Cairo

“You haven’t been to Egypt unless you’ve been to Cairo,” the receptionist said to me, when I asked him whether I should visit the Valley of the Kings or Cairo. “And you haven’t been in Cairo unless you’ve seen the pyramids,” he added.
“Okay, then,” I thought, “lets go to Cairo and see the pyramids, and then I can say that I’ve been to Egypt.”

Cairo is a mixture of history, museums, pollution, apartment blocks (that looks like they are about to fall apart), eleven million inhabitants, and an endless stream of tourists, and of course: the pyramids and the Sphinx. I though the pyramids was fare out in the dessert, I thought you had to sit on a camel and ride for hours on end till you finally would see them in a distance. I was wrong!
From central Cairo to the Giza Plateau with the pyramids and the Sphinx it’s only a few kilometres. Once upon a time, the Seventh Wonder of the World might have been fare out in the dessert; today they are a part of greater Cairo.
The pyramids on the Giza Plateau are the ones of Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure with a few smaller pyramids known as the queens’ pyramids dotted around. Common belief is that all of them are on the famous list of Wonders, but the fact is that only the Great Pyramid of Khufu has the honour.

Our guide gave us the advice not to stop or talk to the camel owners hanging around on the plateau. “Whatever you do,” he said, “don’t talk to them. Don’t stop for a photo, because they’ll charge you, don’t get up on their camels even though they say they’ll only take you for a ride around the pyramids.” He paused, did his audience hear him. Did they understand the seriousness of this matter? “They will take you out in the dessert,” he continued with a dramatic tone, “then they’ll demand more money for taking you back to the plateau. If you don’t pay them, they’ll leave you out there and that’s in no ones interest. Okay?” We all nodded: okay, we weren’t going to talk to anyone. Guess who found herself talking to a camel owner just a few seconds later?

Also on the Giza Plateau is the Great Sphinx, this half-human half-lion creature made of sand stone. The most famous aspect with the Sphinx is the missing nose. There are many theories of why the nose is missing, I’m only going to list three of them, and then it’s up to you to pick which one you’ll believe in.
1)The nose was accidentally broken off by a cannon ball fired by French soldiers.
2)Knocked off by Sufi fanatics on the order of cleric Sa’im al-Dahr.
3)Obelix climbing on it and as we all know: Obelix is a big fellow (or as he prefers to say: "well covered" or “having a chest that has slipped a bit"). (www.wikipedia.com + a huge numbers of Asterix books –I’m a great fan).

But what else is it to see in Cairo? Oh, so much. I would highly recommend the Egyptian Museum with all its sculptures, mummies and the tomb artefacts of Tutankhamun.
The Papyrus Museum, Khan el-Khalili Bazaar, Sultan Hassan Mosque and Cairo Tower (go there after dark!). Of course you have to eat while you’re busy moving from one site to another. At the bazaar there are plenty of places with authentic Egyptian food and drink. Washing your hands after handling the money and before eating you food isn’t a bad idea, checking that the caps on the bottle are properly sealed when you buy it is an even better one. If would be a great shame to miss out on the sites of Cairo because of a highly unwelcome food poisoning.

“I’ve been to Egypt,” I said to the receptionist when I saw him the day after.
“Ahlan wa sahlan – Welcome,” he answered.

The magnificence of the Egyptian dynasties! the traffic mess in Cairo center... the flavours of the middle east

My husband and myself decided last minute that we wanted to go and see the pyramids in Giza. We were staying in Luxor so we decided to get an internal flight to Cairo for the day. A friend we met in Luxor gave us a telephone number of a private tour guide named Tariq who met us in Cairo airport. He was unbelievable! He was fluent in English as he lived in London for many years before starting up a small business as a tour guide. He had a chauffeur driven car with aircon (which was essential). He took us to every nook and cranny of Cairo. He told us about the history of all the mosques, bazaar's palace's and every monument that we drove past in Cairo. We saw the pyramids, the famous bazaar (and he did all the bartering), the museum, the zoo (and we got to touch most of the animals, from baby lions to baby crocodiles and monkeys). He even took us to lunch and ordered a variety of Egyptian foods to try from. We did all this in one-day. We got to Cairo at 10am and we were back in luxor by 9pm. Our day trip was fantastic thanks to Tariq. We did not have to worry about getting lost or being ripped off by the taxi drivers. The best thing of all is that it was so cheap its unbelievable. Before going to Egypt I looked at the prices for day excursions and what I paid Tariq would have only got me three hours visiting the pyramids if I had booked a tour guide from here. Great guy, excellent value for money and highly recommendable. His telephone number for anyone who is interested is 00201 23073766.

Cairo is wonderful. There is so much too see, but it is a noisy city. The pyramids and the Sphinx are worth seeing, eventhough the city is so close. The Museum down town is fantastic. I enjoyed spending time, looking at all the artifax and the statues, stones discovered there. Metro is easy to catch, taxis are cheap. People are friendly. I have friends living in Cairo so it makes my travel easier.