Day 90

Sleeping location: Desert near the Red Pyramid, Egypt
Distance (km today/total): 35 / 6922
Estimated climb (m today/total): 0 / 57500
Tombs seen: Tomb any
Day in three words: Big old triangles

We were up at a decent time and into the Giza pyramid complex before 9am. They were very impressive but somehow slightly less impressive than I had expected. Still, it was great seeing these incredibly iconic structures in person, touching the 4,500 year old stones and whatnot. There were a lot of other tourists about, but as usual they clustered in a few places and there was lots of peace and quiet available when people weren’t trying to sell you stuff. Mostly it was guys offering camel/horse rides, walking alongside you and having to be repelled multiple times. A few were more sneaky, pulling the old “I am security, you can’t go this way, actually give me money for a camel/guide and you can go this way”. I had some fun with a lot of them, but particularly the sneaky ones as I thought they deserved it more. My favourite interaction was with one of these:

Him: You cannot go this way, it is dangerous without a camel. There are whales [he meant wells]

Me: Whales! In the desert, really?

Him: Yes, they are very deep

Me: Yes, they’re the biggest animals in the world. Are these ones blue whales then?

Him: [Confused] So do you want a camel?

You could go into a couple of the tombs, inside which were some intricate carvings of the lives of their occupants, which were very interesting and also very intact considering that they were 4,500 years old. Every so often in Egypt you get this little jolt of realisation of how insane that is. The complex isn’t that big and we were done by 11am, by which time it was very busy. I went for a last look at the Sphinx on the way out and it was intolerable. There were a lot of local school kids and lots of them wanted a picture with a Genuine Blonde, so Rebecca got a lot of hassle (I got none). 

We left the hostel around noon and headed for another pyramid site at Saqqara, about 30km away. Our route was along various irrigation channels and it was pretty interesting, semi rural and on quiet but bumpy roads. On one of these roads a kid* driving a tuk tuk decided to have a bit of fun, and enjoyed himself by driving way too close to us and at one point deliberately clipping my mirror. Eventually he disappeared off but was waiting at a junction ahead with a huge grin on his stupid face, which very quickly disappeared when I squirted half of my water bottle over him. After this he got into a proper tantrum and was on the hunt for revenge when some local adults gave him a massive telling off; he was not seen again. I hope he drives his tuk tuk into a river and gets eaten by a crocodile. Most of the other people on the road were very nice and waved and/or shouted hello or “what’s your name” as we went past; one busload of young girls was insanely excited to see us and waved constantly for about five minutes until we turned off. 

Saqqara was interesting with loads of decent tombs similar to the ones at Giza, but a couple of hundred years older. The complex had a strange “pay per tomb” pricing structure, but we just bought the basic ticket and tried to get into every tomb; we probably succeeded in getting into a couple of paid ones as the guards weren’t very attentive. By the end we were pretty tomb’d out as most of the carvings inside were kind of the same in every one. We were also pretty sick of more hustle, mainly from the site guards, who asked for money for things like showing us the way and watching our bikes. One guy followed us around a tomb pointing out everything; he would point at what was clearly a cow and say “cow”, then follow us into the next room, point at what was clearly a duck and say “duck”. Eventually we left to get away from him, but not before he asked for some money. I was half worried that he would follow us all day, pointing at things and saying what they were. The best thing at Saqqara was the Pyramid of Djoser, which was the first pyramid in Egypt and has held up well across its 4,700 years of existence.

We looked to camp soon after Saqqara, but as we were still in semi-rural Cairo it was pretty difficult. We asked at a couple of fields but they didn’t seem to understand. The desert comes right up to the fields so we decided to head there, but by this point we had attracted a crowd of children who wouldn’t stop following us. We found a spot which would have been decent if loads of people didn’t now know where we were sleeping. Eventually most of the kids went away, but two older ones (maybe 16) came back after a bit. They brought us some crisps and tried to give us some advice that we didn’t understand, but mostly they just sat nearby, watching us and moving nearer and nearer. Rebecca has a pop up mosquito net so she volunteered to sleep outside in case they tried anything, which was very nice of her. They didn’t leave until almost 3am. Very confusing but at least they didn’t steal anything.

*Honestly he was maybe 14 but already a psychopath