I was blessed to visit Cairo last month as I was competing in the Egypt International.
Unfortunately, I didn’t play well and was knocked out easily in the first round.
However … that meant I also had a lot of free time to wander around Cairo and see a few things.
Of course, top of the list was to see the Pyramids of Giza, possibly the most talked about landmark in the world? The only two I can think of that might take the title are the Eiffel Tower and the Great Wall Of China. I’ve been lucky to see both of those in my travels, so was time to see how the pyramids stacked up (get it?!)
In my old age, I suppose I have gotten lazy and was lacking the energy to do things backpacker style. Ten years ago I would have jumped on a public bus to Giza, waited in line to buy the cheapest ticket possible, and bought water and snacks from the supermarket.
This time, I was happy to pay someone to arrange everything for me.
I booked this tour on Get Your Guide at just over 100 Euro, which included:
- Pick up
- Drop off (both by private car)
- Entry to the pyramids and Sphinx.
- Entry inside the great pyramid
- Local lunch
This was supposed to be a shared tour, but when I was picked up from my guesthouse the driver told me I’d be getting a private tour as there were no other bookings. Cool!
We drove down to Giza which took around 45 minutes.
It was early am so I was snoozing most of the way, but the driver pointed into the distance and said, “Look over there.”
Indeed, there in the skyline were the peaks of the Great Pyramids.
Once we arrived I was introduced to my guide. His name was Mohamed, like half of the other men I had met in Egypt by then. Mohamed was a short, chunky guy – he told me he was the top weightlifter in Egypt some years ago, which wasn’t hard to believe.
As we walked up to the entrance we chatted – he was an easy, chilled-out guy (most tour guides are). He told me he’d been taking pyramids tours for twenty years, so I was definitely with the right guy.
The best part about going with an experienced guide became apparent in the first two minutes. There was a long line waiting to buy tickets and go through security, but Mohamed walked us right to the front, shook hands with the security guard and walked us through. It does say on the tour listing that you’ll get to “skip the queues”, so I’m guessing this is an arrangement all the guides have with the complex.
It was the same thing entering the pyramid. There was a short queue but we headed straight to the front and I went right in.
What do I mean by “entering the pyramid?”
This is an extra add-on, which lets you walk into the passage built inside the pyramid (obviously heavily refurbished).
It’s a short but semi-difficult climb and a very narrow passage so you’ll be constantly squeezing past people. Many people were taking breaks and sweating like dogs, mostly because it’s not only tiring but hot inside. Once you get to the top, there’s a small room where there isn’t anything to see (as far as I could tell) other than an empty room with a stone box. A casket? Treasure chest? Dunno. Then you turn around and climb back down, the same way you came.
Is it worth it? I guess if you’ve travelled all the way to Cairo, you might as well do it. It’s a pretty cool thing to say you’ve done.
Once I’d come back out, Mohamed took me for a little walk around the five pyramids.
There are three big ones – built for three generations of kings, and then some smaller ones built for wives and mothers.
If you don’t want to look dumb like me, don’t ask which pyramid was for King Tut, since he wasn’t buried here! (he’s in Luxor). The pyramids are for King Khufu, his son Khafre, and his grandson Menkaure.
Mohamed obviously knew all the best photo spots and angles, so we walked around and snapped photos at all of them. Another bonus of having a guide – he can be your photographer too!
As I was there in October, it wasn’t the busiest. There were a few school groups around, and then your regular tourists from America, Europe etc (I know the accents).
As we’re walking around, I asked, “When you were in school did you also come here for a trip?”
He says “Of course, but not really to see the pyramids. Just to ride a camel and have fun with friends.”
Yep – sounds exactly like my school trips to the Auckland Museum as a kid!
Once we’d wandered around and taken all the classic photos, he gave me some free time to wander and look at things myself.
By then I’d already seen everything, but I took ten minutes to stroll around a second time (the place isn’t that big).
Other than being offered many scarves and camel rides and ice creams, there wasn’t much else to see.
After that, we headed to the Sphinx. Unfortunately, we didn’t spend much time at the Sphinx, we just drove past and took a photo and that was it.
I saw people walking around the statue and touching it, so if you want to do that there’s a way to, but it wasn’t offered and I didn’t ask.
In hindsight, I probably should have, since after that we left the complex and the tour was pretty much over.
On the way to lunch, we stopped at a Papyrus gallery.
I thought it was going to be the usual souvenir-selling spiel, but it was quite interesting.
The Egyptian papyrus is a type of paper that “lasts forever” made out of the papyrus plant.
I was introduced to a guy who showed me the process from start to finish, peeling away layers of a papyrus stem, wetting it and then stamping it into paper. Then he demonstrated how it’s nearly impossible to rip it and you can dunk it in water and it never damages.
I was left to roam the gallery and asked if I wanted to buy anything – there were hundreds of papyrus painted with everything from Egyptian legends to family trees to celebrity portraits. So in the end it was indeed a souvenir-selling spiel, but at least an interesting one.
I noticed an ATM machine inside the gallery right next to the cashier, and interestingly, many tourists lined up to take out cash.
The desk was also super busy processing purchases, so I asked the guy how many they sell in a day and he smiled and said “A lot!”
He also told me many tourists come to Egypt specifically to buy papyrus since it’s the best quality in the world and it lasts forever. True or false? No idea.
Finally, it was off to lunch.
The lunch was a classic mixed grill with some chicken, meatballs, bread, rice, salad, and a million different dips and condiments, like every other meal in Egypt!
I was hoping “local Egyptian lunch” might be a bit more interesting, but it was a standard (good) meal, nothing spectacular.
Evidently, the Cairo heat was starting to wear on me as I forgot to take photos of the papyrus gallery or the lunch…maybe I’m just getting old, hah!
Should you take an organized tour or go solo to the Pyramids?
I think it’s easy enough to go solo, since they have Uber in Cairo and it works pretty well.
Including Ubers to and from Cairo to Giza, and your entry ticket, you’ll probably pay half as much, but things will just require a bit more time and energy to figure out and you’ll spend some time waiting in lines.
If you want to pay an extra $40 or $50 to make things easier, an organized tour is the way to go. For me personally, it was definitely worth the extra! I booked mine through Get Your Guide, but you can also ask your hotel/guesthouse if they can arrange something for a better price, or even just ask at the various tour agencies around Cairo.
Final verdict on the pyramids?
Certainly a cool thing to see, and if you’re in Egypt or the region in general, definitely go! But… also kind of underwhelming.
Maybe the best way to put it is this – if I was still working as an accountant, and I had my two weeks of vacation time, and I’m wondering “Where should I go to spend my two weeks off this year?? Maybe I’ll go to Egypt to see the pyramids!”
Then I fly 25 hours to Egypt, just to see the pyramids, get really excited about it … and I finally see them.
I think I’d be disappointed.
However, if I was on a trip around the region, maybe visiting Jordan, the Emirates, Abu Dhabi, maybe even Morocco, then decided to add on Egypt for a couple of days to visit the pyramids – I would definitely think it was worth it.
In other words, they’re cool, but I don’t think they’re not soooo cool that you’ll rave about them to your friends and stare at the photos for weeks afterwards. Probably like most famous sights, to be honest.
Still – part of the coolness isn’t just whether they look cool, but how they’re such a big part of history, and so much mystery still surrounds them, and they’re a symbol of the ancient Egyptian Empire that still fascinates scholars to this day. In that sense, I hope everyone gets the chance to see them at least once in their lives!
