Day 4

Our guide Khaled picked us up at 8.15am and off we went to battle the traffic through the streets of Cairo heading towards Sakarra, where the oldest pyramid in the world is to be found.



Sakarra is situated south of Cairo and is adjacent to the remains of the great city of Memphis. The river Nile runs south – north and the river valley is lush and green. On either side of this strip of green is desert and so as we reached Sakarra we literally crossed over into desert. Here we were handed over to our archaeologist guide Saleh who gave us an archaeological lesson on ancient Egyptian burial customs and reading Egyptian Hieroglyphs.



By the end of our 2 hour tour we had become Egyptologists.



We were told that the Sakarra pyramid was the first one built around 4,000BC and that there were subsequent tombs built layer upon layer and they had just the previous month found another burial tomb in their diggings. The one interesting fact that Saleh had raised was that Egyptian tombs were located west of the cities because the Egyptians believed that just as the sun set in the west and arose the next day in the east, so when the dead were buried it was in the west so that they too could arise in the east as the sun did.

The road to and from Sakarra passed through rural settlements. Every so often we would pass donkey driven carts / wagons, sometimes with oxen in tow, giving us the feeling of stepping back in time. Egypt is a contrast in lifestyle. Modern western culture in the city ranging to 3rd world poverty in its suburbs and rural areas. The one fascinating aspect is that the people are friendly where ever you are and are fascinated by visitors to their country.

With our appetites wet by Sakarra we drove on to Giza where the famous pyramids are located.





Here we were given over to our Giza guides who placed us on camels and horses for our trek to the pyramids. Traveling through the desert on camel back gave me the feeling of being on the set of Lawrence of Arabia. The gentle rocking motion of the camel striding towards the great pyramids was inspiring and very picturesque, however after 2 hours of riding the camels, our hips and buts were screaming out for mercy. Needless to say many a picture was snapped.







After our journey through time we came back to the present as we struggled to return to our hotel through “peak hour traffic”. As we crawled our way along with our fellow motorists, Anne seemed to have caught the eye of an old Egyptian man in a small commuter bus wearing a turban, who upon catching Anne’s eye gave her a wink and a toothless grin, I suppose in an attempt to win her over, or welcome her to his country. All in all she was somewhat taken aback.

When we finally arrived to our hotel we refreshed and made ready for dinner and dinner tonight was to be in a local Egyptian style restaurant in the heart of town. To build up our appetite for dinner we had decided to be brave and walk the streets. As we waited at a pedestrian crossing, the local traffic cop finally halted traffic so that we could cross, but we forgot that this doesn’t mean anything in this country as evidenced by a car coming to a screeching halt as we proceeded to cross and Ian showed his disgust by raising his foot in an attempt to kick the car to stop him hitting Linda. Surviving this attempt on our lives we ventured through the subways below ground level and somehow made it to the other side of the busy roads and onto our restaurant for dinner.

Dinner was not as palatable as the night before, however the ambiance was typically Egyptian and that was really the aim of the evening. With dinner over we again ventured through the streets of Cairo and somehow made it back to peace and safety of our hotel. Another day over and looking forward to more to come.

Grant's quote of the day;- We were driving along the river Nile and Grant looked at the island in the middle of the river and said “look there’s an island in the middle of denial”