Egypt summer 2011, CAIRO part 2

I woke up around 3am to hear some arabic language being wafted from the nearest mosque through the open window. It was really loud and I didn't understand why it was so loud in the middle of the night. Muslims are supposed to pray five times a day, but all the younger people we got to know to didn't pray not even once a day, maybe just on fridays or sundays. Well, anyway we woke up before the clock alarmed and we were really excited to see the pyramids. We ate breakfast at the hostel (it was made to us!) and left with Marc and our driver HiSun towards the first pyramid which was the farest away. We got HiSun to be our driver for the whole day through our hostel to which we paid to and they paid it to HiSun. It cost us together 250 egyptian pounds (35€). 

Video: on our way to the pyramids. Marc sitting in the front seat and he had no idea what the song was?! Come on who doesn't know that song?! He's from Canada from which the singer is also from..!! :D

Not too many tourist buses in Sakkala

Sakkara (or Saqqara) was the first pyramid area where we went and we were the only ones there. At Saqqara, the oldest complete stone building complex known in history was built there: Djoser's step pyramid (in the pic). On the whole Egypt trip we could see how few tourist there were and how the revolution had affected that people were too afraid to travel there. Tourists mostly were backpackers. We visited the museum in Sakkara and it cost us 30 pounds (around 4€) for student. There for the first time we saw a mummy! Then we drove a few hundreds of meters to the pyramid and it looked like a huge pile of sand! We got to go inside it and there was this creepy man who said to us that no pictures but he took Marc's camera and took around 20 pictures from us and tried to get us pay when we were about to leave. We didn't pay him, we just walked away even though we was a bit angry. Without Marc I think me and Saija wouldn't have paid to him because he was a bit scary..

Marc.. and me. Love the way he holds me (NOT!). In front of the pyramis of Unas which is nowadays ruined but you can still go inside it.

Saija and me walking up the Red pyramid

The next stop was at the area of Dashur. There were  two pyramids the Bent one (it's actually bent that's why the name) and the Red one which was one of my favourite! In the Red one we first climbed up the stairs (it was really hot even though the clock wasn't that much) and when we were in front of its entrance we saw that it was really small. The entry is only 0.91m high and 1.2m wide and the passage looked really steep and was 61m long! It was a student price for 15 pounds. It was a good exercise getting down the pyramid! We really had to keep our heads down and crouch your backs not to hit yourselves. Inside it looked amazing. I can't believe that people have built it without any machinery?! It was also really creepy there and the air was really bad inside it. We also climbed some stairs up inside it and I was really afraid that they'll collapse down. I think the stairs inside had been built later on but they looked really fragile and the whole staircase was skewed. We really needed to do some work climbing the stairs back up. We are in a good condition and we really were out of breath when we made it back up. After climbing the stairs first up (outside the pyramid), then down and up again me and Saija couldn't walk stairs maybe in 5 days because our calves were so jammed!! I don't ever remember having that sore calf muscles! It was terrible. Couple of days later we were in a restaurant and decided to go to upstairs, we almost couldn't get down from there. People stared at us and I came down the stairs backwards..

The stairs going inside the Red pyramid

Inside the Red and the fragile stairs..

The Bent pyramid

The next destination was Giza and we almost really were the only tourists there! The place was empty! That was a good thing but also a bad thing because all the men trying to sell something would walk behind us a long time. Or the men trying to buy me or Saija for camels.. We didn't want to ride them there 'cause it was too expensive (the tourist prices they asked were ridiculous) and camels and horses weren't threated too well either. It was a good thing that Marc was with us since he carried all of our water and told the men to get lost (we did that also by ourselves). The area of the pyramids was really big and you can't even realize it if you watch it from far away. We understood how big the pyramids were when we decided that we want to walk around the middle one. It really took us some time and it was really difficult to walk in the sand and me and Saija had to constantly put on some sun lotion (factor +50 for children..) for not to burn! 

The Great Pyramid if Giza and the Sphinx

We were back from the pyramids at 3 pm and went to buy some delicious pizzas from the street near our hostel. Most of the people in the hostel (the ones we hang with) slept during the day but I had a pieceful time writing our journal and watching the view from our hostel windows.

Tahrir square meets the Nile! Taken from our hostel window. U can also see how maniac the traffic was all the time

Spotted on our pyramid trip. A boy with his father trying to get honeydews sold

Alain, me, Marc, Kurt (with the cap on), older australian

In the evening we went out with the boys from the hostel. Me, Saija, Alain, Marc, Kurt and some older australian man travelling the world since his marriage had ended or something. We went to sit in some local place (it wasn't a bar or anything not even restaurant just some place on the street where people sat around and smoked water pipes =  Shisha (they did that all the time everywhere!). Guys also bought Shisha and I tasted it and coughed my lungs out. Not a good idea. We went to bed already around 10pm. Amazing day at the pyramids and getting a bit used to the men staring at us even though the first days we really tried to dress correctly and not to show skin too much! I even wore leggings and Saija had long trousers. One night outside our hostel we saw this egyptian woman wearing really revealing clothes and Saija stated that fuck this, I'm trying to be conservative and I'm wearing woollen sweater!..

Pyramids meet the city of Cairo