riding of the camel

So, we get up and get ready.  Going to Giza is not like going to shoppers down the street.  Its not even like going to polo park for an afternoon. Or IKEA.  Its like, a full day, energy-draining experience.

Knowing this, Luther and i planned well ahead of time.  We called our driver (young man we rely on to take us places that are too far away for underground metros)

He picked us up and reluctantly took us to giza.  I will explain why he was nervous in a minute.

The majority of the ride was good.  Ahmed tells us he is going to get married. (Yesterday he met his wife for the fourth time. He is very much in love though.  You can tell by the music he plays in the car. (Lion Kings 'can you feel the love tonight')  He invites us to his wedding and we agree.  He asks how we celebrated our 'Balem-times day' and we tell him.  We first met ahmed on a drive to the largest mall in cairo.  He was young and played good music so we have used him for rides ever since.  If you ever come to visit us- i guarantee you that ahmed will be picking you up. :)

Going to Giza is crazy because there are no rules set by the tourist bureau, or state of antiquities, or even the municipal government.  Its a total free-for-all with men selling random egypt souvineers, pictures, camel rides, horse rides and bathroom tickets (what, did you really think that was free? )

The road to giza- the ONLY road is (strategically) one long street that goes uphill through a town filled with people who make a living off of tourists in the form of papayrus factories, souvineer stalls, essential oils, stables and restaurants.

The sellers are so crazy that when  they see a white person (bonus points if they look like a SUPREME tourist ie: short shorts, shorts in general, tilly hat, large camera adorned around neck etc. -they will jump on the cab or bus or whatever it is and begin yelling at you in every language they know in hopes that you will reply)

Ahmed dreads this because his poor car ends up being beat up.  We hate it because all we want is a damn camel ride.

We get out after a few sharp swerves with the car (to get the people off) and luther calls the 'camel man'. (You have a 'watch man', a 'heater man', a 'tv man'-we have the 'camel man')  We use this man because we noticed how healthy his camels looked on an earlier trip to giza.  As he says 'i feed my camels before i feed myself'.  He has 2.5 camels for us.  One of them is a baby! I hop on 'Casanova'- he is attached to the baby, 'cinnamon'.  Luther hops on his camel but I forget the name!

We went for an hour long camel ride for 200 LE. Thats approx. 20 bux for 2 camels for an hour (thats a pretty good deal.  I mean, think about what the zoo in winnipeg could charge.  They could easily get away with charging 30 bux for 20 minutes)

camel cudles (even the camels are kissing!!)



casanova & cinnamon

The best part is when the camel gets up cause you go flying back and forth.  Then the camel man asked if we wanted to run with them.  So we 'galloped' across the desert. :)

We took lots of camelly pictures.  I didn't stand too close to the camels because (naturally) they attempt to eat my hair whenever i get too close. :P




luther is a natural :)

Worst part: chilly desert wind.

I am SO happy i was able to knock 'camel riding' off the cairo bucket list :)

next: BALLOON RIDING OVER THE TEMPLES!!