Amid the Pyramids

Another day in Cairo...

We made our way to the pyramids this morning and had a great time, despite the constant harassment to relinquish all our cash. The tourist attractions in Egypt are a spawning ground for one scam after another, but I like to think we fared well. We negotiated to ride horses around the pyramids, but after ten minutes Alyssa decided it was too cruel, the horses aren’t properly cared for. It turned into a massive ordeal since the guides are major scammers and we both got cross with Abdul, calling him a bully…but we prevailed in not paying the fee. Wandering the pyramids, I kept thinking of my six year old nephew, Jonny, who is an archeologist. He would have loved climbing down the tunnel into he pyramids to see the tombs. It was hot, dusty, dank and the smell was quite bad…but we’re used to just about anything now that we’ve become sea creatures. Last night we were eating fruit in the hotel room and I started to get up to throw the banana peel out the window since on a boat food goes overboard. Last night we suffered through the cheesiest tourist trap even ever: a Nile River dinner cruise. It was unbearable, bad buffet, karaoke-esque singers and cigarette smoke suffocating us on deck. It was nice to float down the Nile, and we had quite a laugh watching the other tourists…I sat facing a group of young American couples (one guy wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with “this shirt is business casual”) passing their digital cameras around showing pictures of themselves in front of the pyramids…while the singer sang bad renditions of unknown pop music and one sole guest, a quite large happy older woman, decided to bust a move on the dance floor. It was like being at a really bad wedding of people you don’t know, but with no cake. Today we met a guy in the lobby of our hotel, Sheiban from Toronto, who is a blogger on his way to Abu Dhabi to cover the Red Bull Air Race (check out his blog). Can you believe people get paid for this? How cool.

We have decided to stay in Cairo another night so we’re going to meet Per & Elly in Port Said tomorrow…unless they are delayed due to another warship. We expect to head to Lebanon the day after tomorrow, I think…and we should be there ten days.