November 3rd, 2019
We booked a tour today with a guide and driver to explore the Great Pyramids and the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Although Egypt is an inexpensive place to travel, anything related to tourism is highly inflated in costs. We were surprised how much things cost after coming from Southeast Asia. Everyone here is trying to hustle you and you cannot trust anyone. We booked our tour through the hotel but I think the owner was incredibly shady. But so is everyone else selling tours, so sometimes you just get hustled. It cost us $120 for the day for two people. I will say, the guide was very good and we did learn quite a bit. It is one of those situations where if you are here, you can’t skimp and not get a guide because you would miss too much. If you are here to see these incredible things and learn the history, I feel a guide is pretty much mandatory.
We started at the pyramids and it was mind blowing that they are 5,000 years old. I was not expecting to be able to climb on them, but it was really cool just to see up close the size of the stones. It is difficult to think about how the Egyptians got those stones on top of each other. Being close, you can see how massive the pyramids are. Unfortunately, the photos do not capture their size.
We climbed down into one of the pyramids which was fun, even though there was nothing in the bottom (all of the tombs have been robbed). I thought it was interesting that pharaoh Khufu who built the Great Pyramid for himself, only built his Mom a small dilapidated one. He seems like a real winner…
The pyramids were amazing to see in person, and definitely worth all the tourist traps and nonsense it takes to be here. After the pyramids and the Sphinx, we went to Cairo for the museum. I am very glad we had a guide because the museum is huge with many things to look at. I would have been completely lost and overwhelmed, but our guide was great about showing us the most important things and explaining them. Seeing all the mummies that have been found along with their tombs was really special. They had rooms dedicated to King Tutankhamun’s tomb and all the treasures that were found in it. Very interesting.
When we arrived back at the hotel later in the day, we got our stuff and went to downtown Cairo where we checked into a hostel. I had never heard of Egypt’s White Desert but it is a national park with white calcium rock formations within the Sahara Desert. The sleezy hotel owner tried to sell me a package on it and after researching it, I found it looked like a not-to-miss amazing place. He was trying to say $400 per person for a one-night two-day trip. After he quickly realized I was not going to consider it for such a ridiculous price, it dropped to $225 a person. I thought that was still too much, but I did really want to go. I looked around at some other places trying to find a better deal but couldn’t find anything for less than $175 a person (I got quotes that ranged from $175-$440). Then I read about Dahab Hostel on another travel blog. They did not have their prices listed so I sent them an e-mail and they quickly responded with a 2-night, 3-day trip for $99 a person. That was the price I needed to seal the deal and decide to go. We checked into Dahab hostel and got ready for our early morning departure to the desert.