Cairo. 3AM.
We land in a haze. Ten hours in Rome behind us, not nearly enough sleep, and the last thing you want to do when you hit the ground is think. But Cairo doesn’t care. Cairo greets you with a smirk.
The airport is dim, disorienting. Already you can feel the hustle. We need a visa. Rookie mistake—I missed that. And like magic, the machines to process our $25 visas? “Broken.” Of course they are. No cash? Tough shit. Cards? ATMs? Dead.
But what did work was good, old-fashioned American green. I had none. He knew it.
Two hours go by. We’re stuck in this Kafkaesque loop of shrugs and fake sympathy. That’s when I flipped the script. Played the helpless tourist. Laid it on thick: We have no way out. We’re trapped. What are we supposed to do?
Suddenly, poof—the machine works. Just like that. Cards run. Visas printed. A miracle.
We smile. We thank him. We call him a hero. But deep down, we’re fuming. Fuck you for the performance.
Lesson one in Cairo: everyone’s working an angle. It’s not personal—it’s just business, survival, theater. But it’s on you to see the strings.
Visa in hand. Bags in tow. Eyes open. Welcome to Cairo, kid. Let the games begin.
The Second Hustle. Taxi wranglers. The middlemen of chaos.
We cleared the visa gauntlet only to be greeted by the next layer of the Cairo hustle. These guys don’t drive the taxis—they summon them, like street-corner magicians. They charm you. Make you laugh. Clap you on the back like old friends. You almost forget you’re being played.
It’s a game I’ve seen before. Mexico does it with the same grin. For five bucks, we got what we could’ve gotten ourselves—a cab. But hey, that’s the price of comfort. That’s the price of feeling like you’re not completely alone in a place that smells of diesel, dust, and ancient ambition.
The driver? He sized us up immediately. Easy marks. He took us the long way, the scenic route—if your idea of scenic is stopping in alleyways and street corners to snap photos of absolutely nothing. “Very beautiful,” he’d say, gesturing to a beige building covered in satellite dishes. I gave him the look. The international “cut the shit” hand wave. He got the message.
Eventually, we pulled up to the AirBnB. I picked the spot for one reason only: it was next to the pyramids. Could we have stayed somewhere nicer? Sure. But we weren’t here for mints on pillows and rooftop pools. We were here to feel the grit. The history. The weight of it all. We were travelers, not tourists—at least I was.
We checked in. Dropped our bags. Kipp and I stepped out onto the balcony. And there it was. The silhouette of giants in the dark.
Even with the bullshit, the scams, the smoke—that moment made it worth it.
We stepped inside. Bags down. Shoes off. And then—boom.
The view.
Not some postcard version, not the filtered Instagram bullshit. The real thing. Right there. The Great Pyramids, hulking and unapologetic, rising out of the sand like they were forged from the bones of the earth itself. Bigger than Rome’s Coliseum. Bigger than my memory could’ve imagined.
This was the moment. This was why you endure the scams and the slow-burn airport torture. For this.
Kipp, ever the genius, had snagged a bottle of limoncello at duty-free. Limoncino, he called it—probably butchered the name, but who cares? We poured two plastic-cup shots on the balcony like kings watching over a forgotten empire. It was sour, sweet, and perfect. The kind of drink that makes you forget what time it is.
I don’t believe in rushing a trip. Not anymore. There’s a night for partying. A morning for discovery. But this? This was the night for nothing. No plans. No noise. Just cold air, thick pillows, and the sound of Cairo muffled by double-pane glass.
Two bedrooms. Two beds. Two AC units humming away in the background. We slept like pharaohs.
Seventy-five bucks a night. That’s all it took to live like kings—on paper.
Inside? Marble floors, cold air, thick curtains, Wi-Fi strong enough to stream, scheme, and dream. It was luxury, no doubt. But crack open the door, step outside—and you were neck-deep in the Third World. Dust in your throat. Heat pressing down on your chest like an angry god. The street barked with stray dogs, honking horns, and the faint scent of burning diesel.
I looked at Kipp. Pale, sweating. I half expected him to start bubbling under the sun like a forgotten stick of butter. But inside? Inside, we had the fortress. Cold, calm, and silent. A temple of AC and filtered water.
After some hard-earned rest, we kicked things off the right way—with a pilgrimage.
The Grand Egyptian Museum. New, still half-wrapped in scaffolding and secrecy. Not officially open. Not to the masses, at least. But we had tickets—limited entry, a few hundred a day. Just enough to make it feel exclusive, but not too exclusive to keep out the curious, the obsessed, the pilgrims like me.
Because this wasn’t just a sightseeing trip.
I came with a mission. I needed photos. Hieroglyphs. The raw data. I’m building something—translation software, the kind of thing that takes centuries of meaning and tries to make it speak again. I needed texture, angles, light. But more than that, I wanted to see it with my own eyes. To bring it back in stories and snapshots to the people I love.
The museum was waiting. The stones were waiting. Time to go looking for ghosts.
Everything sparkled—except the past. And that’s exactly how it should be.
The Grand Egyptian Museum, still smelling of concrete dust and fresh paint, was a gleaming shrine to one of the oldest civilizations on earth. The air conditioning was crisp, the layout elegant. It felt more like a five-star hotel for the dead than a museum.
But the moment you walk in—bam—you’re hit with scale. Majesty. That deep, chest-rattling awe that only Egypt can deliver. You don’t ease into it. You’re greeted by greatness. Monolithic statues that tower like gods. Sandstone titans with thousand-yard stares. You walk in and suddenly, you’re insignificant in the best possible way.
And then the staircase.
A river of relics—artifacts placed with just enough casual grace to look accidental, but you know they spent months planning every inch. Pottery, busts, sarcophagi. Broken gods and beautiful fragments scattered like breadcrumbs for the faithful. Every step a chapter. Every landing a pause.
For the Egyptologists, this is church.
For the rest of us? It’s like walking through time with a backstage pass.
And when you reach the top, there’s the payoff again: the view. The city stretched out beneath the dusty glass. The old world bleeding into the new. You stand there, sweaty, humbled, surrounded by silence and stone, and you realize—you haven’t even scratched the surface.
This place was made to make you feel small—in all the right ways. The architects knew what they were doing. It wasn’t just a museum, it was theater. A slow reveal. Every hallway a build-up. Every artifact a drumroll.
And for the tourists staying in downtown Cairo or tucked away in sanitized hotel towers, this was their first glimpse of the pyramids. Framed through giant panes of glass like a movie set backdrop. For them, it was jaw-dropping. For us? Still magic. We had the balcony view from the night before, but this hit differently. This was the presentation—the reverent bow before the gods of old.
But reverence only gets you so far. Hunger crept in.
Kipp and I gave each other the look—half starved, half sunburned. So we followed the scent, like dogs on a trail, and drifted into the museum’s internal shops and cafés. Air-conditioned and overpriced. The kind of place where you can get a $5 bottle of water and a panini that died a quiet death under a heat lamp.
Still, after hours with the dead, sometimes all you need is food that reminds you you’re alive.
I’ll admit it—the food was solid. Surprisingly solid.
The kind of meal designed to calm the nerves of jet-lagged travelers who just stared into the faces of ancient gods. Not local fare by any stretch, but comforting. Clean. Seasoned just enough to feel exotic without scaring anyone. The kind of meal that says: Yes, you’re in Egypt… but don’t worry, your stomach’s still in Kansas.
It wasn’t cheap. But it wasn’t gouging either. Reasonable, if you spoke tourist. Unattainable, if you lived ten miles away. This place wasn’t for locals—it was curated for us. Travelers with currency that stretches further here than it ever would at home.
Couple of Turkish coffees—my go-to anywhere east of the Mediterranean. Thick. Bitter. Perfect. The kind of cup that slaps you awake and tells the jet lag to sit down and shut up.
The gift shop? A trap. A glittering, overpriced trap. I saw the blue cat figurine—every stall in Egypt has it. Here, it was museum-grade price. I passed. I knew better. I’d find the same cat in Luxor for a fifth the cost, probably wrapped in a newspaper and handed to me with a wink.
But for those who don’t know the game? Not a bad place to be fleeced.
Eventually, it was time to go. We fired up the ride share app—our modern-day camel. And right on cue, the local taxi drivers came circling, like sharks with clipboards.
“Don’t wait for him, come with me!”
“Only ten dollars! Special price!”
Special bullshit.
We slid into the app car. Four dollars. No haggling, no detours, no fake sightseeing stops or cousins with papyrus shops.
No conversation.
Just silence and AC, and the city slipping by the window like a fever dream. We made it home. Back to our view. This time, at night.
And then the night came alive.
The sun dropped behind the horizon like a curtain falling on an old play, and Cairo—no, Giza—shifted into something else entirely. Rooftops lit up with life. Families emerged like clockwork, climbing up for the breeze, the view, the ritual. Kids ran in circles. Elders leaned on rusted railings, sipping tea, trading stories. Radios played half-tuned songs that echoed like ghosts through the concrete canyons.
From our perch, pyramids lit in gold, we watched it all. The whole city glowing—not just with lights, but with something else.
It wasn’t quiet. It wasn’t clean. It wasn’t easy.
But it was alive.
The smells of charred meat, hookah smoke, and desert dust filled the air like incense from a forgotten temple. The sound of laughter, the clink of dishes, the rhythm of people who make do, who make more from less.
And in that moment, you realize—maybe wealth doesn’t always wear gold watches or sit in hotel lobbies. Maybe wealth is a warm breeze, a cracked rooftop, and three generations of joy under one sky.
Maybe they’re not poor at all. Maybe they’re the richest people in the world.
And maybe, just maybe, we’re the ones still figuring it out.
By the next morning, the strangeness had settled into familiarity. The heat, the dust, the symphony of honking cars and shouting vendors—it all started to feel like background music. The kind of music you don’t notice until you’re gone and you miss it.
We were ready to head deeper into Cairo, toward the city center. But first, the gauntlet: traffic. Third world traffic doesn’t follow rules; it follows instinct. It’s a living organism. People dodging cars like human Frogger. No traffic lights, just vibes. And somehow—somehow—no one dies. No one even yells. Everyone moves like they’ve been doing this since birth, which they probably have.
We were chasing a craving. Kipp had found this mythical German spot online—Weiner World? Wurst Haus? Something with umlauts and bratwurst dreams. But when we arrived, it was a tomb. Shuttered. Gone. The ghost of sausage past. No sign. No notice. Just dust on glass.
Disappointed and starving, we wandered until we found a small corner café with a name I already forgot. The kind of place with cracked tiles, two fans on full blast, and a mystery menu in Arabic. We waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Forty-five minutes later, salvation arrived wrapped in foil and grease. It wasn’t bratwurst—but it hit the same nerve. Some kind of Arab burrito—flatbread stuffed with meat, spice, and whatever else they had on hand. No idea what was in it. Didn’t care.
Kipp was full. Happy. That’s what mattered.
From there, we headed to the British museum outpost. Not the colonial original in London—the Egyptian version. Irony baked into the walls. A building full of treasures that somehow never left the country. Dusty display cases. Faded tags. History barely hanging on by rusted hinges.
But here’s the thing: these pieces were real. They were home. Not plundered, not staged. Just waiting to be seen again.
And we were there to see them.
Kipp and I made our way to the Egyptian Museum—the old one. The one that once hoarded all the glinting glory of Egypt under a single, slowly crumbling roof. The one in Tahrir, where dust is just part of the architecture.
Tickets? Bought. Entrance? Gained.
And then they came—the guides. Polished English, fake smiles, laminated badges. “You’ll never find anything without me,” one said with theatrical pity. “How would you even know what you’re looking at?”
Oh, we knew.
Or I did.
I wasn’t here to be impressed. I came with a hit list: King Tut, the brothers’ painting, the Book of the Dead. Not random pottery from the Ptolemies or forgotten fragments of lesser gods.
Inside, it was… well, a mess. Hot. Muggy. The air felt like it hadn’t moved since the 1950s. It reeked of mildew, age, and neglect. This was no modern temple to the past—it was a mausoleum that hadn’t been dusted.
To the right: Greek Egyptian artifacts. Columns and busts. White marble and old influence. We didn’t care.
We were on the trail of something better. Something golden.
Winding through the halls, I pointed out what mattered to me—The Two Brothers. A painting no one else was even looking at. That’s the thing: guides might show you what they think is important, what fits the script. But what about the things that speak to you? What about the weird, quiet stuff?
We hit the stairwell. There it was—The Book of the Dead, resting like a forgotten manual no one knew how to read anymore. Tourists walked past it. I didn’t. That papyrus had weight.
Then came the moment.
King Tut.
The real deal. Not the traveling exhibit they peddled to the West like carnival gold. This was it. No photos allowed. Good. Better that way.
His treasures gleamed with a stillness that defied time. The real mask. The real throne. The afterlife kit of a teenage pharaoh whose death launched a thousand museum wings. We stood in silence. We absorbed. No tour group noise. No guide rushing us along. Just gold, reverence, and the satisfying sting of a long chase finally ending at the right door.
Then: mummies. Too many of them. Crocodile mummies. Mummy overload. The dead needed less attention.
We clocked out in two hours, perfectly full. A guide would’ve stretched it to five with facts we’d forget and stories we didn’t ask for.
The place was a relic. King Tut’s treasures would soon be relocated to the new museum where they’ll have air conditioning and maybe a little dignity.
Parking was a disaster. Entry was a bureaucratic test of will. But still—we exited satisfied.
We called the Uber. No chatter. No detours.
Straight back to the fortress.
Back at the apartment, we sank into stillness.
The city buzzed below us—kids laughing in alleyways, dogs barking at nothing, the occasional motorbike ripping through the night like it had something to prove. But up here? Peace.
Kipp and I poured the last of the Limoncello. The pyramids stood outside our window like sleeping giants, glowing under the amber haze of city light. Ancient, unmoved, waiting.
We didn’t say much. Didn’t have to. There was comfort in the silence. In the knowing.
Tomorrow, we go face-to-face with the gods of stone. The pyramids. The reason you come here. The thing every photo, every textbook, every documentary tries—and fails—to prepare you for.
Tonight, we rest.
Tomorrow, we climb.
We started early. The air was still cool—still—for Cairo, anyway. The kind of morning that fools you into thinking the heat won’t come.
We were ten minutes from the gates of the Pyramid complex. Ten minutes through a gauntlet of smiling men with ulterior motives. Hustlers in every direction. They weren’t violent, they weren’t rude—but they were persistent. A “hello” was an opening. A glance was an invitation. So I cut it off at the knees.
“No.”
Keep walking.
Don’t stop.
Don’t explain.
Kipp followed my lead. No patience left for the dance. We’ve played it too many times before.
Through the gate, we pushed on—still being offered camel rides, postcards, “official” tour books, mystery bottles of perfume. One look at Kipp and they circled like he was injured prey. “You want camel?” “No stairs, sir!” “Too hot for walking!”
But we walked.
All the way up.
The Sphinx came first. Smaller than you think. Guarded, roped off. No platform access this time. Maybe someday. Still, she sat there—regal, ruined, proud. Her gaze forever locked on a city that doesn’t care.
We soaked it in. Silent. That kind of stillness you only get standing next to something carved before time had a name.
Then: onward.
The Great Pyramid. The big one. The one that brings people halfway across the world just to squint at the angles and wonder, How? But when you’re next to it—when you run your hand along the limestone, feel the weathered texture under your palm—it’s not aliens. It’s not magic. It’s humans. Generations of them. Hauling, shaping, stacking. Or. Maybe just aliens. Why not?
It’s possible. And that makes it more impressive.
We sat on the ancient stone wall and just… stared. Tourists buzzed around, snapping pictures they wouldn’t understand later. But we were still.
No climbing to the top. Rules are rules, even here. But the guards were mellow. As long as you respected the place, they left you alone. That’s all they asked.
We circled to the front. The entrance loomed ahead, dark and quiet. We flashed our tickets. No crowds. No chaos. Just a hushed corridor into the belly of the beast.
We were lucky. The moment felt ours.
The climb into the Great Pyramid isn’t majestic. It’s not ceremonial. It’s not even remotely comfortable.
The tunnel’s about four feet high and slanted like a bad idea. You hunch, you sweat, you bang your knees on uneven wooden planks someone called “stairs.” Kipp and I looked at each other mid-way up—already drenched, already regretting it—and muttered the kind of curses that only come when history meets poor ergonomics.
Eventually, it opens up a little. A breath of space, a ceiling high enough to stretch your back. But not for long. Near the top, we dropped to hands and knees again like penitents in some forgotten religion. Crawling into the sacred heart of this ancient beast.
And then—you’re there. The main chamber.
The tomb room.
A sweltering, airless box of disappointment.
A lone stone sarcophagus, chipped and hollow. No treasures. No inscriptions. Just heat, dust, and a single guard leaning against the wall with that look. The look that says “I’d love a tip.” He doesn’t say it. He doesn’t have to.
This was it? This was the payoff?
We lingered just long enough to pretend it mattered, then made our exit—crawling back out through the same miserable chute, soaked in sweat and wondering why pharaohs hated air circulation.
Sometimes, the journey is the prize.
Sometimes, it’s just bullshit.
After the crawl, we walked the rest of the park—dust in our mouths, sun on our backs, and history at our feet. And like a loyal vulture, the camel guy followed.
He shadowed us from a distance, circling closer every time Kipp looked a little too sweaty or leaned on one hip. Waiting for the moment—that moment—when Kipp might fold and say, “Okay, I need the damn camel.”
But Kipp didn’t fold.
He walked. Slow, steady, like some desert monk in shorts and a sweat-stained tee. Respect.
We had tickets for the second pyramid, the slightly-less-great sibling in this stone family. But after the furnace crawl into the first, we passed. Kipp’s back was done. And honestly? So were we. We did the one that mattered.
The rest would’ve been repetition with more joint pain.
So we made our way down the hill, past hustlers, past camels, past tourists trying to pose like they were holding the pyramids in their fingertips.
And we went to lunch.
Tired. Dirty. Starving.
Exactly how you’re supposed to feel after walking through 5,000 years of human ambition.
We found it—wedged between two stampeding rivers of traffic, a thin strip of restaurants clinging to the median like survivors of some urban flood. One-way mayhem roaring on both sides. A little island of shade, smoke, and sizzling meat.
We sat down under a patchy awning, watched the madness blur past, and exhaled. Cairo may never stop moving, but we did.
Menus came, prices laughed in our faces. Four bucks for a plate? Couldn’t be right. We doubled down—went big. Ten each. And when the food arrived, it was like feeding time at a construction site. Mountains of rice, skewers of grilled meat, bread for days, pickled everything.
We took half of it home. Not because it wasn’t good—but because we physically couldn’t fit more inside us.
Cairo’s cheap. Cheaper than Mexico. You eat like a pharaoh on the budget of a broke backpacker. And this meal? This was good. Simple, filling, soulful.
No tourist gloss. No fake ambiance. Just real food, real heat, real life.
Good for us. Damn right.
Later that evening, we made the pilgrimage—not to some obscure local gem or hidden street cart, but to a KFC/Pizza Hut combo. The kind of place that would be a punchline anywhere else in the world. But here? It’s a destination.
We’d seen it on Instagram. Everyone has. That rooftop shot. That greasy slice of Western fast food with the Great Pyramid looming behind it like a silent, dusty god. It’s absurd. It’s brilliant.
So we did it.
We flew across the world for this moment—this—a slice of mediocre pizza and a soggy piece of fried chicken with a view that emperors would envy.
And yeah, the food? Forgettable. The kind of meal you eat because you’re already committed. Because the view does all the work.
But honestly… where else are you gonna eat a stuffed crust slice in the shadow of 4,500 years of history?
Sometimes, the meal doesn’t matter. The moment does.
And we had it.
And That Was Cairo. The scams, the dust, the gold, the ghosts. The chaos, the charm, the pyramid pizza.
We saw what we came to see. Now it was time to head south—deeper. Luxor was waiting.
