WARNING!!! -Photo heavy!!!
Our first Egyptian stop was Port Said. I have to say I was not impressed and a bit frightened. It wasn’t very pretty or very deserty just…odd. I was most nervous about the ridiculous number of satellite dishes on the rooftops of some very poor looking buildings. We only went off the ship to the small bizarre that was just inside the port. As long as you were reasonably pleasant with the sales people, they weren’t too rude to you. Most offered a “very good deal” or a marriage proposal. We found a couple of cool things. The guests that went out on excursions all said they did not feel safe traveling through this city. Glad we were working!
Port Said
Alexandria was the following day and the day we were all waiting for. THIS was our trip to Cairo!!! It was also our first REAL day off the entire trip! We didn’t make the list of crew tour to the pyramids. We weren’t able to get on the passenger tours as a helper(?) so we decided to wing it. In hindsight, this may not have been the best choice but we were EXTREMELY fortunate!!!!! As we walked out of the port, we were immediately hounded by cab drivers. The port guard at the gate asked if we indeed were looking for a cab, yes, and he scanned the crowd and picked Ali. “THIS is a good man. He will drive you!” We negotiated a price for the 3 hour drive to Cairo ($40 American for each of us (4) round trip TOTAL!!!). And we were off!
The road to Cairo.
The Nile River.
…
Isis’ house?
About a half hour away you can begin to see the pyramids.
It didn’t quite take 3 hours to get there, but pretty close. Ali let us know that unfortunately, there are some bad people in Cairo and he was sorry. There are plenty of good people, but there are enough bad people and many are near the pyramids. They will try to sell us things for too much, they will offer to take our photo then take our camera or charge AFTER, the usual for large touristy places. Ali was going to take us someplace we could ride camels to the pyramids. He did. $11 to get into the pyramid park(?)…an ancient wonder of the world is less expensive to see than a movie in LA? Or a trip to LACMA? WTF? We negociated $35/person to ride 2 camels and a horse into the pyramids for 1.5 hours. We saddled up on Mickey Mouse, Michael Jackson (camels), a horse, our tour guide Hakim(?) and our 10 year old bodyguard Mohammed were on our way. We were again told that we were not to talk to people, give them money, Hakim was the ONLY one to take pictures for us and basically, stay together.
Mohammed with the map of our tour.
Our transportation.
Then we were there. The pyramids are more enormous than I imagined. And they are just…there! But if you look to the right there is the city sitting right next to them. So in a way, it is exactly like Las Vegas. Mohammed found pieces of Alabaster for us. We climbed ON the pyramid! Then we continued our camel-back trek to the Sphinx. As giant as the pyramids are, the Sphinx is not. Luxor may be life size…
Godzaimie! Raaaaaaaaar!
Looking up the pyramid.
Me, Melissa, Mekhell and Kristin.
Kristin and I riding Michael Jackson together. Not many people can say THAT!
The ancient city.
The Sphinx!
At the Sphinx we ran into our friends on the crew tour. CLEARLY we were having WAAAAAAAAAAAY more fun than them! PROOF…wardrobe may not get out much but when we do, we do it RIGHT!
We finished our camel tour and made it back to our cab driver Ali. We were interested in buying Kartush’s and Ali found a great place for us to get them. It was a bazaar type of store that sold all things Egyptian for decent prices. AND the owner spoke English…cuz he had lived in…umm…one of those middle states near Indiana where Melissa is from. They hit it off famously! We got our kartush’s and had a 3 hour trip back to the boat.
PULL TOP CANS!!!!
If I coulda fit this in my suitcase…
The shop owner. He gave us a good deal and treated us well…while we waited for our Kartush to be made.
I think Shadow could rock this look pretty well.
Back to the boat!
It’s odd that there are other countries with similar traffic patterns to Los Angeles and yet there is NOT the stress, anger or rudeness! For the most part, there were no lane lines but everyone just merges or stays on their side of the road. They honk at each other but it’s not angry get-the-F-out-of-my-way honking, it’s usually a hey-guy or good-morning honk! And everyone gets where they are going in a timely manner…weird…
Bird houses.
The drive back to port.
Egyptian carpool?
Ali our cab driver.
Egypt from port.
So now I’ve been to one of the places I’ve “always wanted to go to” so if I never get back, I’m ok but I would go back to Cairo if the opportunity arose. There are still the Egyptian museum to see (I mean, I’ve been to the 2nd largest Egyptian museum shouldn’t I see the 1st??), Khan el-Khalili market place, Islamic Cairo, and the Coptic Museum…or just hanging out it THE desert of all deserts!
JaimieF 