Cairo

On Sunday I flew to the last stop on my tour of the Middle East, Cairo. The thing that was most striking about Cairo was how third-world it was. For some reason I had always pictured Cairo as a pretty developed place, maybe because of its long and storied history, but that was definitely not the case. Driving down the highway you saw literally hundreds of abandoned high rise buildings that were broken down and dirty, despite the fact that some of them didn't seem very old; there was trash in the streets everywhere and even filling up the waterways at some points in big piles of burning rubbish; and driving was an adventure – people don't really use traffic lanes and use the horn and hand gestures instead of turn signals and regular driving etiquette like you might see in the US or Europe. On the ride in from the airport, which was late at night, we were in a huge traffic jam caused by a bunch of trucks that were serving from lane to lane and generally causing chaos. Each had probably a dozen teenage boys standing in the bed of the truck waving and yelling and seemingly almost falling out at some points. I don't know if this was related to the protests that have been ongoing since the revolution in February, but the general situation of the country was definitely endemic, not just a one-time thing.

Mmmm, burning trash in the river

Slightly overloaded truck

Because of the protests and general unrest in the country I didn't stick to my usual itinerary of exploring the city by walking around the different neighborhoods and experiencing the culture first hand. Instead, my dad and I stuck mainly to the more touristy sites and relied on taxis to get from place to place. Of course, this was still a pretty cheap way to go as hiring a taxi driver for a full day only cost 250 Egyptian pounds (a little over 40 USD). One British guy we met actually said that his IT company has started outsourcing to Egypt instead of India because the labor rates were now cheaper – that was really surprising to me.

On Monday we went to the Citadel, which contains the walled city of Old Cairo in what is now known as Islamic Cairo. It contains a large mosque, a bunch of ruins, and some buildings which have now been converted into a Police Museum and an Egyptian Military Museum. We went through the Military Museum, and thought it was interesting that when we got to the modern history area there were still paintings and exhibits of Mubarak on the walls, even though he was ousted in a revolution a few months ago and is apparently on his death bed awaiting trial. I wonder what they will do with that in the future. After that we headed out to a different hotel in Giza and relaxed for the night.

Cairo at night. Tahrir Square, where all the protests are going on, is actually right behind the big building.

Mosque in the Citadel of Old Cairo

The very smoggy skyline

In the morning, we got up early and set out on a day of pyramids. We first went to the Giza Pyramids, the site of the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid (among others) which was just down the street and walked around the site for a couple of hours. The vendors here may have been the most aggressive yet, trying to sell camel/donkey rides, little pyramid sculptures, water and whatever else they could get some money for. Even the guards would try to get you to let them take a picture of you with the pyramids in the background and try to extort a tip from you afterwards. There were even guys standing between the ticket window and the gate that would falsely claim they were the ticket takers to try and take your tickets away from you before you actually got to the entrance. I don't really know how they make money off this – maybe they try to get you to buy it back from them after they've taken it or something – but I didn't want to find out. Again the amount of hassle from the vendors took away from the experience quite a bit, but it was still really cool to see the only remaining "Wonder of the Ancient World". The Sphinx is pretty eroded from both the elements and from opposing armies taking shots at it with their guns, but the pyramids are pretty much at their full height and are massive. It's pretty amazing to think of how these huge structures were built almost 5,000 years ago.

Giza Pyramids

After Giza we went to Saqqara, a site with more Egyptian tombs and the first pyramid ever built, the Step Pyramid of Djoser. While not quite as impressive in terms of size, it was cool to see the "original" pyramid. There were also some cool tombs on the site where you could walk in and see the well-preserved hieroglyphs on the walls. It was actually surprising how they let you walk in the tomb with the 5,000 year-old hieroglyphs while there was nothing protecting them from someone who wanted to touch them or deface them. We also went down the road to Memphis, the site of what I guess was the original city combining both North and South Egypt in the ancient days, and what (at least the Egyptians say) is one of the cradles of civilization. It was a pretty small little site, but it did have the large statue of Ramses II which had originally stood in the city. After that, between the heat, the hassle and all the walking around, we were pyramid-ed out and went back to the hotel. We chilled at the pool the rest of the day, but at night we went back to the Giza Pyramids for the "Sound and Light" show that is projected on the pyramids, Sphinx and tombs. It was pretty cheesy, like the Stone Mountain laser show for you Atlanta folks, but did provide some cool pictures and some background on the pyramids since they whole site didn't even have a museum or tourist office or anything.

Step Pyramid of Djoser

Little sphinx in Memphis

Statue of Ramses II

The "Sound and Light" show

And then today, the trip is ending with a flight back to Amsterdam (where I'm writing this up). Despite the hassles with airport security and with the aggressive vendors everywhere, it was a really awesome trip. One of the reasons I wanted to come to the Middle East was because I had never been and wanted to experience a new culture – and I definitely got an abundance of that. On top of that I got to see some of the biggest "must see" monuments in the world and got to meet up with friends and family while doing it, so all in all I really have nothing to complain about.

And sadly, tomorrow will be my last day in Amsterdam. I'll spend the day packing up and wrapping up loose ends, and then it's back to the US for Pi Reunion weekend in Vegas and a weeklong road trip through some national parks in the western US. While my European time will be done by then, I'll probably throw some updates up here since it's all pretty much part of my trip home anyways.