Alright, well, today was the day to go see the Great Pyramids of Giza.

Even since I was a kid, I’ve known about them and today I was finally going to see them first hand.

Again, as I’ve been trying to do throughout my travels, I wanted to go explore them on my own rather than book an overpriced and overcrowded tour.

Because I was doing it on my own, I wasn’t beholden to a tour group’s timeline and I could just go over to Giza whenever I wanted instead of waking up at 6 or 7am.

I mean, I still woke up really early at 7:30am, but I didn’t actually head over to the pyramids until 10am.

So, I spent the morning having breakfast here at the hostel and putting together yesterday’s blog.

My first Uber

I know it’s crazy to say, but I’ve never actually ordered an Uber before.

I did download the app and setup an account prior to my trip because I had read that Uber was a great way to get around cities here in Egypt.

Sure enough, the prices are ridiculously cheap with 45 minute rides going for as cheap as $4.

Also you don’t have to deal with cab drivers who, let’s face it, are the most likely to scam you while you travel.

And you don’t have to get the hard sell about using them for a tour later and there’s no haggling on a price and with an Uber you can pay online with a credit card.

It’s just so much more clean and simple with Uber.

There are 2 entrances to Giza, the northern and eastern gates.

The eastern gate is the primary gate which most people and tours use to enter.

However, I had read that arriving at the Northern gate was a better way to visit the pyramids.

When I set my destination to the northern gate, my Uber driver messaged me that he couldn’t take me to that gate.

He said that he’d take me to the eastern gate where I could go by horse (and some ridiculous cost, I’m sure) to get to the gate I wanted.

Meh.

Cancel ride.

The second driver was more than happy to go where I wanted.

The Uber app tells you who your driver is, what the car they’re driving is, and its’ license plate.

Thankfully, the car was a red Nissan which kind of stood out from the other cars because there’s no way I’d recognize the car by its’ license plate.

While the app shows the plate number, the actual plates here in Egypt are done with Arabic numbers that are indecipherable from the normal numbers we use day to day.

Anyway, I only waited 3 minutes before my driver pulled up and we were on our way to Giza.

Giza, the city that is home to the Great Pyramids, is on the western side of the Nile River while Cairo is on the eastern side.

The Pyramids are about 20km away and take just under a half hour to get to.

In total, the ride was only 120EGP ($3.40) and I kind of felt guilty for how cheap it was so I left him a 50EGP ($1.40) tip.

Entering Giza

As we pulled up to just outside the northern gate, it made a little sense why the first driver didn’t want to take me to the northern gate as there was a security area to drive through.

I just told my driver to let me off just outside the area and that I’d walk the 10 minutes further to the entrance.

It was 10:30 as I took in my first glimpse of the Pyramids.

I got chills and a great, big smile grew across my face.

It actually brought back the same feelings I had when I turned the corner in Paris and saw the Eiffel tower for the first time.

Simply stunning.

A world wonder and I was walking up to it!

I bought two tickets, one for general entry to Giza, and the second to enter the Great Pyramid also known as Khufu.

Respectively, the tickets cost 700EGP ($20) and 1500EGP ($43).

I had read that lines were going to be in the 30-40 minute range to enter so, you can imagine my surprise when it only took a few minutes to enter the gate.

Oh my God, this was happening!

I brushed past a handful of people trying to offer me a tour or a camel ride and made it to the first pyramid.

Khufu, The Great Pyramid

Khufu is kind of the crown jewel of the Pyramids and you can see why.

It’s gigantic and, well, words just can’t describe what it’s like to actually walk up to it and place a hand on one of the rocks.

Since I had bought the second ticket to actually enter inside, I climbed up a few steps towards the entrance hole in the middle of the pyramids on its’ northern side.

As I was lining up to go inside, countless people were also exiting from the same place.

All of them were drenches in sweat and muttering words like “sauna” and “claustrophobic”.

Oh my!   What was I getting myself into?

Well, off came my long sleeve shirt and I started kicking myself for not wearing shorts.

Sauna or no, I was heading inside.

There’s only one way in and out way out so everybody uses the same, small and cramped path of stairs to travel inside the pyramid.

Several times the line to go inside would just stop as people were letting other people come down the stairs to exit.

Many of the stairs were in a very low height area and you had to duck your head down to avoid bashing it on the rockface above you.

I had already worked up a good sweat climbing up the stairs for about 10 minutes when I reached the final small room in the middle of the pyramid.

And holy crap, it was literally a sauna in there.

I felt bad for the poor security guard who was sitting in the corner.

Imagine your job is to sit in a sauna all day with a full uniform on.

Another 10 minutes later and I had also exited the pyramid muttering about “sauna” and “claustrophobia”.

Khafre Pyramid

At 11:30 I was off to the next pyramid, Khafre, which was only about a 10 minute walk away.

Of course that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to encounter many people offering me a horse carriage ride.

The road that traverses around the pyramids was littered with them along with tour busses and cars used for private tours.

But I just smiled, waved them off with a “no, thank you” and happily walked on.

There were options to enter this pyramid as well as the next one but I opted to just buy the ticket to enter the big one.

I mean, once you’ve entered one pyramid…

Listen to me, like I’m some expert…

Anyway, dozens more photos and I was off to the third and final pyramid on the list.

Menkaure Pyramid

The Menkaure Pyramid was a little further away from the previous two but, even still, it only took about 20 minutes of walking to get there.

I walked up the road passing by a half dozen different men and women wearing bright yellow vests whose job it was was to scoop up the horse crap on the road.

Hmm, I don’t feel so bad for that security guard in the sauna anymore.

Most of the walk was in complete solitude.

Yes, there were alot of vehicles passing by but, as far as walking, there were only a few of us.

And despite the sheer number of people who come to visit this tourist mecca, it actually wasn’t all that bad as Giza is a huge place and the crowds were scattered throughout the grounds.

At just after noon I arrived at Menkaure.

It was here where I saw my first collection of souvenir stands and, man, it was literally just all just the same mass produced crap.

I swear if one of them ever decided to sell some original cool stuff, he’d make off like gangbusters.

I was keeping my eyes open for something, anything, out of the ordinary and saw a pack of Egypt playing cards.

Well, that was unique.

The price?

650EGP.

That’s $18.50.

And that’s a hard, very hard, no.

C’mon now!

Anyway, another dozen photos and I was off towards the eastern gate where the Great Sphinx was located.

The Great Sphinx

This walk took awhile at just over 2km.

At first I couldn’t tell where the Great Sphinx was as I just thought it would slowly come into view as I approached it.

Finally I figured out I was approaching it from behind and that large phallic symbol jetting out from the ground was actually the head of the Sphinx from behind.

I walked up to a gate and was told that it was the exit and I had to walk all the way around to get to the entrance.

Guess that happens when you approach it from behind in the opposite direction that most people come.

Of course, I also had to pass a dozen more souvenir stands to get there.

And, suddenly, there it was.

The Great Sphinx.

And I was here!

Amazing!

In hindsight, I was actually glad I took the reverse route that most people take as I was able to approach each place with great anticipation and get that first view of it as I turned a corner.

If I had done the other way, I would have seen it all as I entered the gate.

As I exited the gate I had this huge sense of accomplishment and satisfaction of being able to do all of this on my own.

No tour.   No guides.   No horse or camel rides.

Just on my own.

And, I don’t know, there’s just a real sense of satisfaction at setting out to do something and accomplishing it.

The Ride Back

After almost 3 hours, I was out the gate at 1:15.

Naturally there was a KFC and Pizza Hut smack dab in front of the gate.

Yup, this was tourism central, that’s for sure.

The traffic outside the gate was insane and I was trying to figure out how in the hell an Uber driver would be able to pick me up in all this craziness.

I decided to walk up a couple of blocks to get away from it all and make it easier for the driver to find me and for him to get in and out of there.

I booked the ride, and again, I had to cancel my first driver because messaged me and asked if I could pay a cash fare instead.

Ah no, if I wanted to do that, I’d just flag down a taxi.

Driver two was there within 2 minutes and soon we were on our way back to Cairo.

Total for this drive, which took 45 minutes, was 190EGP ($5.40) with another 50EGP ($1.40) tip.

By the way, he stopped for gas and I noticed the price per liter was 15.25 which works out to just 43.6 cents a liter in Canadian money.

Lunch

I had the driver drop me off at the restaurant I went to last night.

This time though there were no tables set up outside and it looked like they were only don’t takeaway.

There was a big line and, honestly, I really had to pee so I just walked back to the hostel.

I did my business and asked the guy at the front desk where to go for Egyptian food.

He sent me to another restaurant chain that had a location close by called Kazaz.

For lunch I had a fried beef meal.

Before my meal even hit the table, I was given a bottled water, an Arabic salad, and what looked like a chicken vegetable soup and, of course, the token bread and dip that I can’t have.

Lunch worked out to 260EGP ($7.40) and I was pretty happy with what I got.

I made plans to come back later in the night for some dinner.

Dinner

I was back at the hostel by 3:30 and, honestly, that was all I had planned for the day.

I’m trying to purposely keep my days short and sweet.   Well, relatively, I guess since the day was still about 5 hours long.

I crawled into bed and starting doing stuff on my laptop until I was just overcome with exhaustion and fell asleep for an hour and a half.

There’s no denying it, the last several days all bunched up together have been exhausting and, in the future, I’m going to really much closer at how I’m stacking up days back to back.

At 7:30 I finally got out of the hostel again and headed back to Kazaz.

Sadly there was no seating left and I decided I didn’t want to wait for a table so I headed over to Gad where I had dinner last night.

Kind of ironic that for lunch I wanted to go to Gad but didn’t and then for dinner I wanted to go to Kazaz but didn’t.

I sat down at a table outside and ordered a 1/2 chicken with rice.

Complimentary items this time were the bread, a plate of hummus, and a pot of vegetables done in some sort of stew.

As the waiter/manager dropped off my check, he once again as he did last night, told me everything that wasn’t charged (the bread, hummus, veggies) making sure I knew those were complimentary.

It would be like if I presented a bill at the steakhouse I work at and tell the guest that I didn’t charge for the bread, the baked potato or the vegetable garnish.

Anyway, the total for the meal was 280EGP ($8).

By 8:30 I was in for the night happily typing up this little blog you’re reading right now and by 10:30 I was tucked away in bed.

I’m not 100% sure what I’m doing on my two remaining days here in Cairo.   I have some tentative plans but I also kind of want to take it easy.

Guess we’ll see what tomorrow brings when I wake up…