Days 212 to 219: Eight Days in Giza

December 10, 2025

Days 212 to 219: Eight Days in Giza

I’m sitting on the rooftop of Loay Pyramids View guesthouse enjoying my last day in Giza and savoring the view of the pyramids. I’ve been here for a total of eight days, much longer than I anticipated since I enjoyed the tranquility of this place.

Christopher, the traveler I met in Aqaba and later again in Dahab, came to stay at the same guesthouse. In fact, it was him who recommended me this place.

Chris is 34 years old and worked in IT before quitting his stressful job to travel, much like me. His personality is quite compatible with me and we shared the same sentimental values when traveling. He was asked by someone, “What’s the best thing about traveling?” It was a question someone else had asked me too. Both Chris’s answer and my answer were the same: the people. Sure the sightseeing and the food were important, but they are secondary compared to all the kind people I’ve met.

Chris and I chatted many times during the two nights that he stayed at the guesthouse. He also gave me some advice about seeing the pyramids. There are two big ones and one small one, along with three other mini-pyramids. The best one to go into is the small pyramid because you can walk around more, like a labyrinth. The other two big pyramids contain a chamber at the end of the walkway and that’s about it.

On day two of my stay, I walked to the pyramids from the guesthouse and arrived around 8:30 AM. The pyramids opened at 7 AM. I wish I had gone an hour earlier since more tourists came later in the day. The ticket price for a foreigner was EGP 700, or about $14.69 USD. The fee to enter the small pyramid was EGP 280 and you can pay at the pyramid rather than at the main ticket counter.

I ended up spending two hours walking around all three pyramids. More than the grandeur of the pyramids, I was impressed by the labor and all the stones that were carved for each section of the pyramid. Where did they get all that stone from? And how many people were involved in building the biggest pyramid? I simply can’t imagine the efforts that were put into building something this big.

When I was about to go into the small pyramid a group of tourists came right before me. Looking at the long line that I was about to face, I decided to not go into the pyramid after all.

There were many locals who wanted to show me a good spot for a photo opportunity or to convince me to ride a camel. They were all doing it for a fee. Tourists call them scammers, but I see them as desperate for money and they were just being humans. I simply refused their services.

When I was walking around, both on the grounds of the pyramids and later at the Grand Egyptian Museum, I noticed Egyptian tour guides speaking Mandarin Chinese to the tour groups. I was so shocked because Chinese is a hard language to learn and how these people learned Chinese I have no idea. They must have spent years learning before becoming a guide for the Chinese tourists.

Before Christopher checked out of the guesthouse, we went to a shop and bought some chocolate covered balah dates with almonds inside. It’s Christopher’s favorite Egyptian snack. I bought a bag too. And since it was buy two get one free, we gifted the extra bag to Manal, the nice lady who runs the guesthouse and makes our breakfast every morning.

I took an Uber to the Grand Egyptian Museum two days after I went to the pyramids. The museum is the largest of its kind and opened just about a month ago. People have told me that it takes about three to four hours to see everything briefly. I did it in two hours.

Even though I bought the museum ticket online and arrived at 9:30 AM, thirty minutes after the museum opened, there were a lot of people already. More people came later in the day so I was glad that I finished in two hours. The lesson is to arrive early for anything that’s touristy.

The museum is impressive and there are twelve galleries in the main section. I also went to the boat building next to the main museum to see a boat that they discovered near the pyramids and was later reconstructed.

After I visited the pyramids and the museum, I didn’t do anything for the next four days. I stayed at the guesthouse the entire time, didn’t even go out since breakfast was included and every night I paid for a homemade dinner for EGP 300, or $6.30 USD.

I chatted with the owners of the guesthouse. They are members of a family that have been living in Giza for generations. One guy told me that in four or five years this place will be demolished for the construction of a hotel. Not only this building, his entire neighborhood will be converted to cafes, restaurants, and hotels. The reason is that United Arab Emirates “rented” this land from the Egyptian government and will push the current residents out of the area and gentrify the place. How cruel. Manal and her family have been reinvesting all the money they earned to make this guesthouse nice. They hope in the next few years they can earn back some money before they are forced to leave. So the next time I’m in Egypt I might not be able to sit at this spot and enjoy the view of the pyramids without paying a lot more money.

I left a ten star review on Booking.com for this guesthouse. The people, the view, and the food were all great. And for less than the price of a hostel bed in Cairo I was able to stay in a private room for EGP 450 per night, or $9.45 USD.

At the guesthouse, I was suffering from travel fatigue and didn’t want to do anything. The most exciting things I want to do involved going back home to the US, which is something I said I wouldn’t do until election time 2028. I had planned to travel to more countries in the Middle East, but after seeing Petra and now the pyramids, I feel I’ve had enough. Nothing can top them. So while sitting on the rooftop and admiring the pyramids, I decided to book a flight home.

Tonight, I’ll be taking the 8:20 PM flight to Philadelphia via a layover in Doha, Qatar. It’ll be a 20 hours trip and will cost me $532.

One last thing. Many travelers have warned me about scammers in Egypt. Now that I’ve been here I realized that they are not scammers. They just want a better life. Just say no when you think you are getting scammed.

There were only three occasions that I was scammed. The first one was at a rest stop on the way to Cairo from Dahab. The convenience store clerk charged me EGP 350, or $7.35 USD, for four small snacks. I knew right away I was being scammed, but since I was hungry I paid. The second time was when an Uber motorbike driver passed me and collected the payment without taking me. I lost about 50 cents since Uber is very cheap anyway in Egypt. And the third time I was scammed was when another Uber driver asked me for EGP 20 more than what was being charged. Then he told me that I didn’t have to pay if I give him a five star rating. I was going to give him a five star rating if he didn’t ask me for money or for ratings since I usually give five stars anyway. In the end, I reluctantly gave him a five star rating. So overall, I didn’t get scammed much and had a great experience in Egypt.

I feel like I’ve written a lot for this post. I will write a trip summary when I get back to the States.