Entering the Giza Pyramids From the Back

Cairo’s a dirty town, but Shaina and I have what it takes to get down

We were in Cairo, so of course we had to see the Pyramids of Giza. Turns out these aren’t in Cairo proper, but at the outer edge of the city on the other side of the Nile — Giza! Go figure.

Anya and I are not the type to pay for a tour or even a taxi, but rather the type that figures out local public transit and often winds up getting lost and wandering around looking for a while. So we figured out where to hop on a microbus, up by Orabi Square, and walked there from the New Palace Hotel. Cairo microbuses don’t always stop to let you on — you have to chase them down — but since Orabi was a big station we caught one standing still. I knew to say “Haram Mashaal Station” to the driver, and it only took a few times for him to understand me. We sat down, passed our cash forward to the guy in front of us with total trust that he would pass it ahead, and that it would reach the driver in its full amount. This is how it’s done in Cairo. The change came back to us about halfway through the ride. There was a noisy, chaotic transfer to a second microbus — the drivers of these things often listen to a radio station that’s just men singing passages from the Koran with no musical accompaniment, but our second driver had Oum Khalthoum singing with…