The state department issued an email alert warning us to avoid Tahrir Square today and tomorrow. Good thing we hit the adjacent museum already. Instead, we are headed to Memphis and Saqqarah, but first a stop at the camel market. Our tour guide, Maget, admits that he hasn’t been here since 2009 and seems to be having a ball and taking lots of pictures himself.
That was so much fun! Sometimes they get a little excited and make a run for it so we have to keep an eye out and quickly duck out of the way. That aside, they are actually very sweet animals that don’t bite, spit, or kick. And they ride in trucks!
Not all of them make it to the market, so outside is a stretch of road with the remains of the unlucky. Though, as most of the camels purchased are intended to be slaughtered for food, lucky may not be the best descriptor for them.
Carolyn tells the driver to go to the nearby Dandy Mall for lunch, thus avoiding another potential bad, overpriced lunch in favor of the guaranteed blandness of Hardees. All malls, all over the world, are the same place.
Also, because Friday is part of the weekend, there is almost no traffic in Cairo. What little congestion we see is concentrated around gas stations as there is a gas shortage happening.
In Memphis, we visit an open air museum on the grounds of what used to be a temple. They have a building with a gigantic statue of Ramses II that I am not sure the photographs do justice.
On our way to our next location, the driver stops for some Egyptian peas and shares a few handfuls with us. They’re more like lima beans than peas. Either way, pretty good as an early afternoon snack.
Saqqarah centers around the great step pyramid – the first of the pyramids built. There are several other pyramids in the area as well.
The step pyramid is built inside a smaller Memphis made entirely out of limestone so that the King could take it with him. At the time, this was a new building material. Rather than rely on it, the locals shored up the structure with mud bricks just in case. The ruins of both Memphis actual and mini-Memphis are on the west bank of the Nile now. Before the massive civil engineering project that brought the river under control, though, one of the branches of the wider, wilder Nile ran between the two areas so it was still life on the east and death on the west.
On the way back, our driver takes advantage of having tourists along to cut in line at the gas station.
Dinner is at Lemongrass in the local Marriott. They have dim sum sans pork, which is an odd experience. Dessert was an amazing rose flavored flan at a Lebanese restaurant in the same hotel.
That was so much fun! Sometimes they get a little excited and make a run for it so we have to keep an eye out and quickly duck out of the way. That aside, they are actually very sweet animals that don’t bite, spit, or kick. And they ride in trucks!
Not all of them make it to the market, so outside is a stretch of road with the remains of the unlucky. Though, as most of the camels purchased are intended to be slaughtered for food, lucky may not be the best descriptor for them.
Carolyn tells the driver to go to the nearby Dandy Mall for lunch, thus avoiding another potential bad, overpriced lunch in favor of the guaranteed blandness of Hardees. All malls, all over the world, are the same place.
Also, because Friday is part of the weekend, there is almost no traffic in Cairo. What little congestion we see is concentrated around gas stations as there is a gas shortage happening.
In Memphis, we visit an open air museum on the grounds of what used to be a temple. They have a building with a gigantic statue of Ramses II that I am not sure the photographs do justice.
On our way to our next location, the driver stops for some Egyptian peas and shares a few handfuls with us. They’re more like lima beans than peas. Either way, pretty good as an early afternoon snack.
Saqqarah centers around the great step pyramid – the first of the pyramids built. There are several other pyramids in the area as well.
The step pyramid is built inside a smaller Memphis made entirely out of limestone so that the King could take it with him. At the time, this was a new building material. Rather than rely on it, the locals shored up the structure with mud bricks just in case. The ruins of both Memphis actual and mini-Memphis are on the west bank of the Nile now. Before the massive civil engineering project that brought the river under control, though, one of the branches of the wider, wilder Nile ran between the two areas so it was still life on the east and death on the west.
On the way back, our driver takes advantage of having tourists along to cut in line at the gas station.
Dinner is at Lemongrass in the local Marriott. They have dim sum sans pork, which is an odd experience. Dessert was an amazing rose flavored flan at a Lebanese restaurant in the same hotel.
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