Giza is a suburb of Cairo and it's actually just across the Nile River from Maadi, the suburb that I'm staying in. It's about a 20 min. ride in a taxi and you can even see them from tall buildings all across Cairo on a clear day!
All of the places on the map above are suburbs of Cairo and you can get to the Great Pyramids of Giza easily from any of the locations. Giza is one of the worlds largest suburbs with over 6 million people. Cairo, all together, is estimated to have almost 30 million people and about 90 million in all of Egypt.
When you arrive into Giza, you will notice that it is economically a very poor suburb of Cairo.
Many people who live here survive on tourism and unfortunately, tourism came crashing down after the first Egyptian Revolution in the spring of 2011 (more to come on the "Arab Spring" Revolutions" and Egypt's government in future posts).
Tourism is slowly picking up, but it is nowhere near what it used to be. Today there were a few tourists scattered around with two buses (not full of passengers), that I could see. But, pre-revolution there were countless tourist buses coming and going and the pyramids were buzzing with people which brought good business for the local Egyptians who sell everything from t-shirts, postcards, statues, camel rides, food etc...
The plus side was that it felt that you had the pyramids almost to yourself which made them that much more majestic; the downside is that you feel really bad for those who rely on tourists to feed their families and are struggling. This desperation can lead to the aggressive sales pitch on the few tourists there are, but we had no problem with that today.
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| This is the ticket to get in to see the Pyramids. It is equal to about $10.50 in U.S. dollars |
Here was my experience at the Great Pyramids of Giza today with Ms. Chambers and Ms.Fuller. This was their first time, so I was very excited to show them around one of the great ancient wonders of the world!
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| Me riding on Moses with Hossam down below helping to guide us. |
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| We can see the pyramids ahead! |
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| All of us posing with Moses. I am trying to lean in to the picture, but the reason I'm far way is because poor Moses had a wound on his head and neck and there were a ton of flies all around him; poor guy! |
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| This is Pepsi; I rode him for the second half of the trip. He is only three years old and has a lot of spunk. He was ready to spring into action even before I was all the way on him and ready to go! |
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| Otto, Chambers and Fuller on our camels at the Great Pyramids of Giza! |
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| The Great Pyramid of Khufu in the front. |
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| Chambers and Fuller getting to touch the great pyramids as our guide, Abdou watches on. |
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| Our guide Abdou kept calling us either the Queen of Sheeba, Cleopatra, his Queens, etc... |
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| The attempt was made to make it look like I'm touching the top of the pyramid:-) |
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| I'm so exhausted from the camel ride that I had to rest on this pyramid for a minute. |
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| Thought I would try to use my superhuman teacher powers to slightly move the pyramid to the right. |
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| Unfortunately, not everyone respects the pyramids as you can see some graffiti here. |
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| Miss Fuller got to sit up on one of the pyramids. |
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| It's a hot day and we caught some workers at the pyramids napping in the shade. It is also Ramadan now (more about this holiday in a future post) and Muslims cannot eat or drink from sun up to sun down. |
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| Our camels taking a rest and our guide's horse "Sugar." |
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| Entry to the Great Sphinx |
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| Chambers, Fuller and Otto Selfie at the Sphinx |
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| Some other tourists |
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| The lovely Sphinx which sits below the three Pyramids of Giza. |
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| There are many legends why the Sphinx is missing her nose. One is that Napoleon shot it off, but most people believe it simply fell off from erosion after all the years of the desert wind, sun and sandstorms. |
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| More tourists visiting today |
I hope that gave you a good insight to what it is like to visit the pyramids today and take a camel ride.
I look forward to hearing from you whether it is just a comment or if you have questions!!! I will work on responding any questions you have asap!
Masalama (good bye in Arabic),
Mrs. Otto
