tourist Egypt

Ahoy,

Cairo is where the Pyramids are. I went to see them on the 2nd day in Egypt. We also saw the Sphinx. Seeing these monuments reminded me of a story my city planning professor told us. She said a friend of hers lived in Vegas and everyday he would park his car in the Sphinx parking lot. He eventually went to go see the actual Sphinx in Cairo and was sorely disappointed. He said it was so small. His idea of the original was completely distorted from having been exposed to the fake so often. I guess I'm glad I had not been exposed to the fake. I thought the Pyramids and Sphinx were quite impressive. 

The tour guide told us that it would not be worth it to pay to go into the big pyramid because you would just be in an empty room with blank walls and getting down there is incredibly stuffy and claustrophobia inducing. She recommended we go into the small one that is free. I did that. It was just so gosh-darned stuffy in there, but I wasn't sorely disappointed like she warned we might be. 

The tour guide also warned us about the vendors. They were VERY aggressive and persistent. She told us that they would give you something as a 'free gift' and then expect something back. And if you didn't give them money, they would start speaking to you in a manner that would be not as nice as they had been. Someone told me that a vendor hurled a pack of postcards at someone's head. She also warned us about the camel riding people. If we stay still long enough, they would pick us up and put us on the camel and refuse to let us down until we paid. Avoid the camel dudes. I did end up riding a camel at the 2nd stop where the camel rides are at a fixed price. She recommended riding a camel there.

Our final stop was at the Archeological Museum with King Tut's stuff. It was this mammoth ginormous whale shark of a place. There is so much stuff in there, and none of it is well kempt. There was no air conditioning, which you think would be there because it would preserve the artifacts better. It was so humid and hot in there. All those artifacts are just going to crumble to bits so much faster. There was so much stuff, but I felt like I was looking at the same things over and over again.

anticipatingly anxious,

JT