Needless to say, I continued the pattern. Cairo is the capitol of Egypt, and is the biggest city in Africa, not to mention on of the most densely population cities in the world. Cairo is located in northern Egypt, which is actually referred to as Lower Egypt. Don't ask me why. It is south of the Mediterranean Sea, and is west of the Gulf of Suez and Suez Canal.
They have warm summers, ranging in the mid nineties, and relatively cool winters, ranging in the fifties and sixties. The majority of Egyptians are Muslim, and most of them are Sunni. The remainder of the citizens, five to twenty percent, are Christian.
By the time I had scanned the Wikipedia page, Laura was already flipping out about who knows what. She kept repeating, "Giza Giza Giza Giza Giza Giza Giza," over and over again.
"We can go there if it makes you happy, Laura," I said, secretly wanting to go there myself. I knew Laura would be shocked to know I wanted to go there. Apparently I'm more of a Valley Girl than an Ancient Pyramid Girl.
We arrived in the late afternoon, grabbed our bags, and stepped outside. It was nice. Not too hot, not too cold, though it was very dry. We caught a cab to our hotel, the Concorde El Salam Hotel, and unloaded our stuff once more. It dawned on me that we were halfway done with our trip.
Since we arrived in the late afternoon, we decided to spend the evening planning our trip. We decided on our activites. We headed to bed early, or what we assumed to be early, because we still were jet lagged from Newark. That was the disadvantage of traveling across the world every two days: what the heck is the time?
The next day, November 2nd, we caught a tour bus to the Pyramids of Giza. The whole way there Laura was saying, "Giza Giza Giza. Giza Giza Giza. Giza Giza Giza." I attempted to drown it out. No success. It didn't comfort me that this had to outweigh my beach spazzing.
On the brink of disgruntled and jet lagged tears, Laura stopped. I looked up from the fetal position I had formed and saw the Pyramids. They were awe inspiring, beautiful, and haunting at the same time.
I looked over at Laura and we exchanged glances. She suddenly got a huge, goofy grin on her face and began chanting, "Gizaaaaaaaaaaa. Gizaaaaaaaaaaa. Gizaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa," like a bird would, if such an annoying creature existed.
When we got off the bus, a short, tan man wearing beige colored cargo pants and vest approached us. He was wearing nothing under the vest. Thats what I call a hairy situation. Weirdly, he almost reminded me of the guy from Rio.
We toured the Pyramids, the Sphinx, the Step Pyramids of Zoser, and the statues of Ramses II. Laura eventually quieted down (but not before irritating the hairy tour guide and the rest of the tour group), and we learned about ancient Egypt and all its wonders. It was fantastic, I must say. I never would've though that I'd enjoy it as much as I did, but I had no doubt that I wanted to go in the first place.
We spent the whole day there. A few times Laura made comments that worried me. She tried to scratch the Great Sphinx nose...Luckily, we were bused back to our hotel before she got the chance. We got to the hotel and immediately fell asleep on the beds. As I was nodding off, I could've sworn I heard Laura chanting.
No comments:
Post a Comment