Adventures in Africa: Pyramids of Giza, Egypt

We flew from Jeddah to Cairo yesterday, and spent last night more-or-less across the street from the sphinx! 

The sun was setting as we deplaned to the Cairo tarmac.

From the Cairo airport on the northeast side of the city it was about an hour cab ride to Giza, on the west side of the city. Given the notoriety of the Cairo airport taxi mafia, we opted to arrange a driver ahead of time for $23 USD. I would not be surprised if this ends up costing more than just negotiating with the crooks, but somehow feels well worth it to avoid having to deal with them. By the way, Sphinx International Airport is just northeast of Giza, so perhaps one day those attempting to visit the pyramids could fly into there and avoid crossing the city of 20+ million altogether; but I gather at the moment Sphinx is not used much for international travel. Our cab ride did allow us to "enjoy" Cairo traffic, however, and included highlights such as a small pick-up truck smashing into the rear end of the car in front of it, just outside my window. 

In Giza we are staying in one of the many small hotels outside the pyramid complex. Most of these are not especially nice, but very affordable and in our case nice enough. The highlight is the rooftop patio, where even after dark the silhouettes of the pyramids are an impressive sight. After dinner I was able to walk to a close by liquor store (I found the local neighbourhood fascinating) to grab a couple of Egypt's Stella beers to enjoy while looking out onto the pyramids.

This morning, literally four minutes after waking up, I was at the ticket wicket for the pyramids, as I had heard the line-ups can get crazy. It was no issue to buy a couple of tickets at 8:34, however, and I returned to the hotel for breakfast, served, of course, on the rooftop. For me, at least, nothing I have read or seen prepared me for being "face-to-face" with the pyramids. They are so big and so old and very much "everything I imagined and more."

Shortly after 9:30 we walked through the gates and up to the sphinx. We could see the sphinx from the rooftop, but he is much cooler up close. 

Although fairly small relative to the pyramids, the sphinx somehow really captured my imagination. There is speculation he was carved from pyramid "leftovers"!

Straight up the hill from the sphinx is the "middle" pyramid--both the middle one in the row and the middle in terms of height--the Pyramid of Khafre. It is particularly noteworthy because the upper portion retains some of the original limestone outer layer that is mostly lacking from the others. 

Here is what it looks like up close!

Given that people have died trying, you can no longer climb the pyramids, but it is easy to see why it is tempting!

Heading southwest from the pyramid of Khafre is the pyramid of Menkaure, plus the three queen pyramids to go with it (there are actually nine pyramids total at this site--the three great pyramids, plus three queen pyramids beside the pyramid of Menkaura and another three queen pyramids beside the pyramid of Khufu).

Menkaura's pyramid is quite a bit smaller than the other two, but very picturesque. By the way there are camels and horses throughout the site and the camels in particular add to the charm. What absolutely detracts from the charm, however, are the touts trying to get you to ride the animals. Still, we had been led to expect worse than we experienced, and were happy enough to walk around on foot. As you can see, while we did not exactly have the site to ourselves, it was relatively quite at this time of day. Most of the tour groups and tourists from Cairo come later in the morning and into the afternoon, so it was a good time to be here. 

Also, although it was already very warm, standing out here in the middle of the day must be very, very hot! You can get a sense of the sun's intensity in the photos below. 

We continued around Menakaura's pyramid and past the three queens' pyramids. These are much, much smaller, and overall have suffered more deterioration than the pyramids of the pharaohs. 

Our goal in walking back here was a ridge which is perhaps the one spot where you can see all nine pyramids at one. 

You also get to watch the camels trekking across the desert which is a pretty cool sight. 

The far three queens' pyramids are difficult to see in my photo, but you can at least appreciate that there is a really good view of the complex from up on the ridge. 

From the panoramic viewpoint, we walked back across the sands, to the largest and oldest pyramid, that of grandpa Khufu.

Over here we were close to the main gates, and the crowds were beginning to arrive. We circumnavigated the pyramid to the east side where the queens pyramids are. 

Here is some video from around this spot.

You can pay extra to go into two of the big pyramids, but I have heard there is not much to see and there were line-ups I was not interested in queueing in. I did, however, want to go inside a pyramid, so I took the opportunity to go into one of the queens pyramids. This one was fenced off.

But the Pyramid of Queen Meritetis I was open, so I entered and descended. Truly there is not much to see (and lighting/lack thereof such that there was nothing to photograph), but what I found most interesting was how far down I descended. I have always thought about the heights of pyramids, not their depths, but I assume the Pyramid of Queen Meritetis I might be as deep as it is tall. My wife thought going inside a pyramid was creepy, so left me to it. We met outside the compound, passing the Sphinx again as we exited. 

We picked a rooftop other than our hotel's for some cool drinks and lunch. Even after being up close, it was still completely wonderful to look out over the pyramids we as dined.

We did a little souvenir shopping this afternoon (which included a bargaining episode in which the souvenir seller started the negotiation with a total price higher than the sticker price! ["welcome to Egypt"]), but largely relaxed on the hotel's rooftop enjoying the view!

By the way, this is the view the opposite way, down the street into Giza.

As the tourist hustle and bustle quieted down, watching the sun set behind the pyramids was lovely to experience.

After dark it was time for dinner, so we walked a little ways to find a place that interested us. We ordered set meals which let us sample a whole array of interesting and (often) delicious things!

For my main course, I enjoyed a couple of pigeons. 

Adventures in Asia: Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

From Damascus, we reached Beirut in the evening on Saturday. Yesterday morning we took an Uber to the airport and boarded our Saudia flight to Jeddah.

A couple of hours later we were descending over the Arabian desert.

That's King Abdullah Sport City Stadium in the photo below... getting close to the Jeddah airport at this point. 

The airport experience was interesting because the vast majority of international arrivals were umrah pilgrims wearing Ihram clothing. For men this is in essence two towels--not typical attire for an airport! But, in Jeddah (just an hour or so from Mecca) I suppose it is!

The airport also has a very large two-story aquarium in it. 

We had a frustrating experience with Uber, but eventually got into a car and drove to our nondescript hotel.

 Three royal faces greeted us in the lobby. 

Even just driving from the airport we could tell that Jeddah is a very spread out city (more-or-less running parallel with the Red Sea coast) with a lot of cars and big roads. 

The sun was setting as we reached our hotel room.

We freshened up quickly and got another Uber to head down to the corniche. At sunset the corniche is a very popular place to be for everyone--tourists (there are not very many), locals, families, friends, and so on. 

The corniche is beautiful, although even with the sun setting it was very warm! 

For some reason I was very surprised and excited to see Tim Hortons along the corniche. I found out there are well over 200 Tim's locations in the Middle East and well over 100 in Saudia Arabia alone, but I had no idea the Canadian icon was this well known and loved in this part of the world!

From Tim's, we walked north along the corniche until we found the Red Sea Mall--one of Jeddah's several large shopping malls. There is obviously a healthy middle class in Jeddah, and many of them evidently enjoy shopping in large, air-conditioned malls! The mall closes well after midnight, and at 21:30 it was still bustling. We ate dinner at the food court here and enjoyed browsing many of the stores, especially the Saudi hypermarket store Danube, which we visited twice! 

This morning we woke up to our only full day in Jeddah. We took it easy in the morning (it was already hot!) and enjoyed coffees in a nicely air-conditioned cafe by our hotel. Around noon we summoned an Uber and headed south to the UNESCO-listed Al Balad neighbourhood, Jeddah's old city. The current state of Al Balad is perhaps best summarized with this photo of the most famous specific location within Al Balad, the Bab Makkah, or Mecca gate.

 

The gate is nicely restored, but isolated, surrounded by parked cars and construction, and I think the photo captures the desert sun and heat well. I have optimism that Al Balad will continue benefiting from Mohammed bin Salman's economic diversification efforts, but it will presumably take another year or two at least before it is really "ready" for tourism--and I assume it will never recover the life and authenticity it must have had at one time. Perhaps it serves as a cautionary tale for other Middle Eastern old cities like, say, Damascus.

As to Bab Makkah, for centuries it served as the main gateway through which pilgrims passed on their way to Mecca from the Red Sea port at Jeddah. Much of Al Balad's construction utilized coral from the Red Sea, and that is evident when you look at the bricks in the gate.

Through here, perhaps 75 kilometres or so away, is Mecca, across the desert. 

Our Uber driver told us that "desert" there was once a residential neighborhood, but it was recently bulldozed. If this is the case, clearly the desert takes over fast, because I could see no evidence that it had ever been anything other than a flat, sandy expanse.

When we arrived at Al Balad the midday call to prayer occurred, and I captured some video.

Besides the gate, a few of the buildings in Al-Balad are nicely restored, and others much less so. 

The tree in front of this building was once the only tree in all of Jeddah, which really brings home to what extent you are in the desert here!

There were few restaurants or cafes open, unfortunately, but we did find a cafe where we could enjoy some cold drinks and the air conditioning (it was 36 C outside!). 

For lunch, though, we realized we would have to look elsewhere, so we called an Uber and headed to the Central Fish Market. 

What an experience this was! Somehow fresh fish coming out of the Red Sea was not what I thought about when we came to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, but here we were, amidst the sights and smells and sounds of fish and seafood and fishmongers. 

This fishmonger, in particular, seemed enthusiastic about his catch, and wanted to pose for me with it!

Eating here was not as straightforward as I had hoped, and we made several wrong moves before figuring it out! First, you have to actually buy your own fresh seafood from one of the stalls, which we did not understand when we first sat down. So, we were sent back into the market to select our lunch. Prawns seemed an easy choice, and we managed to buy a dozen prawns for what amounted to a few dollars.

We did not, however, have the prawns appropriately prepared, so when we took the prawns to the counter for cooking, we were sent back. Our fishmonger seemed amused, but deveined our prawns for us.

For a few riyals the cooks grilled the prawns, and you can order rice and salad and bread on the side.

It all made for a delicious, interesting, memorable, and very affordable meal!

We were late eating lunch, and lingered over it, so it was getting on in the afternoon by the time we were done. We decided we would spend our remaining hours in Jeddah back at the corniche, albeit quite a bit further south from where we had been last night. 

This location is the Al Hamra corniche, where as last night was the "New Jeddah" corniche. The Al Hamra corniche is directly across from the Al Salam Royal Palace, and the spot where the King Fahad fountain can be seen. For some reason the fountain was not operating, which is too bad because it is apparently quite something, but we enjoyed our time watching the sunset here nonetheless. 

Actually, the sunset watching was wonderful, but so, too, was people watching--Jeddah obviously really enjoys their corniche, especially in the evening. 

I am typically reticent to photograph people, but somehow I could not resist some surreptitious photos of the traditionally dressed Saudis along the corniche. I do not think I have ever been anywhere there is so clearly one basic outfit men and women wear in public. Obviously not everyone wears the same thing, but a good portion of men are in white often with the white and red checkered keffiyeh, and even a higher percentage of women are in all black niqabs.

Besides watching people walk by or sit on the lawn and relax, another interesting aspect of corniche culture was at the evening call to prayer, we realized there are permanent large prayer rugs that are unrolled for people to pray. A significant portion of people at the corniche joined in the prayers, men lining up beside men and women beside women. I was respectful enough in this case to not take pictures, but it was very interesting to watch.

From the corniche we walked inland along Palestine Street to a restaurant for dinner before Ubering back to the hotel. Tonight is our last night here in Saudi and tomorrow we head to Cairo.