Well, in theory anyway.
Originally we had planned to bum around Cairo for a day before heading North to Alex (as the cool kids call it), where Mark had some connections for a beach side apartment room type thing for us to stay in. Instead, Muniir and Zach called us, asking if we'd like to go out with them in Cairo and then head to Al-Fayoum for a day or two, so we said, "Sure!" (it was the last trip we could take with our new friends, for after it they would return to their various places of residences, and we can always go to Alex some other time).
Thusly, after a night of moderate drinking (during Ramadan alcohol is even more scarce than normal, because many of the places that serve it are closed) at Pub 28, we woke up and went to the train station to catch a train to Al-Fayoum. After looking around the station, asking a few guards, semi-official train-station-people, and random strangers about the train, we discovered we had been given incorrect information (there weren't actually direct trains). We then met a nice Egyptian who talked with us for a while about our other options (and gave him our number for later hijinks).
We chose to ride the metro to Giza, where we were supposedly able to catch a bus the rest of the way. Our party consisted of me, Andy, Jonah, Heather, Allegra, Muniir, Mercedes (an Australian who met Muniir at his hostel), and Meg (same as Mercedes, though they were not actually traveling together, which I thought was coincidental).
We: got split up as the metro doors closed on the males of our party, as the girls had chosen the mostly empty Only Female car of the metro; caught a taxi to where the buses were and then walked around (with incorrect directions, which came to be a theme of the trip) before finding a minibus to take us the rest of the way for 6 pounds; sat in a minibus for an hour or so; found a taxi to take us to a certain ancient site that would be separate from our full-day tour the next day; saw the ancient city, whose name I forget, where they mummified crocodiles to appease a certain deity, whose name I also cannot remember; had the taxi driver take us to a very large lake, in which I swam (or, more accurately, walked, because the water didn't get above my head until a few hundred meters out); saw a fountain; and arrived at the hotel, where we added another to our group, Sulafa, a friend of Muniir's from, well, I'm not sure.
A note: everywhere we went the tourist police asked us where we were staying and various other questions, because apparently lots of terrorist attacks happen against tourists or something, and knowing where we could be found in such an event would help? We even had to have a police escort when we went out for dinner later that night, but being as he was in jeans and a button up shirt, we're not sure if he actually was a policeman.
After a long dinner we crashed and got read for our tour the next day, which we would be taken on by the same taxi driver who had carted us around thus far. Early the next morning, a few of the girls were awoken suddenly by pounding on their door (from inside the hotel room) by said taxi driver, who was screaming, "Time to wake up!" or something ridiculous like that. Once we had all opened our eyes, and still well before eight o'clock, we set out.
Basically, we went to a temple, a pyramid, another pyramid, and yet another pyramid (with a truck full of military following us the whole way--slightly creepy, what with their AK-47s and everything). Some of us weren't interested in paying 15 pounds to see the sights/sites, but I was and did. They were all very neat, especially the last one, which turned out to be the first pyramid ever built by the Egyptians. We climbed down a narrow passageway and got to hang out where the mummy had been uncovered, some 60 or so meters below the ground. Also, there was another tomb for the rest of the family, down which we also climbed, although it was less easily accessible, and the "guide" more or less just grunted and pointed at darkened areas, encouraging us to explore. On the way out I picked up some trash, which made me slightly sad. We were in these 4000 year old structures, where someone had just decided to treat like a dump heap and throw their water bottle away, because it is really so hard to carry it the few feet to a trash bin.
Anywho, after all the driving about, we had the taxi driver bring us home to Cairo. In total, it was the most expensive thing we'd done in Egypt, though still cheaper than any single trip I took while I was in Europe, which says quite a bit about favorable conversion rates being awesome.
Muniir stuck around for another night of boozing, and then left for lands unknown. Early December, and perhaps during the break after Ramadan, we will be visiting him in Jerusalem (or Florida, as we were referring to it around Egyptians, whose opinion of Israel isn't very positive), so he'll certainly not be gone from my stories forever.
Next comes: school!
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