Cairo - Giza

Millions of photos here. Sorry. It was a cool place.

Even though these photos looks quite cool (I think), it was actually the biggest scam we have ever been taken for.

The taxi driver we'd hired for the day asked us if we'd ever been to the pyramids before, and when we told him 'no' he told us that they were very far apart from each other. He suggested getting horses to make the journey faster and less tiring. We agreed. Once we bought our tickets, we started going away from the entrance on the horses. A little surprised, we asked our guide what was going on, and he said that it was better to approach from another side to get a full view of the pyramids. For 30 minutes, I kid you not, we followed a huge cement wall with a massive fence around it, seeing nothing but rundown old buildings. We eventually got to a spot in fence with a hole in it big enough for us and the horses to pass through. We then made ANOTHER 30 minute journey back towards the pyramids.

When we finally got close to the pyramids, we realised that we'd been taken right back to the exact spot where we'd bought our tickets. Also, they were all VERY close together and we could have easily walked around them! We were so angry.

Our guide insisted we get our photo taken standing on a pyramid. I think you can see how impressed we are with him and the whole charade. After this photo, we told him to take his horses and get out of our face. We walked around the site after that.

The ancient Egyptians quarried some of the stone for the pyramids right on the site. You can see the squares of cut stone where Heather is standing.

These hieroglyphics were written into the wall above the quarry. What was so amazing about them is that they look in such pristine condition. They could have been carved last week as opposed to 5000 years ago.

You get a good perspective here of how big the pyramids are.

On the subject of scams, I thought this cop looked pretty neat on this camel so I asked if I could take his photo. I thought it best to ask, because in Kuwait you'd be thrown in jail for doing that. He said 'yes', posed and I took the photo.

Then he asked me for money.

I'm not kidding.

I fished a couple of Egyptian pounds out of my pocket and handed them over. He seemed satisfied with that and then trotted off. Man, what a country.

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