WE WENT TO EGYPT TO SEE THE PYRAMIDS AND IT ALMOST DESTROYED US

Everyone knows about the Great Pyramids of Giza. It’s basically one of the first things you learn about in history class, no matter where you grow up. It’s one of the 7 Wonders of the World! They’re 4500+ years old! They still don’t even know *exactly* how they were made! Finding someone who doesn’t know about the Great Pyramids would be like finding someone who doesn’t know how to breathe. I guess it’s because they’re some of the oldest surviving artifacts of early human civilization…and because they’re HUGE. Massive. Absolute units. 

On Wednesday, March 1st, 2023, we saw the Great Pyramids and Great Sphinx of Giza. 

It was pretty breathtaking to stand in front of these structures. Their size is staggering; they command attention in a very unique manner, by simply dominating the skyline from miles away. They’re one of those things that, as cliche as it is to say, you simply have to see in person to fully take in their breadth and scope. 

But if you’ve never seen them, we’re here to tell you: don’t let that be a regret of your life. 

Listen, we want to use this blog to capture an authentic and honest account of our experiences, both for our future selves reading this for the memories, and for other travelers out there looking for advice and information. And the truth is, we strongly disliked our time in Egypt. It was dirty, polluted, confusing, aggressive, and at times, even hostile. The infrastructure was either nonexistent or crumbling. The WiFi was unusable. Unlike in Marrakech, the vendors in Egypt did not take no for an answer; they would follow us, asking “Why not? Why not?” or saying “I give you good price, best price!” endlessly, no matter how many times we said no. Taxi drivers and horse-drawn carriage operators would pursue us, despite the fact that we just wanted to be out for a walk. We would say they acted like children…but some of them were children! 

The best parts of our time there all came during guided tours; when we were on our own, out walking around the city (ordinarily, one of our favorite things to do!), we really struggled to enjoy ourselves. 

Here was our schedule in Egypt: we arrived in Cairo at 5:30am Friday February 24th after an overnight flight from Casablanca. We scrambled to make a 7:30am hour-long flight to Luxor, where we toured the Karnak and Luxor Temples on the East Bank and then the Valley of the Kings, Tomb of Hatshepsut, Colossi of Memnon, and Habu Temple on the West Bank. We stayed in Luxor until Monday the 27th, when we took a train to Cairo. We spent two full days there, one at the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities and one seeing the pyramids, before leaving Thursday March 2nd on a flight to Istanbul. We were barely in Egypt for a week, yet it felt like the longest stretch of our trip yet. It was absolutely soul-shattering.

Take, for example, the train from Luxor to Cairo. We knew this journey typically took around 10 hours, but we wanted to experience it to see some of the countryside that we otherwise never would–it even ran along the Nile. It was difficult to find out much information about this train, though. There was no way to buy tickets online, and the blogs we read mentioned that sometimes, officials at train stations wouldn’t even let foreigners purchase tickets for the day train, and instead would force them to take the more expensive sleeper train. However, we knew we had a day to kill between hotels and thought being safely on the train would save us the trouble of people harassed in the street by vendors, taxi drivers, and children, so we resolved to go to the station in Luxor two days early to purchase tickets there in person. 

The station itself was pretty dark and dingy, and there were metal detectors at the door…that no one was manning. We walked up to the ticket counter with the only English-speaking clerk, thankful that the line wasn’t long. As we waited, two guys in the line next to us tried to sell us bus tickets to Cairo instead–a common theme in Egypt. (“Where you going”, “Where you from?” What’s your name” “What do you need” – all questions we were asked constantly). After paying €70 in cash for our two second-class tickets, since the clerk wouldn’t accept a credit card, we were handed this:

No, that’s not a dry-cleaning receipt, that’s our train tickets. And thank God Della suggested we take a photo of it for the blog…

We were somewhat wary of the fact that this didn’t look like a real ticket, but the process had been easy enough, and we confirmed with the front desk at our hotel to make sure this weird piece of paper, all written in Arabic, would allow us to board the train Monday morning. All looked to be in order. 

And so Monday morning came. We arrived at the train station 45 minutes early and found our platform, hyper-alert and very nervous to make sure we boarded the correct train. If we somehow missed it, and we were stuck in this hellhole, we were screwed…and also, out €70. Several people, including sheisty looking dudes and eager children, offered to help us with our bags and we declined–we were wise by then to how that story ends. 

The train pulled up. We got on. We gave our large bags to the porter, who stored them away for us in a locked cabin. We located our seats. We high-fived. We were on our way. 

After the train pulled away from the station, a conductor came to check our weird blue ticket/receipt. He nodded and continued on. But then…another guy came through asking to see it as well. And then…a third guy. This was getting ridiculous. The third guy held onto our ticket and walked toward the other conductors in our car, and suddenly it looked like they were having a powwow about our ticket, all speaking about it in Arabic, right in front of us. When we asked if everything was okay, one of them pulled out his phone to translate to us: “I am a police officer, we have better seats for you in first class, for free, follow me”. 

This was very strange…a tempting offer, but it all seemed so…underhanded. We had been told when buying tickets that the first class seats were all full, or we would simply have bought them already. And we didn’t want to be taken too far away from our luggage. After we said no the first time, they insisted, and so we said OK, under the condition that the porter moved our large bags back to be near us in our new seats. They agreed. And so we followed this “police officer” back towards two new seats in a nicer carriage. We didn’t sit down until we saw our large bags being pushed along towards us, and stored above us in the overhead compartment. And actually–this was a great improvement! We now had all of our bags in our line of sight, bigger seats, and a nicer carriage! We thanked the porters for their help. And then…they stood there looking at us expectantly… “Do you have something for us? Tip?” WELL OF COURSE, this was their plan all along! ‘Let’s move these stupid Americans to a better spot and exploit them for any cash they have on hand, in exchange for better seats we always had open anyway’.

Well…the joke was on them, because we aren’t as stupid as we look, and we didn’t have any cash on hand (that they knew about, at least) to give them! So we said “No cash, no, sorry, thank you for the upgrade” and they slinked away. We were totally incredulous. It was a shakedown! And then Ross asked if they'd given us our ticket back, and horror struck. No…I don’t think they did, they must have kept it! It’s all part of their plan…and now, we had nothing to prove that we even bought tickets to be on this train…except for that one picture on Ross’s phone. 

The next 5 hours passed without incident. Once or twice a new conductor–presumably the first-class conductor–came by to ask for our ticket, and luckily Ross had that photo, so we could at least show him that. We got a few hours of sleep; watched some downloaded TV shows; read; looked out the window at the countryside which was in fact not beautiful, but instead depressingly bleak (the Nile River was nowhere in sight); and passed the time staring blankly ahead, dissociating…until we got to a particularly chaotic station where tons of new people came aboard. 

And this is where things took a turn. 

Unsurprisingly, some other passengers had tickets (REAL tickets, with QR codes and everything!) for the seats we were now occupying. Well, tough shit guys, because these are now our seats, too. We refused to move. We said we’d been placed there by train personnel and they’d have to bring it up with the conductors. The language barrier being what it was, all they probably got out the whole exchange was ‘no’. So now, here comes the train conductor again, asking to see our tickets when he knows full well what our ticket looks like. Again we showed him the photo. And again, he made some non-committal noises and handed the phone back, then brought the new passengers to other seats somewhere else on the train. 

Over the course of the next 7 hours (Because–surprise! The train was not 10 hours, it was 12 ½) this happened about 4 more times. The same shenanigans. The same confusion. The same insistence that we needed to move and the same resolution that we would do no such thing. One time, when asked for our tickets, Della finally snapped. “We aren’t doing this again! YOU have our ticket! YOU took it, and didn’t give it back to us! We aren’t moving!” We were now causing a scene, and neither one of us cared. This was total harassment. 

Finally, we pulled into the Cairo station. We were sure that, being the capital city, and a cultural center of the world, that Cairo would be better than Luxor. It had to be. And yet…coming off the train station it looked like an absolute war zone. People shouting in the streets, sirens wailing, cars honking incessantly. We got in the first taxi (loose term) that was offered to us and we were off to our hotel. The traffic in Cairo was INSANE; there were no traffic signals, no one obeyed the lines painted in the roads, drivers shouted at each other and went for gaps like they were F1 racers, and all the while, people wove in between cars to cross streets, with no perceivable regard for their own lives. Mercifully, the ride to our hotel was short, and we quickly checked in and retreated to the relative calm of our rooftop room. 

Taking a minute to hug each other and breathe sighs of relief, Della then slipped her hands into her pockets…and what did she find, but our train ticket! And oh, how we laughed. (Maybe we are as stupid as we look, after all…but that doesn’t excuse the way we were treated!)

We had a nice hotel room in Cairo, in an old hotel with a lot of quirky charm, and this became our sanctuary for the next 2 days. The city was simply un-strollable, unenjoyable, unpleasant in every way imaginable. It was, without question, the worst city we have ever been to in our lives, and we started counting down the hours to our airport taxi as soon as we arrived. 

As Ross said, “All their best stuff was done 4000 years ago”. They peaked in BC!!

To give some small amount of credit, here are some of the positives we managed to take from our one and only visit to Egypt: 

• In Luxor we had an absolutely amazing tour guide named Imad, he took us to all the temples in Luxor and to the Valley of the Kings, which was an absolute standout. The hieroglyphics inside the underground tombs were truly breathtaking and a staggering feat of human design. Plus, because they’re all underground, the paint used by the ancients is incredibly well-preserved, and we were awestruck by the vibrant colors and precision craftsmanship of the tombs.

Imad and his two biggest fans at the Habu Temple on the West Bank of Luxor

Della in one of the brilliantly painted tombs in the Valley of the Kings.

• The view of the Pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx was another one of those incredible moments, totally otherworldly and magical and a vision of the past that we will not soon forget. The scale of these structures continues to blow our minds days afterward. 

• Last but certainly not least, there is an Egyptian liquor store chain called DRINKIES that saved us from the horrors of sobriety during this time. They had a decent selection, local prices, and they took credit cards. Thank you, DRINKIES. 

To recap, clearly, we hated Egypt. We won’t ever go back. We saw the stuff we wanted to see, took the pictures we needed to take, and even bought a few souvenirs that will forever remind us of this part of the trip. But, if you just NEED to see Ancient Egypt in your lifetime, we can’t stop you from going and forming your own opinions. However, we would HIGHLY suggest planning a scheduled, guided tour, from beginning to end. Including airport transport. Maybe even one of those Nile River cruises with excursions that allow you to pop on and off the boat for a few organized hours at a time. That is the only way we can conceivably imagine having a positive experience. 

When our flight finally took off from Cairo on Thursday, we practically cried with happiness. And now, we’re writing to you from Istanbul, an absolutely gorgeous city that we can’t wait to explore for a week (and return to for a longer stint, later this year!). We are happy, healthy, and back to enjoying ourselves. And every future step along this trip will be bolstered by the fact that it is not Egypt.