Cairo Tour Day 1
Our guide waited for at 9am as scheduled to start a full day tour. The first destination in Cairo must be the pyramids so we drive about 40 min to Giza which is a city adjacent to Cairo. Both cities make Greater Cairo with population of 21 million (biggest in the Arab world).
Driving in Cairo is not fun, to say the least. There are no rules on the road, no lanes and barely any stoplights. Luckily we were there during Ramadan month and we were told traffic is much better in that period. Well, I don’t want to imagine Cairo traffic in normal times
When we arrived to our first destination, the pyramids, there were just a few busses there. I was expecting big crowds similar to what I’ve seen in Luxor but Cairo touristic areas were less busy, which was great for us but not so great for the locals who are dependent on tourism.
The Giza pyramid complex (day visit)
Short summary (from Wikipedia):
The Giza pyramid complex, also called the Giza necropolis, is the site on the Giza Plateau in Greater Cairo, Egypt that includes the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Pyramid of Khafre, and the Pyramid of Menkaure, along with their associated pyramid complexes and the Great Sphinx of Giza.
It’s possible to enter the Great Pyramid for extra fee (can see the entrance in the first photo) but our guide said there is nothing interesting to see inside, also my mom suffers from claustrophobia so we decided not to go in.
It is also possible to take a camel ride and see the pyramids from different angles. Our tour guide just happened to bump into one of the camel ride operators
after they talked a bit in Arabic he said: this is my good friend and he can offer you very good price for a short camel ride. Then he turned to him and said in English, give them good price yes, they are not Americans
just for that funny comment I was slightly tempted but my parents did camel ride in India, I did in Uluṟu and we all agreed it’s one of those things you do once to
off the list with no desire to do it again so we passed.
The pyramids were as impressive as expected and the low number of tourists made the experience even better.