Cairo - for real this time

We touched down in Cairo late at night and headed straight out to our hotel. Since the main focus for this trip was to see the Pyramids, we had booked in to a place out in Giza. Imagine our surprise, then, when on the drive out to our hotel we went straight past them - lit up and looming in the night sky. That is the first amazing thing about the Pyramids - the city stops almost right next door, and beyond them is only desert. In fact, if we had have been satisfied with being able to say 'I've seen the pyramids', we could have turned around and gone home.

They are an awe-inspiring sight, no matter how much you try and prepare yourself... sometimes your brain has trouble realising that they are actually man-made, and not natural
This is even more pronounced when you get up close - and what seemed like a smooth surface is thousands upon thousands of man-sized blocks, and they loom large above you

We checked into the hotel, and they set us up with Mohammad the driver (Mohammad from Alexandria, as he assured us, there were several Mohammads). We got up the next morning, and Mohammad was sleeping in his car, ready to take us for one of the highlights of the trip. The Lonely Planet had made us paranoid about getting inside the Great Pyramid, as there are only 150 tickets sold each morning. We ended up being the first people to buy tickets, having weaved our way to the front of the car queue for the opening of the site.

It was worth every bit of effort...an absolutely brilliant experience. After crawling on hands and knees (if you're tall, stooping otherwise) for about 50 metres, the passageway suddenly opens up into the grand gallery, about 1m wide, 8m high and 50m long. The ceiling then abruptly lowers, before opening up into the King's Chamber - a room about 5m x 10m x 5m high (I think you could fit our entire London flat into that same volume.) There are no decorations, just a simple granite sarcophagus, but the sensation of being buried under all that stone, and all that history, was breathtaking.

Just outside the entry to the Pyramids

We headed outside (following behind an enormous American who very nearly crushed some Japanese ladies as he squeezed through some of the narrower passages) to get a better look at the Pyramids themselves. It is truly incredible to think that for 4000 years these were the tallest buildings in the world - it wasn't until 1300AD that the spire on a Cathedral topped them.

The Great Pyramids at Giza

Next stop was the Sphinx, which is surprisingly small relative to the Pyramids, but while it appears to have once been carved from a solid block of stone... it didn't quite inspire the same awe as the Pyramids did. The city here encroaches even more closely than it does to the Pyramids - it must be the best view in the world from a Pizza Hut!

Trying to blend in with the locals - if the photgrapher had kept walking backwards and zooming in, they could have taken this picture from the door of the Pizza Hut

From here we went to one of the 'prototypes' for the Great Pyramids - the step pyramid at Saqaara. This was a fascinating site, and much less over-developed than the Great Pyramids. There were some really interesting temples, and another chance to go underground under a pyramid, this time with decorations on the walls - the sites here were much older than the ones down South that we had seen earlier in the trip, but no less fascinating.

The step pyramid at Saqqara - it is a rich historical site, with a great deal to see

Mohammad took us along some back roads, too, which gave us a completely different view of Egyptian society - incredibly poor, dirty towns. He also shared some fascinating views on the politics - the sorts of views you'd never get just by reading the guide book.

We arrived back at the hotel in the early afternoon of New Years Eve, and decided that a quiet night was called for. Sarah and Bel got massages, while Stephen and Andrew decided that far more relaxation could be derived from beers by the pool. After a quick hit of tennis, followed by a delicious dinner (thank you Andrew and Bel), we turned in - the Pyramids had exhausted us.

New Year's Day Bel and Andrew headed off to catch their flight to the Red Sea, while we headed into Cairo, first to our new hotel in Zemalek and then off to Islamic Cairo. While we were there we went to Fishawys Cafe, which has (apparently) been serving tea non-stop for 200 years. It was packed and had a fantastic atmosphere. We also climbed to the very top of a mosque, which gave a great view of the city as well as a birds-eye view of the markets below. Stephen had never been in a mosque before, and we were surprised to see features like stained-glass windows that would normally be 'Church' features.

Sarah at Fishawys

A market in Cairo as seen from the minaret of a mosque

Unfortunately, somewhere in the last day of the trip we picked up a bug, which left us confined to our hotel room (watching Home Alone...) before we headed to the airport to fly home. With the taxi driver taking us to the wrong terminal, the plane leaving late and the a/c on the plane not working, it became a relief just to get back to London...although it was an experience that we wouldn't have missed for the world!