Had a crazy travel day. Flight was delayed and they landed in Washington DC instead of NYC. Took a train from DC, but then there was a bomb scare and the train stopped in Trenton. Ended up taking a cab from Trenton for $170!
Every once in a rare while, you still get a glimpse of the New York of yesteryear when you get picked up by a real-world version of MTV's Jimmy the Cab driver.
On Saturday morning I checked out of my hotel in San Ignacio and split a ride to the airport in Belize City with a New Yorker I met on my cave-exploring trip!
Wednesday was cloudy and rainy. After a lazy morning, I met a local driver who took me out to the Green Hills Butterfly ranch. We're about to pass a horse-and-buggy carriage driven by one of Belize's 10,000 German/Belize-kriol speaking Mennonites!
A little afternoon, I chatted with a local taxi driver about a few local places I was interested in checking out and he suggested Xunatunich, a late Mayan ruin from 650-1000 AD.
Bad ass. Ahmed and I had spent the hour-drive down doing our best to get to know each other. Despite the language barrier, we'd managed pretty well and I learned that despite having spent his entire life in Cairo, he'd never been to any of the sites we were visiting. It was cool to drive down the road with him and hear him having the same awed reaction as me.
This is the back of Djoser's Step Pyramid. It's from 2630 BCE (4,640 years ago!!!) and is considered one of the oldest stone monuments in human history.
Saqqara is a huge burial complex for the Old Kingdom of Egypt. We pulled off the lush green local roads and suddenly we were in the middle of a desert and there were two pyramids (well, one step pyramid and a pile of rubble!) rising out of the desert.
BTW, the pile of rubble is the remains of Userkaf's Pyramid! Guess that'll teach him to skimp on pyramid building supplies!
After finishing my breakfast, I grabbed my backpack and hit the streets of Cairo to try to find a driver! After a few failed attempts with drivers who spoke absolutely NO English, I finally met a driver who was willing to hear me out. Not that he spoke a single word of English either, he simply possessed enough patience to sit with me on the side of the road while I tried to communicate with a combination of phrases listed in the back of my guidebook and clumsy hand gestures.
After getting the gist that I wanted to hire him for the day, he told me that "We see friend with English." I agreed and he drove me to a hotel to visit a friend of his working as a security guard. His friend spoke great English and asked me where I wanted to go and how much I wanted to pay. I named the three cities and told him that I was offereing 200 EP (~$38 USD). He told me "Ahhhh! That is a very good and fair price!" He translated what I had just said for Ahmed, the driver, who happily agreed. After sitting in Cairo's morning traffic for close to an hour, we hit the highway and were on our way!
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