Milestone! The boys reach the pyramids
This morning, Dave and Fintan headed straight to the packed Egyptian Museum, which houses over 100,000 relics of Egyptian history. This was the first time we’ve seen mass package tourism since the Taj Mahal and we’ve been completely unused to it travelling through the Middle East where it’s rare to spot even the odd intrepid traveler. The museum was pretty run down but the highlight for us was the gleaming solid gold death mask and coffin of the Pharoah Tutankhamun. King Tut also sported the Ratty (more details later!) much to Dave’s delight.
Dave and Fintan at the Pyramids
That afternoon, we braved Cairo’s manic traffic to reach Egypt’s most famous site, the Giza Pyramids which are the sole survivor of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Although it is spectacular to witness these extraordinary 4,000 year old structures rising from the desert, our entire experience was tainted by the huge quantities of rubbish strewn throughout the site as well as the constant nagging by irritating vendors and scam artists. It’s a pity the powers that be don’t preserve and maintain this unique and historically significant site appropriately. The fact that you can sit in KFC with a perfect elevated view of the Sphinx and Pyramids really says it all. We got some classic photos sporting our Rick James/Cleopatra hats forced upon us by the incessant hawkers.
Tourism Overload!
With the sun setting over the Pyramids, we hit the road again further south to reach Luxor by that night. Following the Nile South, we were running out of Petrol, and with no stations to be seen, we forced to top up at dodgy road houses which would only sell us 10 litres of crap petrol at a time, which was a constant worry as it didn’t get us far in this remote part of the world.
The views of the Pyramids from the 1st floor of Pizza Hut are amongst the best we found!
Rhys poses for the tackiest shot of the Pyramids!
Luckily enough, we scraped by and didn’t run out of petrol which we’ve been lucky enough to avoid since Sydney. Since we’ve been really travelling hard over the last few weeks, we’ve been absolutely hammering it and arrived very late into Luxor, absolutely destroyed. Much to the disappointment of the Aussies, McDonalds Luxor had just shut, but we were lucky enough to find a decent kebab joint nearby our hotel. Dave was absolutely shattered from the incessant driving and practically fell asleep in his food.
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