Cairo

"Your driver today is Mr. Fooad, and he is driving a nice bus". Memphis - ancient capital of Egypt. Egypt was divided into two, and the King joined the two halves, making Memphis the capital. Huge statues in honor of the God they tried to use to unite the people. He was supposed to be a potter who molded al of life together on his wheel each morning. The two halves of Egypt worshiped different gods so when the King united them he tried to give them a common God. Most of the statues were distroyed by Persians. Tombs always face west as when the sun goes down everything sleeps, so the dead can "rest in peace". A King's funeral would start at noon, princes, priests and all dressed in gold would walk till sundown from Memphis in the east to the tombs in the west, with the sun following them. We saw the first pyramid, which is graduated with steps all up the sides. Wonderful heiroglyphics, very detailed, even pictures of a grasshopper. The stones are my hight. After that we had lunch in a thatch roofed court yard where we ate kebabs and pita bread which we watched the woman prepare in open ovens. They did that lulululu thing with their voices.
Then we went to a carpet weaving factory where only children are used because of their small fingers. They wear bright colored long dresses and head scarves, and work very fast on the weaving machines.
Now to the Gaza pyramids and the Sphynx.
We went inside a pyramid with hundreds of people trudging up a steep corrador of steps . Very hot and clostrophobic. We got to a large empty room and then the same grueling climb to another empty room. We then rode camels from the pyramids to the Sphinx. The Sphinx was a disappointment, it was much smalled than I had imagined and it had scaffolding all around it.
Anyway two goals accomplished - Sphinx and riding a camel through the desert. Lastly a papyrus museum, where we saw the process from the plant to the paper.Plant stripped, hammered, soaked, rolled, pressed. Then back to the hotel.
That night we were supposed to go on a Nile cruise but it was fully booked , and once again our Egyptian dates came to the rescue. First we went to a place that serves you fruit cocktails in your car. Then we drove - no speed limit, no lines on the road, no lanes, just hooting and squeezing - to the edge of the Nile. There with a little bargaining the men got us a Falucca from an old man. We cruised down the Nile around the Golden island and back, chatting all the time.
This was a real working boat not meant for tourists at all and much better than the cruise we had missed. We returned to the hotel and parted with our dates. Then we got chatting with the hotel staff as we were hungry, and asked them to recommend something really local. So they said they would get a waiter to take us to a take-away. OK we were ripped off. First we were paying for the taxi and it drove around and around finding every food place closed. Then they finally took us to a fancy restaurant which wasn't really the idea. We asked for kebabs and they sold us 1kg of meat!!We had wanted to spend only 10 Pounds, and the taxi alone cost us 4. Since then we have found out that the price for a taxi in the Cairo area should never go over 3 Pounds. We spent the night having a private party, in our hotel room, me, Paz and a kilo of meat, until 2:30am.
In Cairo everyone asks for Baksheesh - a tip. By now we were so fucking sick of baksheesh, the next day we took a bag of fruit and gave that out instead. Maybe we should have used the left over meat!