We flew in from Zurich on Swiss Air.  It was about a four hour flight.  I sat by the window and got to see an expanse of sand/dirt that I have never seen before.  Everything looked brown from the air with some small pockets of greenery.  Our tour provided an airport transfer and that included someone meeting us at immigration at the airport.  I was glad they were there!  They walked over to this random exchange booth and bought our Egyptian visa.  We would have never figured that out!  They walked us through passport control and to baggage claim.  No one bothered us to take our bags because we had our guide with us.  Everything went very smoothly.  I was impressed. 

Our guide left us with the driver who brought us to the hotel.  The traffic was unreal. There were lanes, but people didn’t really seem to use them.  Some people used their blinkers, but others didn’t (much like the south in the U.S.) and people were randomly walking on the highway and crossing the road in super tight traffic.  I had to try and not look to see how close the cars were next to us.  Oh and there was A LOT of honking.  I didn’t feel like it was aggressive actually, it felt more like a way to communicate. Hey, I’m trying to get in your lane, Hey, you’re in my lane and I’m here. It was interesting. 

We turned a corner and saw the pyramids.  It was amazing.  The driver stopped (pretty much in the middle of the road) so we could take a picture from the car. Our hotel had a dog sniff the whole van before we were allowed into the gate.  We checked in and found that our room had a view of one of the pyramids.  How cool is that?! 

We took a nap before we were scheduled to meet the tour guide and the rest of the group.  At 6, we met in the lobby. There are ten people in our tour group. We are the only people from the U.S. There are two couples from Canada, one from Belgium, and one from the UK.  Our tour guide is an Egyptologist.  His name is Mohammad. We took a bus out to dinner (traffic was just as crazy).  They gave us little bowls of appetizers like cheese with tomatoes, tahini, pickled eggplant, and babaganush with flatbread.  It was ok.  The cheese was not to my liking.  Then they gave us chicken skewers with rice and some French fries and a piece of beef and two pieces of lamb/beef.  We got rice pudding for dessert.  It was all just ok.  

We got back to the hotel and had a meeting in which the tour guide went over all the things we needed to know as well as the itinerary and some optional tours.  We decided to leave really early in the morning to go inside the Great Pyramid.  There will be significantly less people there and we will be able to take pictures and get around easier.  I think it’s worth the lack of sleep.  Luckily he said we would be back at the hotel around 3, so we could nap then if we like.  How often do you get a chance to go inside of of the original 7 wonders of the world?  I’m taking it!