Not having a university-organized bus to take us there, we attempted to take a taxi, assuming that every taxi driver in the city would be used to taking tourists to the pyramids. Our taxi driver, however, was not. We told him we wanted to go to "ilbirameeds fi Giza" which translates pretty much exactly to "the pyramids in Giza." His assumption, however, was that we were talking about a hotel restaurant or club somewhere in Cairo named 'The Pyramids'. After 45 minutes of driving around, with him pointing out various hotels and restaurants, we cleared up this hilarious miscommunication and went to the actual pyramids.
The original purpose of this trip was to go to the sound and light show that is put on every night for the pyramids and the Sphinx. Due to our taxi troubles, we'd missed the start of the show by about half an hour (this didn't matter as much as you might think - the show was in Italian). We decided not to buy the ludicrously overpriced tickets to the actual show, and left to find another way in.
This plan looked pretty feasible after talking to some very helpful Tourism and Antiquities police. We were given a complicated set of directions that would lead us to some different police, whom we could ask to let us into the sound and light show without paying. This sounded pretty promising, so we set off. Twenty minutes later we still hadn't found this second set of police, but we did find a very well-placed Pizza Hut with a terrace high enough to clear the rest of the buildings in the area and provide a perfect view of the lit-up pyramids. Pictures follow.
OK, actually just one photo. All the rest look pretty much the same.
After the show was over we decided we wanted a closer look. We returned to where we met the group of policemen, and found only one of them still on duty. We asked him again if we could get any closer, and he allowed that we probably could. Following this there was a rousing bout of haggling to decide exactly how much we wanted to see the pyramids closer up.
I have no doubt this would have been more enjoyable if I was able to speak more Arabic. Our discussion was essentially limited to saying numbers back and forth, and lacked the full flavor of being able to make comments like "Your willingness to take bribes is an indication of deeper problems with Egyptian national cohesion and political corruption. LE 175." Perhaps it's just as well.
After a brief and very furtive tour out to the feet of the Sphinx, we came back about LE 280 poorer and decided to head back to the dorm. On the way we ran into a mob of 13 or 14-year-olds playing soccer in the street, and ended up playing with them for another half hour or so. It was great fun (the fact that we were 7 years older than them more or less balanced out the fact that they had been playing soccer obsessively since they could walk).
As we left, amid the flurry of Arabic and English farewells one of the kids did the cheek kiss thing that all the Egyptians do to each other. For those of you keeping score at home, this evening saw me check three items off my list of things to get done this summer: bribe a public official, play soccer with Egyptian kids in the street, and get cheek-kissed by an Egyptian. It was a good night.
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