At 4am, I got all 'David Bailey' and decided I'd like to photograph the pyramids in all their dawn splendour - "it's all about the light darling". We headed towards the suburbs (yes, we were prepared for the disappointment that the Pyramids are right next to a housing estate!) only to discover that we'd pre-empted sunrise by a couple of hours. We had a bit of time to kill then. Following the kind directions of a gent on the bus, we had a cuppa in an all night cafe, and stayed until we could take no more of the owner trying to flog us breakfast & camel rides. We passed a bakery and were kindly invited to come in when I asked if I could take photos (see album). Whilst I snapped away, N bought some pitta-like bread. We thanked the guys and went to find ourselves a spot where we wouldn't be too harassed by camel drivers before the pyramids 'opened for business'. Then N realised she'd been ripped off fifty egyptian pounds. She had had so many people thrusting bread at her and talking that she thought she'd handed over a fifty piaster note. Actually, it only amounted to about seven quid, but Nekofelt pretty upset about the dishonesty, embarrassment, the fact that they'd been laughing and managed to bamboozle her. We decided we'd go back and take issue. We did we get the money back and an apology….and all it cost us was another hour on the cairo streets, having to reject further camel ride offers, taking 25 Egyptian men to task over a fiver, getting laughed at, and possibly followed back to our hotel. Totally worth it.
At 4am, I got all 'David Bailey' and decided I'd like to photograph the pyramids in all their dawn splendour - "it's all about the light darling". We headed towards the suburbs (yes, we were prepared for the disappointment that the Pyramids are right next to a housing estate!) only to discover that we'd pre-empted sunrise by a couple of hours. We had a bit of time to kill then. Following the kind directions of a gent on the bus, we had a cuppa in an all night cafe, and stayed until we could take no more of the owner trying to flog us breakfast & camel rides. We passed a bakery and were kindly invited to come in when I asked if I could take photos (see album). Whilst I snapped away, N bought some pitta-like bread. We thanked the guys and went to find ourselves a spot where we wouldn't be too harassed by camel drivers before the pyramids 'opened for business'. Then N realised she'd been ripped off fifty egyptian pounds. She had had so many people thrusting bread at her and talking that she thought she'd handed over a fifty piaster note. Actually, it only amounted to about seven quid, but Nekofelt pretty upset about the dishonesty, embarrassment, the fact that they'd been laughing and managed to bamboozle her. We decided we'd go back and take issue. We did we get the money back and an apology….and all it cost us was another hour on the cairo streets, having to reject further camel ride offers, taking 25 Egyptian men to task over a fiver, getting laughed at, and possibly followed back to our hotel. Totally worth it.
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