My First Egyptian Day

Okay. I arrived in Cairo pretty late Friday night, August 3. On Saturday I left the hotel intending to walk around, saving the touristic stuff for once I was with my tour. It so happened that after an overwhleming and stressful 30 minutes I made a friend, Mahmoud, while attempting (and failing miserably) to cross a big street. We walked through some pretty areas, crossed the Nile, et cetera...



Then all of a sudden I find myself convinced to go to the pyramids "the Egyptian way," aka around the back, possibly illegally? I did see my guide give a cop some cash, but who knows, everyone has to give cops money as far as I can tell. That's Mahmoud above. He started crossing the street, not realizing I stayed behind to take a picture. Then the cars starting coming, and he had to recross in order to guide me through the traffic. This was before I was very adept at "walking like an Egyptian." Nowadays, I cross with only a small suppressed amount of fear. It's kind of exciting to see how close the cars will get to you as you weave between them. One of my prouder moments was when I realized that I had just crossed a busy street, dodging the cars instinctively, while typing a text message on my mobile!!! It's really quite fun.

So on a camel I went...trotting around the sand, a horrible and delightful experience simultaneously. We entered the pyramid area through this fence here. I felt really awkward.

I have more pyramid pictures from when I went the proper way, I post them later.

My camel's name was 'Banana.' My guide was very sweet to her. I think he loved camels a lot.

After a traumatic mobile phone purchasing experience, we went to see the Sufi dervishes do their whirling. It was fantastic. I had never seen them before, and was struck by the look of pure joyous ecstasy on their faces as they spun incessantly. It was really beautiful, and very exciting.

Everything I did that first day was wholly unexpected, and so much better being with an Egyptian. It may sound extreme to those of you who haven't been here, but I really don't think I could have handled this city on my own. Now, it's infinitely better, I know my way around, somewhat, I wear headphones when I walk alone to shut out the comments, I look at the pavement to avoid the stares...and luckily I have friends from the hostel to walk with frequently, so I can smile and talk and look wherever I want. I will try my best to post a lot more tomorrow.