Cairo chaos!

The Sphinx and Chefren Pyramid in the background

The Step Pyramid of Djozer

Egyptian Stella is fine

Cairo is without doubt the craziest, busiest city we've ever visited. Which doesn't mean we didn't enjoy it. In fact we both felt a little agrieved that we didn't have enough time to explore it more. Nevertheless it is fortunate in that it is blessed with the world's oldest and arguably most impressive historical monuments (read tourist sites) – The Pyramids of Giza (also known as the Giza Necropolis) and the oldest of them all The 'Step' Pyramid at Saqarra which dates back to 2650 BC!

We were both extremely impressed by the Pyramids but equally irate by the amount of crooked peddlars that try to fleece you every which way you turn. If you go 30 seconds without being harassed you've done well. It's a shambles! Fair enough, that's what you have to deal with when you go travelling and I'm all for it, but after a while the novelty wears off.

Anyway, our trip into the centre of Chefren Pyramid (the middle one) was quite interesting! You have to walk down though this very snug tunnel (3ft wide X 3ft tall?) at about a 60º angle, across a little bit and then up a very similar tunnel of the same length into the tomb where two 'Authentic Egyptians' greet you and compete to see which one of them can rip you off more by explaining the history of the sarcophogus to you! And I was silly enough to expect that this would've been included in the ticket price!

This entry would be incomplete if I didn't mention something about the traffic in Cairo. It truly is BONKERS! 4 lane highways accommodate at least 6 lanes of clapped out cars, trucks, overloaded buses, donkey drawn carts (driven by children), pedestrians, scooters and motorcyclists (no helmet required) who all compete ferociously to get to wherever they're going first! And to top it all off we hardly saw any traffic lights and no one seems to (know how to) use their indicators! it's a case of 'just go where you wanna go boss but give us a toot so we know where you are!' I must say, it is strangely brilliant to see and it turns an otherwise dull taxi ride into the most envigorating of expericences!