Day twenty one marked the halfway point in Anna’s and my trip, the conclusion of Luke’s trip, and the tail end of Lars’. The day started with a 5:30am alarm so Luke could get going to the airport. After two weeks of being together every waking moment, it felt weird to be saying goodbye. But off he went. The remaining three of us had planned to get going at the same time for an early arrival at the Giza pyramids, but both Anna and Lars had had rough nights and were experiencing GI disturbances, and I was as fatigued as anyone by the past two weeks and the pervious night’s marathon McDonalds WiFi hotel searching session. So we lounged and rested until 8:30am or so.
Our new plan was to take a taxi to the Grand Pyramids Hotel, which we’d settled on the night before, leave our stuff, and find our way to the Giza Pyramids, and perhaps the Dahshur pyramids as well, which guidebooks said were much less crowded. Finding a taxi to the hotel turned out to be a bit more challenging than we had expected; the first taxi we talked to didn’t want to go to Giza, and the second didn’t have enough English to understand the hotel name or the address I had gotten from TripAdvisor. Fortunately, this was one of those “kind person on the street” moments, and a passerby helped interpret. We settled on 25 pounds, and while the taxi drive didn’t know the hotel, he said he would find it. And off we went.
Once in Giza, the driver stopped at several other hotels and stores, trying to zero in on our particular hotel. It turned out that I had the correct hotel name and city, but a non-existent address. The drive got longer and longer, and the driver asked for 35 pounds. Sure, an extra US$1.40 was fine for a lot more work. Eventually we found the hotel and I gave the guy 50 pounds, since it really had been quite the quest.
And then the day really started. We checked into the hotel, and it turned out they had a tour/travel concession in their lobby. Yes, it was going to be more expensive than if we went out and found a driver on our own, but we were all pretty tired and willing to pay a little extra to not have to deal with logistics. We settled on 500 pounds (US$90) for a driver to take us to the Giza pyramids, the Dahshur pyramids, and Sakkara, the ancient capital of Egypt. We bundled into the small sedan and headed off, though we asked to stop a a market on the way so we could grab some water and snacks.
The market we went to was typical of what we’ve seen in Egypt, and as we paid we found it to be surprisingly cheap. In fact, our driver seemed to dictate the price we paid (20 Egyptian pounds, or $3.60, for three 1.5L bottles of water and three packages of cookies). As we drove on, he explained that he lived right near that market. We figured he was steering business to friends, and that there’s nothing wrong with that.
Now, this is where I should wax poetic about the pyramids at Giza. And it was good to see them and the Sphinx, even if they were completely mobbed with tourists. But, where the monuments probably had a great deal of power at one point, the huge number of people hawking cheap statues and rides on emaciated camels, combined with the ocean of tour buses and pasty white Europeans, just made it feel like a second rate carnival. The sights were good. We took some pictures (well, Anna and Lars did; my camera is dead). We walked around a bit and left after twenty minutes or so.
The next stop was Dahshur, where there are two pyramids that attract fewer visitors because they’re about 40km from Giza. As we headed out to them, we got the first indication that Mohammed, our driver, might turn out to be a problem. He pointed out a “carpet school” and told us we’d stop there on the way back. Well, maybe, we demurred. It’d been a long couple of weeks and we really just wanted to see a few things and get back to the hotel pool. No, he insisted, the carpet school is very important. It was orphans! It relied on tourists! And so on. We were noncommittal but all of us smelled yet more baksheesh.
Anyways, we got to Dahshur, and on the way in we stopped to buy tickets. 30 pounds for each of the three of us should be 90 pounds, right? I paid with 100 pounds, and got three tickets, a taxi parking voucher, and 5 pounds change. Well, ok, 5 pounds to park the taxi seemed fine, and the voucher was entirely in Arabic. Upon returning to the car, Mohammed was outraged that I’d paid 5 pounds for the voucher, which if examined closely, clearly said it was 2 pounds (I know my Arabic numerals at this point). He insisted I return and insist on my change. It felt weird. More to make him happy than out of any concern over this latest theft, which was only US$0.60, I returned. The tourist police happily gave me 3 pounds, with no apparent chagrin over having been exposed as a thief.
The pyramids were… nice. I think one of the things about spending weeks in a place with as much history as Egypt is that you start to become numb to it all. 5000 year old pyramids? Sure. What’s next? Unlike the pyramids at Giza, it’s easy to descend into one of them in Dahshur. We started to, but the air was dank and mildewey, and it was dark, and we were tired. We went part way and turned back. Lame, maybe, but we just didn’t have it in us. We moved on.
Next up was Sakkara, an ancient capital of Egypt. But first, we wanted lunch. On the drive from Dahshur to Sakkara, Mohammed got started again on carpet schools. And there were plenty of them, that’s for sure. We remained noncommittal and eventually ended up at a restaurant (“Pharous”) just outside of Sakkara. The first sign of trouble here was the parking lot, which held a bunch of 20- to 30- person tour buses.
The next sign of trouble was the two drummers at the entrance, tapping away with medium-to-poor skill on drums with each arrival and departure, tip basket prominently displayed. We didn’t tip on the way in.
The restaurant itself was entirely peopled by obvious western tourists. The next ominous sign was the lack of printed menus, and the verbal-only quote of 80 pounds (US$15) per person for a set menu lunch. By way of comparison, this would be our most expensive meal in Egypt (excluding alcohol). Lars ordered the mixed grill, I ordered shish kabab, and Anna ordered chicken kabab.
When the food arrived, it was basically a pile of kofta, kabab, and chicken, all mixed together, and to be shared amongst us. I suspect we’d have gotten the same pile no matter what combination of dishes we ordered. The food was decent enough, with good spices and medium quality meat. Plus our bottle of water, the bill came to 250 pounds. “Service is not included,” the waiter said. And, of course, with no printed menu, there was no way to check on that. So, feeling ripped off, we left 275 pounds (US$50), which was more than twice what we’d paid for a better lunch in the already touristy Khan El-Khalili market in Cairo. As we headed out, the mediocre drummers started up again. We didn’t tip.
As we got in the car, Mohammed asked us what we thought of lunch. All three of us answered with some form of “pretty ok, but very very expensive.” This made Mohammed a bit uncomfortable. “What did you pay?” he asked. We told him 80 pounds per person. “Ah, yes, it is expensive because it is good. Even I paid 65 pounds,” he lied lamely. All four of us in the car new perfectly well that he had he gotten a free lunch for bringing in the stupid tourists. Only he knew for sure, but the rest of us suspected that he’d been paid baksheesh as well.
We went on to Sakkara and once again I hopped out to buy tickets. This time I was ready for the taxi voucher scam, and sure enough, I got my five pounds change where there should have been eight. I waited long enough to confirm that the tourist policeman who was selling tickets had no intention of returning full change, and then showed him the voucher and made the “where’s my change?” hand. He grimaced and handed over three more pounds. My opinion of Egypt, at least the Nile and Cairo side, hit new subterranean depths.
Once in Sakkara itself, we wandered a bit. The step pyramid was impressive and different than one’s typical mental picture of pyramids, but none of our hearts was really in it. Plus, Anna’s ongoing stomach issues were acting up, so we called it a pretty short visit.
On the way back to the hotel, once again Mohammed brought up the carpet schools, but we were firmer in our refusal. He was a bit sullen until he though to suggest that we stop by the supermarket to but water and supplies cheaper than we’d get them at the hotel. Sure, he’d make a cut, but we’d probably still save money. So we agreed.
As we neared the supermarket, Mohammed told us that his wife was in the hospital with a heart issue. He seemed stressed. None of us believed him.
Stopping at the market, we picked up a few bottles of water (“I do not think that is enough,” Mohammed helpfully supplied), as well as some pistachios and almonds. The price this time: 65 pounds. Well, ok, nuts are kind of expensive. Lars paid, as Mohammed and the shopkeeper had some communication confusion over whether he (Mohammed, not Lars) wanted a pack of cigarettes and some soda. And now our price was 75 pounds. Lars paid.
Here’s what I didn’t see, but Lars did: as we walked out and got in the car, Mohammed popped the trunk. Just before we drove off, a boy from the shop ran out and put Mohammed’s cigarettes and soda, which we had presumably just paid for, in the trunk. Another tourist scammed!
Not having seen that I exchange, I still tipped Mohammed when we returned to the hotel. In a way, I don’t even regret it. We behaved properly, and somewhere this guy is sitting around cackling to himself that he ripped us off, but that his lie about his wife’s health had still made us tip generously. I think we came out ahead, karmically.
Well, we were finally back at our hotel, and our room has a great view out over the swimming pool, the nearby ugly residential district, and the pyramids. We swam for a bit and generally lounged, and then had a surprisingly good Thai dinner in a restaurant in the hotel. Anna and I even had our first Egyptian wine, the somewhat cheesily-named Obelisk. It was a 2008 red, and probably scores somewhere around a 74. But at US$22 for a bottle in a restaurant, it was hard to complain, and it was the first time any of us had really had an appetite for wine in a while (to the extent we’ve been drinking alcohol at all, lighter lagers seem much more appealing in 100+ degree heat).
We went to bed with the idea of heading up to Port Said, on the Mediterranean coast, the next day. We’d managed to make a hotel reservation (thank you, satellite phone, since none of the hotels had websites), but we had no travel arrangements made. Our time in Egypt was wrapping up, and we were all pretty much ready to move on.