Egypt: Cairo and Giza

The first thing I noticed about Egypt was that driving seemed like a nightmare. I ended up taking a taxi from the airport to my hotel and I have never feared for my life more. There were three lanes on the road, but most of the time the traffic was four to five lanes across. Everything seemed like fair game as long as you honked as you squeezed in between cars. On the sides of the road there seemed to be an alarming number of cars that had overheated and caught on fire. And...wait a minute...are we REVERSING ON THE FREEWAY??? The 401 suddenly seemed very tame.

I spent my first night at the Victoria Hotel. It had a lot of character, but it seemed a bit grungy (although it might have just been the contrast from staying at the Athens Hilton for the week before).

After initially looking into doing Egypt solo, I eventually settled on doing a tour since there seemed to be a lot of restrictions on travelers and I had heard some negative things about women travelling alone. I booked Contiki's Egypt and the Nile Tour and was happy that most of the people on the tour were young professionals around my age.

The first stop in Cairo was the Egyptian Museum. I'm not usually much of a museum person, but this place was AMAZING. I couldn't take any pics inside, but they had mummies (people and animals), treasures, and statues that were over 4000 years old. The highlight was probably the treasures found in King Tuts tomb including his burial mask.



Next we were off to the most anticipated site of the trip: the pyramids! They were impressive and there were hardly any other tourists there. Maybe it was because the high was 47 degrees Celsius that day.

A view of Cairo from the pyramids

Next we hopped on some camels and rode around the desert to get a better view of the pyramids. Camels are not happy creatures. Our tour guide said that this camel ride would be very relaxing, but I felt like I was constantly on the brink of falling off. The views out the in desert were worth it, though.







The final stop at the site was to see the Sphinx.



Lunch was at a traditional Egyptian restaurant. I wish I remembered the name because the food was fantastic.

Dips! Hummus, Baba ganoush, and something with feta.

This doesn't look like much, but it was the best falafel I've ever had.

On the last day of the tour, we came back through Cairo and went to the Step Pyramid. This pyramid came before the Great Pyramids and was created before they knew how to calculate the angles required to build the continuous side walls.



The final stop of the trip was the Alabaster Mosque, named for the domes that were made of alabaster stone. Beautiful inside and out.