The night I arrived in Cairo, I was tired, confused, and poorly prepared for the assault on my senses and sensibilities that would come in the following days. Waleed took me to Dwarves of the East, and I smoked my first (of many) sheesha. My second day was not quite as relaxing.

A whirlwind tour of Cairo in 3 days is not easy to accomplish. Not only is there more to see than can possibly be seen in such a short time, but between the traffic, liars, and scam artists, it’s pretty difficult to get around as a non-arabic speaking westerner. Of course everyone speaks English, but it’s basically used a litmus test for whether or not to try to find a way to rip you off. If you respond in Arabic, you get one set of a prices, in English, the prices start about 4 times what they should. My goal on day 2 was simple. Get to the Giza pyramids, by camel, and take a few pictures. I would have been happy to go home and watch Arabic TV after that if I had to.

My hotel was quite close to the pyramids, and payed quite bit extra for that luxury, and the view.

I met Sayeed, or “Homeboy” as he preferred to be called, while walking towards an area where I thought I’d be able to hire a camel. He talked me out of flying solo for the day, fast talking accented English, and encyclopedic knowledge of Cairo was hard to resist. His silver teeth added to his charm, and I fell for it. $5 US dollars for a 2 hour tour. We agreed it would start with the camel ride.

I’ll admit I Payed way to much for the camel tour, negotiated from 1000 EGP (Egyptian Pounds) to about 350. I found out later that about 15 or 20 EGP per hour is reasonable. It doesn’t matter much though, and the Egyptians know it, because 350 EGP = $60. Do I really care? Only my damaged ego cares, but not my wallet.

I got a guy, a friend of Sayeed’s, named Ahmed and his 10 year old sidekick Ali who led the camel along. The camel was an enormous 5 year old named Moses, who was very cooperative and very gentle with this beginner.

It turned out that Ahmed was something of an insider. My negotiated price of 350 EGP included all entry fees we might have to pay along the way, normally 40 EGP to get into the Giza desert area, 35 or 40 EGP to get into the Sphinx area. Ahmed found a great way to turn an extra prophet - just don’t pay any of the official entry fees. This meant that we, me, Moses, Ahmed, Ali, and a horse, walked miles out of the way, through a super-poor Bedouin village, and through the Sahara desert, to enter the fenced area surrounding the pyramids through a whole in the fence from the south. Most tourists come in from the east and have a straight shot into the Sphinx.

From the south, the view is spectacular, so Moses and I wound up with this great picture.

I wouldn’t have done it the regular way if it was free. My backroad tour was a thousand times better than the tourist sheep were getting. Not only did we avoid paying anyone anything extra, except for that one time the police demanded a bribe, but my lonely infiltration included a unique tour of some areas technically “off limits” to tourists. Just the way I like it.

I climbed the Pyramid of Khufu so high I thought I might not be able to get down. I am pretty scared of heights. Here I am jumping down rather quickly after the police came to chase us away. Ahmed barked something in Arabic at them, and they left alone after I came down. I don’t think I was supposed to climb, but Ahmed insisted it was fine. Ha.

The best part though was the series of tombs to the east side of the pyramids, barbed-wired off so tourists could not enter. Ahmed foiled the complex security system with one sandled foot on the lower barbed wire, and a deft hand on the upper. He spread the wires apart and instructed me, “Quickly, this way…” The tombs and dusty stone alleyways we found inside were extraordinary, and the pictures I got were great. Sometimes it’s nice not to follow the rules.

Next was the Sphinx, but of course, we approached from the side and Ahmed instructed me, “Do not pay to go inside. That is where the tourists go. You can get great pictures from outside. You have zoom.” He was a bit wrong. When I got up as close as I could without paying, the shots angles were bad and my zoom lens wasn’t helping. When I signaled to him that I would pay and go in, he ran up and told me to follow him. I did, right in through the barely guarded exit. When one guy attempted to stop us, Ahmed berated him in Arabic, and I was right inside. There were tons of tourists here, the first I had seen on the whole tour, and I was able to get some decent pictures.

When we finally got back to Ali and the horse and camel, we found this angry cop sitting on Moses. He asked form money from me but I refused to give it. I dismissed him in English, “I’m not paying you. You’re police!”

Ahmed did pay him, and he released the camel.

The whole tour took nearly 3 hours. I was about 12:30. I was sunburned, tired, chaffed, and smelly, but smiling ear to ear. I payed too much for the tour, then tipped to much, and then finally got back into the cab with Sayeed. The rest of the day was even more insane, but I’ll have to tell that story or two or three in another post tomorrow.