Egypt pt 1

So..I started writing this blog about 3 ½ weeks ago..it’s lateness being posted is a testament to how crazy busy I have been : )
It should keep you busy for awhile…

Oh man, oh man do I have a lot of catching up to do. I have officially been back from Egypt for a week now, but my brain has for sure switched into summer laid back mode. Oops. I am sure that Environmental Leadership Camps (which are starting in 2 weeks, yikes!) will get me right back on track.
Egypt was fantastic. Incredible. Amazing. There are other words, but I am sure you get the gist. The plane ride to Dubai was not bad at all; I slept (surprise, surprise) the entire time. Once we landed in Dubai though, we had a 3 or 4 hour layover (I don’t remember exactly) and we spent our time walking around and enjoying all of the wonderful things the airport had to offer. And I am not exaggerating, there were some WONDERFUL things. First and foremost, there was a Dunkin Donuts. An actual, real live Dunkin Donuts. I spotted it when we were on one of those moving sidewalks heading to the Post Office (Yes, there was a post office in the airport, and yes, I was very late mailing out Danny Pryor’s birthday card… Ooops). Honestly, I just about stopped myself from jumping over the moving railing. Instead, I embraced my mother’s genes and waited patiently (or walked rather quickly actually) to the end of the sidewalk and booked it over to the familiar orange sign and Styrofoam cups. The words “Medium French Vanilla Iced Coffee, please” never sounded so sweet : ). It was beautiful. Tasted like home. I sucked it down in 5 minutes flat (on the way to and from the post office), and got another one before getting back on that darn moving sidewalk heading toward our gate. Other amazing things to mention (and remember, I have been in Armenia for a year now, eating potatoes.) were a great visit we had to the Cold Stones, the massive Duty Free section, the waterfall, the reclined chairs, the smoothie shop, and who can forget, the free internet access. The airport was like a warm up to our actual vacation…which started when we landed in Cairo 3 hours later.
The first impression was fantastic. Since we spend more than three nights at the first hostel, they came to pick us up at the airport for free. That was nice. We were sleepy, and kept answering the taxi guys automatically in Armenian, so trying to secure transportation ourselves would have been a nightmare. The ride from the airport was about 30 minutes, and we were all kind of in awe over the massiveness of the city. Armenia has 3 million people total. Cairo has 20 million. The tall apartment buildings, huge highways, and tons of people were a little intense. Not surprisingly, after getting to the hotel, checking in, and showering we all laid down for a ‘nap’ before going out and exploring a little bit. I put quotes around the word nap because we ended up not waking up until the next morning. Before falling asleep however, we did manage to arrange a driver to take us to Saqqara, Dahsour, and Giza the next morning.
The next morning we woke up bright and early (we had been sleeping for 15 hours) and had some breakfast before experiencing our most ‘touristy’ and expensive vacation day. The first stop was Dahsour, or the ‘red pyramid’. It is called that because it is red, easy to remember, no? It was one of the oldest pyramids, and one that was cheaper to go into. So we did. You had to go up the pyramid halfway (oh boy, did my behind get fit) and then go into this tunnel. The tunnel was at a 30 to 40 degree angle, and you descended on the equivalent of a boat ramp. I should also mention that it was only about 4 feet high, so you did this all hunched over. I counted my blessings for inheriting the ‘short’ genes of the family. After doing this for 30 or so meters you get into a big room. And that was basically it. There was another big room behind it, but nothing except for the bare walls and floor. We were inside for 10 minutes tops and then headed out. Going out was easier then getting in, since you didn’t feel like you were going to fall over all the time. It was still cool though. I was in a pyramid. From Dahsour you could also see the ‘bent’ pyramid. I’ll give you one guess to the origin of this name. Yup, it is bent. This was the first attempt at a ‘pyramid pyramid’ and the angles were a bit off. It was a solid first try though. Next we traveled to Saqqara, which is the first pyramid like structure to ever be built by man, on earth, ever. It is also called the ‘step pyramid’ because the sides look like steps; kind of like those toys you buy for kids to stack one on top of the other. That one was pretty cool. We also went into some tombs near Saqqara. The painting and carvings in them were absolutely magnificent. I had a hard time believing that they were really 3,000+ years old, and not just painted a few years ago. The colors were still bright in some places, and the carvings were immaculate and unbelievably detailed.
Next we were off to our last, and biggest, and MOST expensive spot of the day, Giza. But of course, on the way, our tour guide had to bring us by some shops for traditional papyrus and oils. He dropped us at the door, and at both places (which happened to be right next to each other) we had mini presentations and some crazy buying pressure. I had no intention of buying anything at either place…and we held out for long enough that the papyrus guy got nervous and cut us an incredible deal, or at least an affordable one. He offered Robby 4 small papyrus pieces for free if he bought a big one. So of course I jumped in on that and picked out 2 for myself. One has a depiction of ‘the honeymoon’ and the other is a person praying under a palm tree. I am keeping the second…and the first will be a gift. I held out at the oil store though…I wanted none of that…but left smelling like a whole bunch of different things. We finally got to Giza though (after the presentations and buying stuff we were at the shops for an hour or two) and it was in the next three hours that I decided that my father could never, EVER visit Egypt. EVER. So, the driver passed us off to some shop owner dude who sat us down and quickly ran through our ‘tour options’. There were 3 (short, medium, and long) with an array of prices (expensive, very expensive, and unbelievably expensive). Of course, we haggled a little and then chose the short. This did not make the guy happy and he kept reminding us that this is a ‘once in a lifetime’ trip etc. etc. We still said no, explained that we were volunteers and didn’t have that kind of money. Then spent another 20 minutes pushing the price down even further, until the man came up with a price for the long trip that we could afford. Sort of. We selected camels (our other option was horses, and who would choose horses in Egypt?) and thought we were done with the drama and ready to go. Of course not. The guy then introduces us to our ‘guide’ and tells us that he, in fact, does not pay the guide. And, if we think he should get paid then we need to pay him ourselves. Lovely. We just spent 3 days worth of budget and now we need to pay more. AY KEZ BAN. Little did we realize how much this foretold the rest of the trip. Well…we got on our camels and were off. It was a pretty fantastic time. We saw the 9 pyramids in Giza (3 big for the kings and 6 little for the queens) and then the housing and tombs of the workers. We also got off the camels to take some cheesy tourist pictures (see Facebook) and to see the Sphinx. Despite the hot and the flies, it was a really fantastic time. The pyramids were beautiful, and the camel was for sure an experience. On our way back to the office, we discussed what we would tip (in Armenian) and handed our guy the tip as we were getting ready to go. He was not impressed, and told us so. Not only would the haggling have driven my father crazy. But OH MAN. Would there have been a scene. The man basically stood there scolding us and trying to make us feel bad the entire time we waited for our car. What crap. I think we were all too shocked to really react appropriately. So we just stood there. Now back to the dad thing. If you know my dad at all, I want you to sit back and close your eyes and imagine THAT scene would have unfolded if he had been there. Very, very differently. While the whole obnoxious guide kind of put a downer on the next hour or so…we got over it pretty quickly after some KFC (Remember, we live in Armenia) with a nice South American guy we met at the hostel. After that we were off to catch the sleeper train to Luxor.