We woke up early on Friday morning because we had our tour of Saqqara and the Giza Plateau, which was one of the most exciting things in the world for me. Finally...seeing the pyramids! Couldn't wait.
Our tour guide's name was Mike, he was a really interesting guy, and from the way he spoke, both Nick and I thought that he was from a really wealthy family and just led tours for fun. He was only about 26, had just finished university, and was studying Egyptian history, as well as English, Spanish and German.
Our first stop was Saqqara. Now quickly, Saqqara is the oldest man-made stone structure in the world. It is the first pyramid as well, and was built by the great Egyptian architect Imhotep for the Pharaoh Djoser. Imhotep was a sort of Egyptian Leonardo Da Vinci as he was an architect, scribe, doctor, astrologist, you name it. He is also the only person in Egyptian history who was more popular that the actual pharaoh during his lifetime, and became a demi-god after his death.
Seeing the pyramid up close was just incredible, and it was a bit surreal actually being there. It was also just very very hot where we were, literally standing in the midst of sand dunes and the beginning of Egyptian history, and it was all just an amazing experience.
After Saqqara, we got into the car and drove to a papyrus shop where we were each pressured into buying a piece of papyrus art, and then we went to get lunch (coincidentally, fish and chips again...very popular in Egypt).
Then we started making our way over to the Giza Plateau to see THE pyramids. We drove through this little shanty-town and were a bit curious as to how this could be the official entrance to the only surviving one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world, but only after we got out of the car at someone's house, we realized where we were. This is where we get the camel ride to take us around the pyramids...and it only cost 35 pounds more each!! (after we were promised that we wouldn't have to pay anything else for our day tour). After a bit of bargaining, we each got our own camel (the name of mine was Abdul, Nick's was Michael Jackson), and we got a tour guide named Adam who was also 22, and a little kid who walked around with us pulling the camels...and his name was Zaeed.
So Nick and I had camels, Zaeed was on foot, and Adam had a horse. After walking for about 15 minutes, we jumped off our collective 'rides' to get some pictures of the pyramids which had just come into view. Nick and I both dismounted our camels, and Adam jumped off the horse and proceeded to take some pictures of us (I refer you to facebook albums). All of a sudden, Adam's horse just takes off and runs away. He turns around and tries to grab it, but its too late and this horse is GONE. He shouts something at Zaeed, and this little 8 year old kid starts running through the sand dunes chasing a fully grown horse. Nick and I cannot stop laughing, and Adam, who naturally doesn't think its THAT funny, decides to distract himself and starts telling us about the pyramids and being a tour guide.
Now, the horse thing was still going on which was really funny, but Adam's commentary was also hilarious, as he clearly had no idea what he was talking about. Based on his information, I was surprised that he was even calling the pyramids by their right names. I knew more about this stuff than he did, and he's supposed to be a tour guide of Giza, and I'm a tour guide in London.
Essentially, after telling us a whole lot of wrong information about arguably the most famous structures in the world, we got back on our camels, and now Adam was leading us by foot, Zaeed still away chasing the run-away horse. After a few minutes, this kid shows up riding the horse! He actually caught it, and we have no idea how, but then the tour proceeded. The rest of the tour was pretty cool, no more information from Adam, but we just went for a ride around the plateau, took far too many pictures, and just admired the absolute size of the pyramids and the entire area. It was unreal actually being there, and being up on top of these two massive camels, wearing our kaffiyehs, while baking in the hot Egyptian sun, made the experience all that much better.
The whole ride lasted about 2.5 hours, then we went back to the starting point, got into our waiting van, and went back to the hotel.
For Shabbat dinner, we went back to the Hilton where we had made dinner reservations at a restaurant called Falafel. The food was delicious (yes, we had fish again... but this time with vegetables), and it came with a belly dancing show which was amazing! AND Nick and I both participated in various ways... was hilarious.
Then we went downstairs and there was a massive wedding taking place in the lobby. So we watched that for a bit, which was really nice actually, and then we made our way back to our hostel, being very careful not to be hit by 40 different cars while crossing at a crosswalk when the little guy was definitely flashing green.
The next morning, we woke up to go and see the Egyptian Museum which was amazing. Basically every piece that could be removed from the major sites in Egypt (that aren't already in Paris or London) have been stored in the Egyptian Museum. We opted not to take a tour, and just wandered around on our own. We finally got to see the King Tutankhamun treasures which were absolutely exquisite, and then made our way to lunch.
After lunch, we wandered around the market area of Cairo, tried to find a Jewish Temple that we are sure they have now destroyed, and also nearly got run over by a cab driver who I PROMISE WAS STEERING WITH HIS LEFT HAND, WHICH ALSO HELD IN IT A GUN. After buying a few cheap t-shirts (I bought two Abercrombie shirts...and only noticed after that the label said 'Apercrombie and Fitch') made our way back to the hostel. We decided that we were going to take the night bus back to Taba and then arrive in Eilat early Sunday morning.
We got a cab to take us to the station, and when we arrived and were about to pay, I took the money out to give to the driver who had suddenly disappeared. We looked around, and found him peeing on a bus that was waiting next to us. He then came over, took our money, and drove away. We walked into the station, ordered two tickets for Taba, and went to sit downstairs and wait for the bus. In the meantime, we were greeted by the friendliest security officers we have ever met, sat next to the most disgusting smelling group of Canadian tourists that we had ever seen (or smelled) and ended up on a bus which took 7 hours to drive back to Taba.
At 7 o'clock Sunday morning, after waiting behind a MASSIVE group of tourists who took forever to get through the Egyptian border, we finally crossed into Israel, and finally had some semblance of what it was like to complete the Exodus from Egypt to Israel. Granted 40 years of wandering isn't compared to 7 hours in an air conditioned bus... but for the blog's sake, I'm making the comparison, and sticking to it.
We spent Sunday in Eilat either sitting by the pool of one of Eilat's finest hotels, or scuba diving in the Red Sea, or relaxing on the beach before jumping on another bus to complete the gruelling drive from Eilat back to Tel Aviv.
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