adventures in egypt: giza

day 4 - giza at last!

after stopping briefly for a tour of a mosque in the City of the Dead, which was built to be a city of tombs but has become a city of squatters, we were off to the pyramids at Giza.

papichulo and i got on a pair of camels, which were walked by one guy and kicked along by another guy on a horse from the town of Giza all the way to the outer perimeter of the pyramids area. they wanted us to experience the grand effect of riding to the pyramids from the desert. this sounds more fun than it was. i've always wanted to ride camels in the desert near the pyramids but i have to admit that those smelly beasts are not fun to ride. my inner thighs have been hurting for the last 4 days. perhaps a 10 minute camel rental near the pyramids for a photo op would have been better.

there are 3 big pyramids at Giza but only is called the "Great Pyramid". it was surreal to be there and think about how old those structures were and how incredibly massive they were. you can enter the 2 largest pyramids but for some weird reason our guides kept telling us that the Great Pyramid was not worth visiting because it was identical to the Secondary Pyramid and much more expensive. if you're ever there and anyone tells you this, don't believe. it's total nonsense. the Great Pyramid is much more impressive inside than the other.

that evening i decided to go eatery hopping around the ghetto hood near the hotel for dinner. the first place i tried was the International Public Meal Kushari, which serves only kushari. i had no idea what kushari was, so i just sat down and prayed it wasn't brains (which has been on a few menus here). instead of providing a menu, the waiter just yelled, "2 pounds?! 3 pounds?!" initially, i thought, "pounds of food?" but as light bulb went on (duh...cost!), i yelled back "2 pounds!" within minutes, he brought me a bowl containing a mixture of rice, macaroni, spaghetti noodles and vermicelli with layers of lentils and fried onions on top. the atkins nightmare. on the side, there's a small bowl of heavily spiced tomato sauce. i watched how other people ate their kushari before digging in and copied - pour tomato sauce over the mixture, add hot sauce and vinegar from the bottles on the table, mix everything together, then eat! all this for 2 EGP. that's about 35 cents. after kushari, i went across the street to Akher Sa'a for falafel, which is called ta'amiyya in egypt. for 1.75 EGP i got tourshy, pickles, and a pita filled with a falafel patty the size of a small hamburger, shredded cucumbers and carrots, tomatoes and tahini. i like the large-sized patties a lot more than the little balls because there's less deep fried surface area and more moist chick pea. i finished off my neighborhood food tour at the awha across the street from the hotel to have shai na'na, mint tea.