Europe – 2009 – day 12

The pictures are:
1. Our guide for today on the right and our guide for tomorrow in the middle.
2. A Pyramid
3. Our camels
4. At the Sphinx
5. Our sailboat ride.
6. A store at the market.

We had hoped for a fun day and WOW – did we ever have fun. We walked to the gate of the port and were met by our guide for the day. Her name was Miral and she was a young college grad and fluent in 3 languages. What a wonderful guide she was.

After meeting her, she called the driver and we rode 3 hours to the complex of Giza, just outside Cairo where we saw 9 pyramids. I don’t know if our pictures can really describe what they look like up close, but are they big. Not only are they tall, they are really wide. We went in one small pyramid and saw a burial chamber and set of rooms.

After that, we rode camels for about 10 minutes out into the desert and back. You don’t realize how tall they are until you are up on one. What else can I say – they were fun.

Next we visited the Sphinx and it was beautiful. We were told it was formed out of a solid block of granite that was left over from the building of a pyramid.

We then drove a little ways and had lunch at a local buffet. Thank goodness we had our guide to explain the food and it was really good.

Then we rode into the city of Cairo, a city of 23 million people, thousands of cabs and a lot of donkeys pulling carts wherever they wanted to go. We drove to the River Nile and the three of us boarded a small sailboat for about a ½ hour sail on the Nile.

After that we went to the main city bazaar and all the shops and restaurants that you could imagine.

Because this is the Ramadan period, Muslims refrain from eating, drinking, smoking from dawn to dusk and so at exactly dusk, about 6pm, almost everything stopped so that the people could eat. It was an amazing sight to see a shop with four to eight people on the floor or on small tables. Several people eating invited us to eat with them but we said no.

After the bazaar, it was time to get back in our van and head for Alexandria and our ship. We made if back in 3 hours and immediately went upstairs to find food, including pizza since we hadn’t eaten since 2:00 pm.

Tomorrow we meet a new guide and driver for a tour of the Alexandria.