Egypt: Land of the Boiling Sun and the Lukewarm Red Bull

THE ROAD TO GIZA

Not only was the traffic insane, but as we got closer to Giza, suddenly there were people riding donkeys and horses on the same roads, or close, to the roads we were driving on. It’s hard to explain how nuts it was, but it was a fun experience.

Suddenly, we pulled onto a dusty, unpaved road with several people on donkeys. I was actually scared, and I asked Caitlin, “Uh, are we going to get killed? Is this really the road to the pyramids?” I couldn’t imagine the road to the pyramids would be this bumpy unpaved dirt road. As usual, I was wrong. It WAS the way, and before long, we were nearing our hotel. Even though the driver at the airport assured me he knew the hotel well, our actual driver had no idea. The street was blocked off with what looked to be a solider or a cop holding an automatic rifle. I was nervous, to say the least, and our driver said something to the guard/cop/soldier and in we drove to the Guardian Guest House.

GUARDIAN GUEST HOUSE

As usual, we booked several of our hotels on this trip using Hotels.com gift cards we bought on Amazon when they were on sale. The Guardian Guest House had several pros and cons, but the coolest part is the view, and the best part was hanging out with Ahmed.

First off, let me tell you about the view. The Guardian Guest House is truly and literally right next to the pyramids. I had one of the coolest experiences of my life as soon as we got there. Ahmed (more on him later) helped us get settled and led us to our room. Of course we asked him how to see the pyramids, and in response, he told us to turn around. Right out our window, we could see 3 pyramids and the sphinx. It was almost totally dark, but there was just enough light to see the silhouettes of the pyramids, and somehow the light made it possible to make out a bit more of the sphinx. I hate the word “breathtaking,” but it seriously was. I think I audibly gasped. It was a mix of awe, excitement, disbelief, and a bit unsettling too. The sphinx is creepy and eerie, and in that light, it just seemed a bit evil.

Then, to make it even better, Ahmed went with us to a restaurant and a mini mart (not sure what they’re called, in New Zealand we called them dairies, they are like gas stations without the gas, filled with lukewarm drinks and melted candy, etc). He helped us place the order and then took us back to the hotel while he waited for our food. The best part? Guardian Guest House has a rooftop lounge. Caitlin and I sat on the roof of the hotel, which overlooks all the visible pyramids and the sphinx, and just kept saying to each other that we couldn’t believe we were here. Like, what life are we living? It was a really fun night just sitting there, eating amazing shawarma wraps, hanging with Ahmed, drinking lukewarm Coke Zero, and pinching ourselves, thinking we couldn’t really be in Egypt, right?

Now, speaking of Ahmed, he was awesome. He works at the Guardian Guest House. Along with meeting us late, helping us with our bags, and making an awesome breakfast the next morning (his falafel is out of this world good), he was just a really cool guy. He answered so many questions about Egypt, the culture, Islam, and even showed us some family photos and videos of his brother’s recent wedding. He made our stay totally perfect, and he’s the reason I would recommend this hotel.

The room was small but nice, the beds were a bit lumpy (and we got two twin beds, which was good, so Caitlin couldn’t kick me in the middle of the night like she usually does), and the hotel wasn’t anything amazing or life changing. But the breakfast was good, the price was right, and Ahmed was awesome.

THE WEATHER

One theme for our Middle East trip is the weather. Going to Egypt, Jordan, and Israel in August is, to say the least, not recommended by experts. And I am no expert, but I will say this: There are pros and cons.

Pros: Everything was empty. Hardly any lines anywhere. Pyramids were desolate, Petra was abandoned, and in Israel, both of our tour guides told us how lucky we were to not have to wait at basically anything. When you’re traveling, the WORST thing (in my opinion) is wasting precious time waiting in neverending lines, so it was great to not have to deal with that.

Cons: The heat. Oh my, the heat. As in, melt-your-bones, drenched-in-sweat-from-6-in-the-morning, start-to-hallucinate, desert-mirage type heat. We’re from Utah, we know what heat is…or we thought we did. It just seems different in the Middle East. Somehow, 100 degrees Fahrenheit just seems hotter. It’s hard to explain but easy to understand if you’ve experienced it.

Would I let the heat stop me from going? No, it was totally worth the tradeoff of having no lines. But it was brutal.

THE PYRAMIDS

Now begins the part of the story where I have to tread lightly. Like I said, I know everyone has their own hustle. Everyone has to chase cheddar just like I do, and I am not judging them for doing what they do. What I will say is I think you should book everything in advance and stick with that and that only. Allow me to demonstrate:

First off, Ahmed took us to get our tickets at the pyramids entrance, about 15 seconds away from our hotel. I remember seeing that a tour, booked from the hotel, was $100 USD per person, and I thought that was outrageous. That’s like $1,000 Egyptian dollars, and I thought the exchange rate would work in my favor and that I could get things in Egyptian dollars rather than USD. Wrong I was.

The second we walked through the turnstile, there were heaps of people selling us tours, horses, camels, guides, and other services. Since it was so bloody hot, we decided to rent a “carriage,” which was a covered wagon pulled by 2 horses and guided by a cool old Egyptian guy. The problem was, as I soon found out, prices in all touristy areas are adjusted to match US dollars. So while a Red Bull cost about $1 USD (because they charge in Egyptian dollars), the carriage turned out to be $100 USD. But, it was pushing 100° and having shade was really worth it. Plus, I thought, that was going to be our only expense of the day, so no worries, right?

Once we got up to the first pyramid, I don’t fully know what happened, but suddenly our carriage guy was leaving us with someone else, telling us he’d pick us up at the sphinx in 3 hours. This new guy seemed cool enough, but when I said we were good, he said not to worry about anything and that he would take care of everything. Once again, I made the mistake of being too nice and just assuming it wouldn’t be expensive. Suddenly we had a second person on the payroll.

Not that it was all bad, of course. He showed us where to go get tickets to go inside the Great Pyramid, which we did. My entire attitude for the whole Middle East was that I probably wouldn’t ever be coming back, so I might as well do everything. That turned out to be a very expensive attitude, but probably worth it, since I doubt I will ever return and I did everything I wanted to do there.

INSIDE THE GREAT PYRAMID

Multiple people mentioned going inside the Great Pyramid (you can go in others, but this one was supposedly the best…and the most expensive). It felt cool (not literally, it was stiflingly hot inside and I noticed everyone coming out was drenched in sweat) going inside, and it was one of those, “Holy cow I’m inside the pyramids!” feelings, but oh my goodness is it steep. Steep, hot, and kinda…lame? I noticed nobody who encouraged us to go inside actually said anything about what was inside…because there’s nothing. You climb this crazy steep staircase which is only wide enough for one, so there’s lots of moving aside for people coming down/going up faster/moving around resting people/etc.

It’s a total Indiana Jones feeling (not as much as Petra, of course, but still…), and it’s fun to be there. But you get to the top and there’s one empty stone sarcophagus…and nothing else. I heard multiple people make a joke along the lines of, “They built this huge pyramid for this tiny room?” You get to the top and it’s pretty much empty. It’s probably worth doing, but not that exciting. And the steepness, did I mention that? Also, they take your cameras at the entrance for some reason, but we got it back at the end with no problems.

Here’s the closest to a humble brag I will ever get: I work out. Yep, you can can’t tell by my sculpted physique dad bod, but I do go to the gym 6 days a week. I quite enjoy it. And each day I run and/or walk, and when I walk, it’s at a 15% incline. So it’s pretty steep (I thought). So the steepness of the pyramid shouldn’t bother me…in theory. No joke, as we came down, my legs started to lock. I’ve never felt that before and it freaked me out. For the rest of Egypt, Jordan, and the first couple days of Israel, I was so incredibly sore that it made walking less than enjoyable. So walkers beware.

CAMELS

Here is where I made my first mistake that I don’t regret. We had been told from people who had been to Egypt to NOT get on the camels. “They will scam you,” people said. “It’s expensive,” people said. “They steal your money,” people said. But, as I was wont to do on this trip, when they put us on camels (they didn’t ask, they just took us to a young kid with camels, clicked their tongues so the camels bent down, and ushered us on), I told Caitlin, “we will never be here again, let’s just do it.” So on to the camels we went. Delightfully, we got back to the hotel that night, and Caitlin had a bunch of little bites, which she thinks were from fleas/bugs she saw on her camel. I had none, so it was funny and still is.

It was nice to get off our feet, and it was fun to ride them. We got some great photos, and I even negotiated the price down a bit before we went too far. So as that one guy’s tattoo says, NO RAGRETS, right?

WORKER’S TOMB

We rode the camels to the worker’s tomb, which is a little mini city near the pyramids. We got to go inside the tomb and see some cool hieroglyphics and a couple statues. Once again, our guide told us not to worry about paying to get in, that he would take care of it. I probably should have been more inquisitive about this apparent charity our guide was showing. The worker’s tomb was cool, but nothing to write home about (yes, that’s a Get Up Kids reference, shoutout to 2000).

ROBBED?

Here’s where things got a bit out of hand (yes, that’s a Streets reference, A Grand Don’t Come For Free is one of my favorite British-indie-white-rapper-hip-hop albums ever). I don’t know if this is considered robbery or what. You make the call.

Before I even knew what was happening, Caitlin’s camel guide (the kid who was like 15 tops) took her away and suddenly I was alone with my guide. Caitlin’s kid took her probably 300 yards away. Far enough that I could see her, but too far for any communication to happen. Suddenly, my guide clicked his tongue, my camel knelt down, and he got pretty close to my face.

“Give me your wallet.” Huh? “Get your wallet now.” Now, to set the scene, we were in the desert and it was over 100 degrees. Every single guide we passed in the desert, our guide stopped and shook hands and spoke Arabic with. So it was not like this guy was alone, the guides all seemed to know each other. Caitlin and I were isolated from all the other tourists, and now from each other. Almost immediately upon them separating us, Caitlin sent me back-to-back-to-back texts. “You ok?” “What’s going on?” “What is happening?”

So anyways, I had no idea what to do. So, like a pansy, I took out my wallet. I had no idea what he was going to do, until he told me to give him all my money. I had $40 US, 5 Euros, and about 40 Egyptian. I said no. He said give it to me, it was what I owed. He said I owed Caitlin’s guide 5 Euros and the rest to him for the camels. Then, he said I will need to pay him another 2,000 Egyptian dollars ($200 USD-ish) at the end. Keep in mind we had not discussed price until now. The only thing I had confirmed is that we could pay with a credit card, and the carriage driver said yes. So now I was 1,000 Egyptian dollars for the carriage and another 2,000 to this random guide, plus the cash he just took. So now I started to get mad and it got quite tense. Again, what am I supposed to do? We were alone in the desert and he had me on a kneeling camel and was in my face, taking my money, and demanding more at the end. Was I a pushover? Probably, but I was actually a bit worried and didn’t know what to do.

So I argued. I told him, “You just took my money. That’s not OK, and I’m not paying 2,000 more.” He got pretty mad, and I was just sick of being hustled, so it was tense, but in the end he agreed to 1,800. I was frustrated and angry but Caitlin was worried and I just wanted to get back to her. And that was that.

Caitlin was actually a lot more frustrated than I was about this incident. She was just sick of everyone taking advantage of us, and I was too, but I laughed it off, knowing at the very minimum, I had a good story for the blog. Plus, we could afford it, and people need to make money just like we do. I didn’t like the “give me your wallet,” part, but I should have negotiated pricing long before that point. Like I said, get a tour and prepay for it!

THE SPHINX

Like I mentioned before, the Sphinx is just creepy. And going up to it is incredibly and creepy and awesome. I don’t have much to say except it was really cool and the views and feelings while seeing it the night before and again this day made Egypt more than worth it. Our guide took us to the Sphinx, and we met the carriage driver. The entire way, our guide was saying he didn’t want us to pay with a credit card, he needed cash. I very politely told him he took all my cash. He asked if I had an ATM card, to which I said no. Cash at hotel? No, you took all my cash buddy. He took us to some papyrus shop where they tried to sell us a bunch of stuff. At this point, we weren’t even polite, we were just sick of the hustle, so we said no about 5,000 times, paid for our expensive guide and carriage ride (with a credit card, to which they said they would add a 5% fee, which of course was never disclosed until we were paying, and that turned out somehow to be 10%), and went back to our hotel, a bit frustrated but still in awe of the amazing stuff we’d seen.

CHECKOUT AND BACK TO CAIRO TRAFFIC

One other great thing about the Guardian Guest House is they have heaps of bottled water for no extra charge. We were warned to not drink or use the water in the Middle East, so it was nice to have so much water, especially in the heat. We used bottled water for hand washing, teeth brushing, and drinking, and never had any illness problems.

So we grabbed a couple of bottles to go and Ahmed called us a cab, which we negotiated rates for before calling. Our driver was great, but he didn’t speak English, which made for a few adventures I’ll get to in a minute.

Since our flight didn’t leave until 8pm and it was now only 1pm, we asked our guide to take us to the Egyptian Museum. And then I’d heard about a cool market in Cairo, so I asked to go there too. And he said he knew a cool Christian church complex he’d show us too. Sure, why not? And off we were to the chaos of Cairo traffic, which was just as crazy (if not crazier) than it was the night before. This time, he had the radio on and The Doors were playing. I don’t know why, but sitting in the backseat of a cab zooming through insane Cairo traffic, holding hands with Caitlin, having just seen some awesome stuff, I couldn’t stop smiling.

EGYPTIAN MUSEUM

We had read that this museum was totally worth it, and since we had time to kill, we went. One thing that’s frustrating is they charge you one price to get in, but an extra fee to take photos. And they really try and push that extra photo fee, even saying you can be in legal trouble if you take a photo inside without paying.

At this point, we were exhausted and just wanted to get inside. No, we didn’t want to pay for photos. Yes, we were sure. Yes, we understood. So after waiting in lines to get in, we get to the front, only to be told that we have to check Caitlin’s camera since we didn’t pay the fee. That would have been nice to know, but no worries. We were both a bit over-irritable because of the heat and the exhaustion. So, if you don’t pay the fee, check your camera before waiting in line to get in.

The museum was incredible. Now, like I mentioned in my Iceland post, it’s incredible how quickly we as people (or at least me) can get blasé about such amazing things. So for a lot of the museum, when we saw hieroglyphics and carvings, we were like, “Eh, we just saw the real thing.” But seeing so many cool scrolls and statues and all that was so rad.

One thing to note…actually two things: One, the museum is not incredibly high quality like so many in Europe. We didn’t see any maps, and there was very little explanation of lots of the exhibits. It felt old and not particularly cared for, which actually made it cool because it felt like going back in time. Also, there is no air conditioning. There are quite a few big fans on the walls (many of them were not on), but it was really bloody hot, which made it a bit less enjoyable. Still, it was rad.

UNWRAPPED MUMMIES

We had read both good and bad things about the Mummy Room, which costs extra to get into. But, as I said a trillion times, I had a “live for today,” attitude, so we went in, and it was so worth it.

We saw the unwrapped mummies of Ramses I, Seti I, Ramses the Great, Merenpath, Ramses III,

Ahmose I, Tuthmosis III, and Hatshepsut. I have no idea who most of them are, but it was cool and scary to see and think that these were actual people, powerful rulers, and we were gazing at them under glass. Plus, the mummy room is air conditioned, or at least small enough that the fans make a huge difference in temperature, so that alone made it worth the extra money.

KING TUT ROOM

Growing up, I always loved the time of year when we studied ancient Egypt. It never really crossed my mind that I’d see some of this stuff in real life, which is why the trip was so cool to me. But nothing prepared me for seeing the King Tut room, mostly because I had no idea it was in this museum, so it was a pleasant surprise.

Everyone’s seen the famous King Tut death mask, but seeing it in person was just incredible. (Sorry to be reusing all the words like “incredible” and “awesome.” I have run out of adjectives to describe our travels.) One of my favorite photos I’ve ever seen is on display next to the King Tut mask, and it shows it being unearthed in 1925. I think the photo is either this one, or something similar. It is just so crazy to imagine digging this mask up, and it looks so eerie and humanlike in the photo. The mask itself is a true work of art, and seeing it up close is one of those things you never forget, similar to the first time I saw the David or the Colosseum.

COPTIC CAIRO

As I mentioned, our driver didn’t speak English, and we don’t speak Arabic. He told us, as best we understood, to call his cell when we were ready, and he wouldn’t pick up, but would meet us where he dropped us off. So we did, and then we realized, he dropped us off on the side of a busy street, a place where it might be hard to meet again. And we waited, and he didn’t come, and I started to think how stupid we were. Our bags were in that car, which had everything we had on the trip (minus the passports, we always keep those on our persons). We started laughing, wondering if we’d been scammed again, but eventually, he did come and we were off to something we knew nothing about: Coptic Cairo.

This is where paranoid Mitch really started to shine. I knew nothing about Coptic Cairo, just that it had some Christian churches from ancient times. We still had time to kill, so I was fine going, but I was super nervous. I had heard about a busload of Coptic Christians being slaughtered a few weeks before we got to Egypt, so I wasn’t sure I wanted to stay here. But, we were already here, so why not, right?

Let me stress: Nothing even remotely scary happened. But I was on edge and paranoid and scared. We ran through Coptic Cairo, looking at the cool churches and meandering down the narrow alleyways. We didn’t know it at the time, because we hadn’t yet been to Old Jerusalem, but Coptic Cairo, with its narrow stone passageways, is very much like Old Jerusalem.

We went quickly, saw a few churches, and decided we weren’t really super interested. I was nervous and ready to see the market and get to the airport, so we called our guide, let it ring, and hung up. This time, we did have a bit of a scary experience.

THE COPS

As we were walking out to where our guide had dropped us off, we were stopped by a cop with a big automatic rifle. He asked us where we were from, and I said America. (Should I have lied and said Canada or something? No idea). He then shut the gate in front of us and said we needed to stay with him. My heart started racing and I got a bit panicked. I had no idea why.

He asked us how we got there, and we said our driver. What was his name? Not sure. What car was he driving? Not sure. Was he a licensed taxi driver? Not sure. I could see him silently judging us at how ignorant we seemed. I told him we needed to get to the spot we were to meet the driver and he simply said no, you will stay here.

In the end, it was nothing. I was scared, and he didn’t really say why we needed to stay. I thought maybe we were in trouble for something, but I think it was maybe just for our own safety. Eventually our car came and the cop went out to talk to the driver before escorting us all the way to the car. I still am not sure what happened, but it was a bit nerve wracking.

KHAN EL-KHALILI MARKET

I had read about some cool market in Cairo, and that’s all I knew. Luckily, Ahmed, our awesome hotel guide, knew exactly what I was talking about and communicated to our driver about getting us there. And the market was really cool, but I probably could have done without.

For one, there didn’t seem to be a lot of tourists, so pasty-white Caitlin and I stood out quite a bit. I was petrified at this point, particularly after our encounter with the cop, so I wasn’t sure I wanted to be here anymore. (And this was before I read that the market had been bombed by terrorists twice, once in 2005 and once in 2009). We ended up buying a small souvenir (We buy ornaments for our Christmas tree from each place we visit…I’ll try and post a photo of the tree this year) and decided to get out. Once again, we called our guide and hung up, but this time he took ages to come. We waited outside this mosque where we were continually propositioned for taxis, food, and other goods. We also saw a stray cat and stray dog fighting over chicken entrails, which was fun. At this point, we were the only white people, and I was legit freaking out. I was sure our driver was gone with our bags. I was sure someone was going to attack us. And we got lots of looks and people coming up to us and I was just scared. Luckily, our guy came and we got to the airport safely.

CAIRO AIRPORT AND JORDANIAN AIR

Like I mentioned before, having Priority Pass is awesome. It took awhile to find this lounge in Cairo, but when we did, it was great. They had heaps of amazing lukewarm sodas, a full buffet of decently good food (granted, Caitlin and I had some stomach issues the next day in Jordan, and this was the only food we had in common), and nice chairs with good Wi-Fi. It was a great lounge. Our Jordanian Air flight got delayed a couple times, and the website kept telling us different things than the airport boards. Finally, I tweeted them, and they gave me even different information. In the end, we left way late, which sucked, but the lounge made it tolerable. The flight was quick and uneventful, and before we knew it, we were landing in Amman, exhausted but stoked to see a new country and to hit Petra the next day.

Before you go to our Jordan post, let us know in the comments: What did we miss in Egypt? Was that actually a robbery? What would you have done? Was I overly paranoid? Hit us in the comments or send us a line at sup@jetsetwanderlife.com, or find us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, or YouTube

For one, there didn’t seem to be a lot of tourists, so pasty-white Caitlin and I stood out quite a bit. I was petrified at this point, particularly after our encounter with the cop, so I wasn’t sure I wanted to be here anymore. (And this was before I read that the market had been bombed by terrorists twice, once in 2005 and once in 2009). We ended up buying a small souvenir (We buy ornaments for our Christmas tree from each place we visit…I’ll try and post a photo of the tree this year) and decided to get out. Once again, we called our guide and hung up, but this time he took ages to come. We waited outside this mosque where we were continually propositioned for taxis, food, and other goods. We also saw a stray cat and stray dog fighting over chicken entrails, which was fun. At this point, we were the only white people, and I was legit freaking out. I was sure our driver was gone with our bags. I was sure someone was going to attack us. And we got lots of looks and people coming up to us and I was just scared. Luckily, our guy came and we got to the airport safely.