Another amazingly jam packed day in Cairo! We got up early to take the bus to the Pyramids for 1 LE. It was a bit of a drive but Cairo is such a huge city! I think our host said 18 million people live here! The pyramids aren't actually out in the middle of the desert like you would think (or at least like I did), they are right on the edge of Cairo. It was 60 LE for admission (would have been half price if I had brought my student ID but I didn't know that! Bummer!) So before we really even get that far in we already get hassled by some peddlers to buy headdresses and the like, they were jerks! And then we get this kid posing as a museum guide and we follow him around a bit then we tried to ditch him but he was also an annoyance and kept following us so we eventually paid him 1 LE to go away!

After that Lisa and I headed out on our own to explore, we saw the first Pyramid and took "cheesy" tourist photos and then saw a spot where the boats were kept that transported all the building materials for the pyramids, very large boats from the looks of this spot, no surprise there. We also saw a small tomb of one of the pharaoh's wives that had lots of hieroglyphics, very neat and well-preserved. And we went to check out the Sphinx, you can't get very close to it but we took some good photos. Lastly we went into the second pyramid, the one with the exposed limestone cap, it smelled like cave and horses but was a welcomed reduction in temperature if only for a few degrees. Thankfully my shortness came in handy and the ancient Egyptians must have been really short because the small, narrow paths down into the Pharaoh's wife's tomb and second Pyramid were tiny, not for the claustrophobic! Not really much to see inside of them but hey you gotta say you did it right?!

After checking this one off our list we had to get a taxi to take us to the Egyptian Museum in downtown Cairo, this took a while because nobody wanted our price, finally a nice Egyptian woman yelled at the taxi driver and he accepted our 20 LE. Still not used to the cars and the traffic, or the constant (and I do mean CONSTANT) honking. But we got there pry in what was a 15 minute ride from thy Pyramids.

Like the last time because I didn't have my student ID I got charged full price admission of 60 LE. Live and learn on that one for sure! We took a long break under some trees in the shade outside the museum which was really needed. I was so tired I could have passed out right there! After that we went in and saw just tons and tons of ancient Egyptian sculptures, hieroglyphics, jewelry, money, sarcophagus's, etc, and of course we visited King Tutankhamen exhibit (the only air conditioned room in the museum that we had access to) it wasn't all they hype I expected it to be because so many of the artifacts are constantly on tours but it was still pretty cool to be in a room holding all of his personal items from his reign. Crazy that hundreds of years ago he sat in the chairs, wore the jewelry, and was buried in the sarcophagus's that we were now looking at. We toured the museum for a bit more but they really aren't my thing and we were both tired and hungry so we decided to take the metro for another 1 LE to Coptic Cairo which is basically just an older part of Cairo that has a high Christian influence. Of course because its Ramadan everything closed at 3pm so we couldn't find any food and were hassled by pretty much everyone there to buy something. A few kids grabbed at my arm for "baksheesh" but a firm "La" (NO) got them to go away. Lisa and I got roped into writing a letter for this one older gentleman who claims to have just welcomed his first baby girl "Nadia" into the world, he was a very friendly guy and even gave us very delicious Hibiscus and Mint tea. And we eventually bought some papyrus paintings from him for 50 LE (he wanted 98!) but I still think he ripped us off a little, oh well its all part of the adventure.

After this we spent another 1 LE to get back on the metro and go back to Tahrir Square for food. And we must walked for a couple miles in every direction but couldn't find any local cuisine (Ramadan again) so we settled on KFC, yep freaking KFC for our first meal in Cairo, LAME! Oh well, I was starving and my feet were killing me, I just wanted to sit.

We then went to Khan el-Kallili market, should have definitely eaten here, it smelled so delicious! But too late for that, we walked around a bit and then went over to a restaurant to meet up with another couchsurfer. Lisa got falafels and the restaurant servers were being jerks about where we could and couldn't sit, so we just parked it and told them to go away! After the other CSer got there we headed back into Khan el-Kallili to watch a free Sufi dance. It is a stage of guys dancing and playing instruments, very cool and at times almost trance like but also very intense and high energy! I really enjoyed it and took tons of pics! Thank goodness for the new camera, it kept up very well!

When the Sufi dance was over Lisa and I headed back to Tahrir square to meet up with Mohammad and a cs friend of his so they could take us to the train station to get our tickets for Luxor. Apparently foreigners can only ride in first class and no Egyptians can ride with them, we have segregated cabins! How weird, and stupid cause of course we have to pay for the most expensive cabin! And to get a ticket the process was absolutely ridiculous! They had an old fashioned ticket machine that was manual, I've never seen anything like it, there were only two people working (if you could call it that!) it took FOREVER! Reminded me of the lines at KFC when we had lunch, no order, tons of people pushing and shoving, not an efficient system at all!

So after getting our tickets we headed back to Mohammad's but made a quick stop at a juice bar, best cranberry drink EVER! So delicious, we both had two! I tried Mohammad's sugar cane drink but wasn't a fan. Then we headed back to his house and now its time to CRASH!