Today was my last day in Cairo and I decided to do a day tour taking me to a handful of pyramids about an hour outside of the city,

A common tour offered up here in Cairo is an all day tour of Saqqara, Dahshur, and Memphis.

The three places, located about 40km south of the city, have pyramids and ancient ruins to explore.

I was initially hesitant to book a tour and just wanted to hire a driver for the day and do it on my own.

When I asked at the front desk yesterday about how to go about hiring a driver, they said that they could set me up on a tour for only 2000EGP ($57).

I figured, what the hell, the price was somewhat reasonable and I could just spend my last day in Cairo being ushered around without having to figure anything out on my own.

So, I woke up at 7:30 this morning, had breakfast, and walked downstairs to get picked up for my tour at 8:30.

The tour that wasn’t really a tour

Well, turns out that the “tour” the guy at the hostel set me up on was actually just a driver for the day and, to make things more interesting, he didn’t speak English.

Well, this wasn’t what I wanted at all.

I wanted to meet other people.   I wanted to have someone guide me and explain everything to me.

I wanted a nice air conditioned van.

Instead, I had Sayid and his Škoda car.

Oh well, just gonna have to make do with what I’ve been given.

I noticed the display screen in his car was showing the wrong time so I pointed at it and, because he doesn’t understand English, he thought I wanted him to turn on the music.

Soon, we were exiting the city with Arabic music blaring over the speakers.

Saqqara

We traveled for about an hour and arrived at Saqqara first which is probably the more touristy of all three.

I bought three different tickets here.   Once was for general admission onto the grounds (600EGP, $17), another for entry into the Djoser pyramid (280EGP, $8), and a ticket so that Sayid could park his car (25EGP, 80cents).

Entry into the pyramid was optional but I figured, why the hell not.

I mean, how many more times in my life am I going to be able to enter inside a pyramid, right?

There was a smattering of different tour groups throughout the grounds ranging from a trio of people all the way up to the stereotypical tour group of 30+ Asian sightseers.

It appeared I was the only one doing this solo.

After walking around the Djoser pyramid, I finally found the entrance way and made my way inside.

Unlike when I entered the Great Pyramid in Gaza a couple of days ago, this one was easy to enter.

Just a straight path to the middle and I didn’t even have to duck for the ceiling as I had maybe a couple of inches leeway.

Oh, and it wasn’t like a sauna in there either!

Now, was it worth the $8 to enter?

Nah, probably not as there wasn’t really that much to see in there.

You get to the end of the path and look down to a little room 28m below containing a tomb.

Ironically, as hot and strenuous as it was to enter the Great Pyramid, the journey actually was the adventure in that case.

Afterwards I walked around the ground trying to keep my eye out for the Tomb Of Ptahemwia.

I followed my little map marker on my phone and ended up going down a path no one else was on.

Eventually I ran into a guard and when I showed him where I was trying to go, he looked at my ticket and told me “no access”.

I’m not sure if I was trying to access it from the wrong way or if I didn’t buy another additional ticket to access the site.

Either way, I just shrugged it off.

I mean, honestly, I’ll be seeing plenty of tombs when I get to Luxor in a few days.

Dahshur

After an hour at Saqqara, I exited the gate at 10:30.

I contacted Sayid on WhatsApp to tell him I was ready and he drove up from where he had parked to pick me up.

Along the way to Dahshur, he used Google Translate to say “I have an idea, we can visit carpet shop”.

Oh my.   Yeah, that’s a hard no.

The last thing I wanted was to be dragged into some shop where they do the ‘ol hard sell to get me to buy something.

After a half hour drive, we arrived at Dahshur.

Dahshur is the home to both the Red Pyramid and the Bent Pyramid.

Entry to the grounds was 200EGP ($6) and of course another 25EGP for Sayid to park.

Not as many tourists here and I was okay with that.

Red Pyramid

Our first stop at Dahshur was the Red Pyramid.

The pyramid is named so because of the reddish rusty color of its blocks.

I thought I’d just be walking up to it and snapping a few photos but, it turns out, you can actually enter it.

And there wasn’t even an extra cost to do it!

Now going inside the Red Pyramid was very different from what I had done at Saqqara earlier.

This one was similar to the entry into the Great Pyramid meaning there was a long, narrow stairwell on steep steps leading down into the pyramid.

Oh, and of course, sauna weather too.

I actually counted the steps as I went down.   There were 140 steps.   It’s best to go down backwards because of the steepness and to be hunched over as you do it so you don’t bump your head.

It took about 15 minutes to reach the bottom where there was, once again, a little room.

Again, the experience was in actually climbing down into the pyramid and not so much what was at the end of the journey.

After a half hour, I hopped back in the car with Sayid and we did the short drive over to the Bent Pyramid.

Bent Pyramid

The Bent Pyramid was one of the first ones constructed.

They starting building it at a 55 degree angle and then figured out that the angle needed to be corrected to 43 degrees.

What’s left is a pyramid that looks like it’s been mushed a little.

Oh, and you can enter that one as well!

Just like the Red Pyramid, it was another long steep staircase into the middle.

Ah, what the hell, like I said earlier, how many more times am I going to be able to enter a pyramid in my life?

By the way, the answer to that earlier question this morning apparently was two.

The answer is two times.

As I peered inside, the stairway looked significantly longer and, sure enough, I counted 212 steps.

But the kicker?

That wasn’t the end of the journey!

After getting to the bottom of that, oh so very, steep stairway, you find a stairway leading up..

It was only 20 steps so no big deal.

At the top of that stairway?

Another stairway, this one 5 levels, leading further up!

Another 55 steps.

And once you’re at the top, well, you’re not quite there yet.

You have to crawl through a little cubbyhole sized path for about 20 meters.

And then 30 more steps up.

And the, finally, you reach the end.

What’s at the end, you may ask?

Nothing.

Literally nothing.

It’s another little room looking down into what I assume is another tomb.

Again, it was all about the journey into the center of the pyramid.

And that journey was exhausting!

Oh, and I had to go all the way back out from whence I came.

In total was in the pyramid for a good 30 minutes and when I exited I was drenched in sweat huffing and puffing.

“I’ll just take it easy today”, I told myself.

“Be driven around from site to site and walk around some pyramids”, I said.

Hahahahaha.

At least I’ll sleep like a baby tonight.

Memphis

At 12:30 we were onto our last stop of the day, Memphis.

It took about 30 minutes to get there and as we arrived I had run out of water so I crossed the street to a little stall to buy some.

Now, keep in mind, I’ve been buying large bottles of water at the hostel for only 15JOD (43cents).

So, when the shopkeep quoted me 50JOD ($1.43) I kind of chuckled.

I knew I was being ripped off but, in my mind, it was still only $1.43 for a bottle of water and I wasn’t about to fight over a dollar.

When I was looking into this tour many people had said that Memphis was either take it or leave it and if you were short on time that it wouldn’t kill you if you missed out on it.

And yeah, I can kind of see where they were coming from.

There’s no pyramid here, just some ancient ruins scattered through the grounds in the Mit Rahina Open Air Museum and the gigantic statue of good visit just for Ramses statue Statue of Rameses II lying down on the ground.

Entrance into Memphis was 200EGP ($6) and, I for one, was happy I had come.

Just witnessing that gigantic statue of Rameses II was worth it.

It only took a few minutes to walk through the grounds but I wasn’t quite ready to head back in the car yet.

I found a nice bench under the shade of a tree and sat there sipping my newly acquired water and nibbling on one of my gluten free granola bars I had brought with me on this trip.

And just reflected.

Yes, I did feel a bit slighted getting just a driver who didn’t speak English instead of a full blown tour but, in the end, I was pretty happy with how the day went.

I got to climb in a few more pyramids and, honestly, not many people I know can say they’re ever even seen a pyramid let along gone inside one.

So, any day you’re out and about amongst the pyramids is a good day in my books.

Lunch

At 1:30 I hopped back in the car to head back into Cairo.

It took a good hour to get back and as we entered the city, I noticed we were going to pass the Kazaz restaurant on our way to the hostel.

When we stopped at a red light a block away from it, I asked Sayid to drop me off there instead.

I had a great lunch here the other day so I was happy to go back here to try something else on their menu.

After perusing for a bit, I asked the waiter what I could have that didn’t have bread or wheat.

He directed me to the Shish Tawook which, honestly, I had no idea what I was getting.

And you know what?

I was kind of okay with that!

A plate soon came out with what looked like a deconstructed chick shish kebab with peppers and onions atop a bed of rice and fries.

I was also served a little side of coleslaw and a side of bread with some dip.

Of course I didn’t have the bread but, man, that dip was amazing with the fries.

And the coleslaw?   So creamy!   Perfect!   I could literally just eat a plate of that!

The meal itself was nice and juicy.   The chicken wasn’t dry at all as I’ve subjected to lately.

In total, the meal was one of the best I’ve had here on my trip and at a cost of only 168EGP ($4.80), it seemed like a steal.

By 3:30 I was back at the hostel and, like the previous few days, I was going to take it easy for the rest of the day.

I sat in front of my laptop watching videos and typing of this blog before heading out for dinner again at 6:30.

A dinner fiasco

My plan was to go back to Kazaz and get some takeout to bring back to the hostel with me.

I had noticed there was a closer location on my walk today so I went by there tonight to grab some food.

Now, walking up to a takeaway restaurant not knowing where to go, how to order, or how to speak the language is pretty intimidating.

I’ll admit, I got flustered and just walked away.

Sigh.

Instead, I walked over to the same location I had lunch at today and decided I would just dine in instead.

I got inside and saw a line running down the stairs.

Sigh.

Okay, new plan.

I went online and tried to order delivery but it wouldn’t let me sign up since my sim card doesn’t say I’m from Egypt and I’m “out of their location area”.

Sigh.

Okay, new plan.

Off to Gad where I had dinner the last two nights.

It was just a 5 minute walk from where I was.

And then I remembered they only take cash and my funds were precariously low.

Okay, new plan.

Find an ATM, get some more money, and have dinner.

You’d think ATMs were easy to find but I didn’t come across one and I was now heading back towards my hostel.

Sigh.

Well, I mean, I wasn’t that hungry and it was getting late and I really needed to get to bed early.

I resigned myself to just heading back to the hostel and skipping dinner.

And then, as a last gasp, I decided to walk a little bit past the hostel and see what was on the other side.

Literally a 30 second walk away was a place with a picture board menu with prices outside.

I saw a plate of chicken and rice and while it certainly wasn’t the meal I had set out to have tonight, I was just happy to find some food.

It’s at moments like these as I wander aimlessly through the streets at night searching out food that I find the most depressing when I travel.

I long for the days when I could just grab a sandwich or a burger or fried chicken or just anything and call it a meal.

I miss not being celiac.   I miss the ease with which I could get food.

I’ve been pretty fortunate this trip with everything food wise but, tonight, I hit a big snag and I certainly don’t want to put myself in that situation again.

I took the chicken and rice back to the hostel and ate most of it.

The rest of it?

I went out into the stairwell outside the hostel’s front door and fed the three cats I’ve noticed hanging around here the last few days.

Cats cure all, after all…

And that is how I like to end the day…