 5:00 am.