Pyramids, sphynx and camel jumping

We had booked a tour with the hotel for a trip to giza, sakkara and memphis to see the pyramids. We got up at 8:30 to get the tour, turns out it was just a driver, who stopped off at all his mates on the way round hoping to flog us stuff we soon got wise to that. He drove us to giza first but stopped at a horse and camel shop and the guy there was trying to flog us a trip, we eventually went for an hours trip for £240 egp about £30 on a camel each. We went through the security barrier passed a load of horses, some looked mistreated and thin, not very good. We wandered around the desert and the guide took our pictures with the camels, with the pyramids and then told us to stand on the camels back and jump off. The guide was a mean to the camels he didnt half whack them when he wanted to get going. We walked upto the pyramid and a guard shouted me over wanting him to take my picture , no thanks, heard a load of stories about guards demanding money for the camera back! We got back on the camels and the guide gave us the tickets to go see the sphynx , the sphynx wasnt as big as i expected but was good none the less. The guide immediatly asked for the tickets back, so he was obviously slipping the guard a few pound on the gate and reusing the tickets.

We jumped back in the car and headed to sakkara but the driver stopped half way at a papyrus factory, government run, he said, thats code for my mate. A guy gave us a good talk on how papyrus paper is made and then the hardsell came, luckily we both didnt want it as we coundnt carry it anway. We jumped back in the car and the car driver asked what our jobs were, we said unemployed , dont like work. We didnt want them to know what our jobs used to be as he would of took us to all his mates to fleece our cash from us.

We arrived at sakkara and went to the pyramids, they are not as impressive as giza but they are all open so you can wander around the ruins, that is if you can loose the dodgy guides trying to be your friend. We ended up in a tomb where you can actually climb down the pyramid entrance down a corridor that you had to bend to one side to get down. That was brilliant, copey (indianna jones) must of felt like he was on his next adventure. Sakkara was very strange it was dessert one side, then palm trees the other, quite beautiful. Sakkara was known for carpet making and their was schools everywhere, im sure if we had told him we had money we would of been at his mates school where copey would of been buying his first shag of the trip!

We got to memphis and paid £35 egp plus £2egp for the drivers car to get in. Copey paid and got given a huge wad of cash turns out egypts coins also come in note form, one was worth 4p, why bother! Memphis was quite a let down the only thing there was a few large statues and a giant statue of rammeses 2. We spent the whole of 20 minutes here, we jumped back in the car and off we went back to the hotel.

We got back to the hotel and the guy told us his mate couldnt do the lift for that less, he could do it for 400 egp more, no thanks. We were then lost on what to do so we cancelled our 5* hotel just in case. After a kip we then went on the pc to see what we could do, we were both undecided so gave up after a bit. An american guy came back from the pyramids and was waitingfor a bus to dahab. We got chatting and headed out for tea, we ended up at a random burger place, i got roastbeef and cheese, it was actually good, all i needed was roasters , gravey and yorkshire puddings with apple sauce! We walked around the centre of cairo for a bit to find a travel agent but didnt want to trust any so gave up, we found a shop that sold little bags of washing powder for about 40p so grabbed two as we had ran out. Once back at the hotel we decided to bus it to sharm el shiek, a 7 hour bus journey through the heat of the day, we were not looking forward to it. We also managed to book a 4* all inclusive hotel for £23 a night, were gonna drink the bar dry when we get there!