Adam on a camel (that was for you Andrew, just in case you missed what it was). So, this day was interesting. First, I took the metro down to Giza, and met a nice young man, Philemon on the way. He was a Christian and talked with me the whole way to my stop. Then I got a taxi right after getting off the stop, and about half-way to the pyramids he said, “I go with you. I show you around, then we go to Muhammed Ali mosque afterwards, I take you there. I take you wherever you want.” Umm, so now I have a personal guide. He spoke English really well, but I knew this meant I’d be paying the price for a personal guide. It would have been about 20 pounds for a ride to and from the pyramids.
Once we got there, we met a nice bedouin man who decided he needed to show both of us around, and he took us to other men, who showed us tombs, who then held their hands out until you stuck a few pounds in them. Then the bedouin told me about the tours on camel and horse that I could go on. I kept insisting that I did not want to go on one, because all the guidebooks say they just screw you over with the price. But he was persistent, and he said, “Well, you just get on camel for a picture.” I said, “I just want a picture, then I want down…” He said, “Of course, of course.” So, once I was on the camel, he said, “Let’s just move over there for a better picture…” and before I knew it, he had my “personal guide” on a horse, his sons ready to take us on the “short” tour and said, “Okay, only 20 pounds for the tour…you want to go, right?”
Now, when you’re finally up on the camel, it’s pretty sweet. It’s a pretty smooth ride, except for getting up and down from the ground on the camel. It’s fun. I’m thinking, “Well, hell…I’m in Cairo Egypt and I might as well shell out 20 pounds (which is approximately $3.50), of course I’ll do it.” So then the bedouin said, “Okay, so 60 pounds please, pay now.” I said, “Excuse me, we said 20.” He replied, “Yes, 20 per person, 60 total.” Ridiculous. I stood firm with 50 pounds, and that was the price.
We took the little tour, and on the way back, my “tour guides” (the bedouin’s sons) demanded their tips. They insisted 5 pounds for each of them. I gave them 2. That was all they were going to get. And I think the son who was guiding me was mad, because he made the camel sit pretty quickly, and I most definitely bruised something, some bone of my butt. It hurt..bad! So I hobbled for the next 3-4 hours around the metro and Coptic (Old) Cairo. It’s still sore.
I finally got back to the metro, decided that was all I needed for my tour guide, and offered him 30 pounds, to which he looked at me and said, “Too less….too less.” And I (stupidly) asked, “Well, what would be good?” To which he replied, “50 pounds please.” So I just sucked it up and gave it to him. And, in all reality, that means I paid a little over $8 for a “guide” and a 15 min taxi ride two ways.
But the pyramids were big. But, like any other natural wonder (Niagara Falls, Grand Canyon, etc.,) – it’s sort of like, “Okay…sweet. I saw it….ummm…now what?”