After waking and getting ready for the day, we ate breakfast on the balcony of our hotel and then made our way to catch a Taxi to Giza, Egypt (home of THE Pyramids and THE Sphinx you always hear about)!
On our way to Giza, we stopped at A Papyrus Museum and learned how the ancient Egyptians made their paper. It was a very interesting and complex process. While there, we were once again welcomed with the famous 'Egyptian Hospitality' - meaning we were immediately welcomed as if we were family and offered tea, coffee, you name it! (This is common pretty much wherever you go in Egypt)
On the road again! This time our next and final stop by Taxi was the town of Giza! When you first see The Pyramids, it is almost surreal... They are so famous that they are one of the first things you learn about in school, and their image stays ingrained within your mind, in hopes of one day getting the opportunity to visit such and exotic, history rich place.
The touring place we chose was also a part of an oil/essence store. These oils and essence are something else Egypt is well known for. We sat and enjoyed listening to an expert explain the process and history of this business. The smells were amazing!!
NOW on to the most important part of our day!! It was time to decide on what tour package to purchase... We opted for the most inclusive package, seeing as to the fact that we are not in Egypt everyday. The package included a Camel back ride to The Giza Pyramids and The Sphinx....
AND then a 25 mile ride across the Sahara Desert on Arabian horses to Saqqara, to see the very first step pyramids ever built. Now I know what you are thinking... We are from Texas so we MUST ride horses everywhere (a common misconception that quite a few people I have met over here have had)... but the truth is we don't. And if even we do ride horses often, we are not used to doing so across a desert! All three of us were extremely sore from our trips by camel and horse... our tour guide joked that now we really did "walk like Egyptians" haha. I still have battle scars from this journey, and I wear them with pride! What a conversation piece: Hey Lauren, where did you get that scar from? Oh, you know just from riding Arabian horses across The Sahara Desert... no big deal! :)
After arriving in Saqqara, we rode through a small village and then traded our Arabian horses for a car. We drove back to Giza and had dinner with the locals!
Wow was this a day! We were so exhausted by the time we got back to Cairo that we went straight to sleep!
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