yesterday we went to the pyramids. we decided to sleep in the desert next to them. so we set off early afternoon, sleeping bags and water in tow. when we got there we found that the pyramids had closed at three for ramadan, but we figured that you can't really close the pyramids, right? i mean, there is an entire desert surrounding them, and Egypt couldn't possibly have fenced it all. so, we took off walking, dodging over-zealous offers for camels and taxis as we went. we followed the wall through several small villages next to the pyramids.



Apparently the foreign tourists never make it quite that far from the beaten path and we were almost instantly surrounded by hoardes of small children chanting "hello!" and seeing just how close they could come to the alien foreigners without being caught. we followed the wall to the sphinx where we were told, yet again, that it was closed but for a minor sum of money (more than what we spend everyday on our hotel and food) they could take us out to the desert for one whole hour! We declined again, this time somewhat more forcefully and continued on our way. the wall eventually turned into an open gate and seeing no police around we turned in and continued on our merry way. the gate, as it turns out, was the entrance to an islamic cemetary. we wandered through it looking for cracks in the wall or various other shortcomings. the high point of our cemetary visit found us hoisting a dead tree against the wall to climb over it. eventually we decided that we didnt want to be responsible for accidentally breaking open a grave with our tree and that the wall really did have to end at some point and left the graveyard. some time and another village later we found ourselves in what looked to be some sort of dump, complete with a dead horse. immediately following the dump we finally found ourselves in the desert, but there was still a wall. some more "helpful" souls told us that the desert was closed, but of course they would be happy to take us out into it with their camels for a mere bit of money. Jenny yelled at them and told them that the desert couldnt possibly be closed and to just leave us alone. and as they rode oh-so-slowly away from us laughing about the crazy foreigners in flip flops wandering into the desert alone we found our rabbit hole in the fence. and into the desert surrounding the pyramids we slipped. however, we were still a couple of miles from the actual pyramids. we set off into the desert in the dark telling the people we met along the way that we were there to see the stars. in retrospect, it was a ridiculous lie because in cairo you can only ever see ten or so stars at night, even in the desert. we finally settled on a tall bluff where we could see all seven pyramids and set up camp. we were just in time for our own private viewing of the light show at the pyramids.



so we slept there, alone in the desert with a perfect view of the pyramids.





our plan to wake up early enough to hide was foiled by the cold and wind of the early morning desert and when we finally got up at 8 we saw three camels on the horizon making their way to us. it turns out that it was 3 tourist police officers coming to see how we had gotten so far out in the desert 15 minutes after the pyramids opened and why we had sleeping bags with us. we played dumb and told them that we had paid a ridiculous sum of money to be taken into the desert on camels in time for the sunrise, which was terrible. we pretended only to speak english and laughed and petted their camels, all the while expecting to be arrested or fined for breaking the rules. eventually, the captain showed up, in his awesome sunglasses and asked us the same questions we had already answered. he asked for a "tip" but upon finding that we had no dollars and the equivalent of about $0.80 on us refused the tip as a joke and sent us on our way to hike to the pyramids.



and that is just what we did. we walked into the pyramid complex for free, took the obligatory pictures and marvelled at their hugeness and walked out the main entrance, no questions asked. well, they did of course ask us if we wanted a taxi or a lovely camel.