In this area, kids smiled and waved to me - completely different vibe from the touristy feel around the pyramids.
We continued our trek and passed some grave sites. I'm not exactly sure why (I assume it's the terrain), but all of the gave sites were above ground.
We then moved across the town and back into the desert.
We rode for several miles into the desert until we came across one random shack. We stopped at the shack and while Mohammad fought with Michael Jackson in an attempt to tie her to a couple of sad looking trees, a portly Egyptian man about 46 years old greeted me. He spoke essentially no English, but motioned for me to have a seat outside on his "porch." He prepared a fire and I stretched out and enjoyed the views and the stillness of it all.
Mohammad joined us and put together a small lunch. There wasn't much food at all, and I didn't want to eat this older man's food, so I rationed small bits (though I was extremely hungry).
Mohammad then prepared a hookah . We smoked the hookah for an hour or so, and I chilled while listening to their conversation.
Mohammad and I then mounted MJ and followed the older guy to another area of tombs.
The older man tried to be my guide, but he spoke no English, and his gesturing didn't always make sense to me.
After his "tour" Mohammad and I rode MJ to a wall where the older guy was waiting to open the gate. He wanted a tip, so I gave him 500 Egyptian Pounds ($7 USD). Unfortunately, I only had 1000 Egyptian Pounds on me, so I needed change, and I demanded my change from him. He got really pissed, and started bitching to Mohammad. Mohammad told me that 500 was fine and he kept telling the guy to give the change.
The guy initially refused, and by this point, I was so sick of dealing with the haggling that I wasn't about to let it go. The money wasn't the issue -- I was just beaten down from the pandering at the pyramids, and this guy really annoyed me. In hindsight, I think the heat, sun, and lack of sleep had put me on edge a bit.
Anyway...The guy claimed that he didn't have any change on him, but he could get it from the nearby village if I really wanted it. I called him out on his bullshit, and told him, "We follow you." In some respects, it was empowering being on the camel because I felt like at any point she could just squash him.
We followed him for another 10 minutes while he pleaded with me for more money (claiming that he didn't eat -- yeah, right, I have pics of his belly girth), and suddenly, I felt like the quaint shack in the desert was nothing more than another way to extract money out of me.
I really despised feeling this way, but I couldn't help it. I felt like Keenan Ivory Wayans in "I'm Gonna Git You Sucka" when he got the hot chick home only to have her reveal that almost everything about her is fake. Finally, the guy found someone who could give the change and we were on our way.
On our way out, Mohammad took us through some really treacherous terrain. At one point, we passed an incredibly narrow path that edge alongside a creek. Trees over grew the area and their branches dangled dangerously close to us. We kept moving forward, and entered an area where the branches were everywhere (they were too high to MJ, so she kept pushing forward, oblivious to the branches whacking us -- or was she??). The branches got so bad that they started tearing at my skin. One ripped off my headdress and another scratched the crap outta my arms and legs, all the while Mohammad kept repeating, "Sorry!" " Sorry!" "Sorry!" The branches almost knocked me off MJ (I was flown sideways, and luckily snagged the rear "saddle" grip to stay on her back). A few seconds later, I told Mohammad that I wanted down and we should walk through this area.
We walked for a bit, and while I was catching my breath, I noticed that my ass was incredibly sore, and I was bleeding a little on my arm from one of the minor cuts. Unfortunately, MJ didn't agree with our "walking" sentiment, and she decided that she wanted to sprint.
So, we had no choice but to run to keep up with her. The three of us ran through a village -- MJ with Mohammad and I in-tow. That had to have been entertaining to the onlookers -- most of 'em giggled with glee as our caravan raced by. We managed to keep up with her, and made it to a drop off point, where unbeknownst to me, Farang had arranged for a driver to meet me and take me the rest of the way to Sakkara. I wasn't there yet??
When we arrived at the drop off point, no driver materialized. After Mohammad made a phone call, we figured out that the driver wanted to meet us at some other point. Ugh. We rode MJ another 500 yards or so (by this point, my ass was killing me) and stopped. Mohammad tied up MJ and flagged down a tuk-tuk (yeah! they exist in Egypt, too) and told the tuk-tuk driver to take us the rest of the way to meet the driver. Once we met the driver, Mohammad went off on the driver and left to take Michael Jackson back home.
After that bit of confusion, the driver took me to Sakkara. It was around 4pm at this point, and I was worn out (we started at 9:30am). Here are the pics from Sakkara:
Sakkara had three different areas, and my phone's battery was running out of juice, so I rationed photos as much as possible.
After Sakkarra, I was to visit Memfis, but I could hardly stay awake, so I told the driver to take me back.
I got back and had an interesting bartering bout with Farang regarding the trip's price. I had made the cardinal sin of not negotiating the price upfront -- I tried twice, but Farang kept insisiting that we were "family" and "family" needn't worry about money, and in some small place in my mellon, that sounded like a good idea.
Now, he was trying to charge me $500 for the trip. I told him that he was ripping me off, and he dropped it to $125 (which I thought was fair). I agreed to pay that and went to get money from an ATM. When I got back, he said that he "added wrong" and that the trip should be $200. I was tired and agreed to pay it, though I felt like I was getting ripped off.
Once I returned to the apartment, did some web searches, and confirmed that yes, I had been ripped off, I got a hold of the apartment's owner and he had Ashraf refund $75 to me.
That night, I sat on the roof of the apartment and took some pics of the pyramids during the "Light and Sound" show, a cheesy attempt to make the pyramids seem even cooler than they already are...
The next day, I planned to head to Athens...
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