More on Cairo

We were in the Cairo metropolitan area for a total of five days. Initial impressions still the same. 

One aspect of walking in Cairo is the delicate dance between cars, taxis, three wheeler, motorcycles and pedestrians.  There is a whole language of communication taking place with the horns. Lanes really mean nothing. It is not unusual to just walk out into five lanes of traffic to cross a street. Rome was a good warmup, but only ranks a 3 to Cairo's 10 on a ten point scale. 

Day 4 in Cairo we hired a taxi to take us to our hotel in the Giza area. We dropped our bags and then had him drive us south to Saqqara, to see the famous stepped pyramid of Zoser, which was the precursor to the Pyramids in Giza.  It was also the first to use stone rather than mud brick. 

The driver had not been there before. So we used google maps. Problem was that I accepted as our destination the necropolis of Saqqara, which was the local cemetery out on the edge of the town on a hill in the adjacent desert. Actually fascinating to see. Luckily, we were able to find the archeological site. 

There was a great museum at the site with artifacts found locally. Wonderful pieces. We actually enjoyed it more than the Great Pyramids. 

We had the taxi driver join us at the site. He hadn't been before and had a fine time. 

One of the complexes there was the Serapeum. Dates from the Ptolemaic period. Basically it has these huge black granite sarcophagi to house these sacred bulls when they died. Big long corridor with each alcove housing a sarcophagus.  Pretty bizarre and well preserved. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serapeum_of_Saqqara

Fascinating day that ended with us having an expensive and not very good meal at probably the nicest hotel in the Giza area.  The next day we had falafel and foul at a place the locals eat at in Giza.  That meal was about 30 Egyptian pounds. About $2.00 versus a crappy meal for $80. Seems to be an inverse correlation between what you pay for a meal and how good it is.