After spending the night in a luxury hotel room, with an incredible view of The Great Pyramids of Giza, it was time for me to venture out to have a closer look at these incredible ancient structures.
The entrance to the pyramids complex is very close to Mena House, where I was staying, but I still had to do my best to avoid getting hustled on the short walk to the ticket office.
There is an area, right next to a police checkpoint, that's used as a car park for rickshaws, camels and horses. Men stand outside, trying to convince you that is the place to buy your entrance ticket to the pyramids. It's not. It's the place where these scammy hustlers try to sell you overpriced camel and horse tours.
I avoided those scammer's trap and made it to the real ticket counter, where things were well organised. I walked straight up to the counter and bought my ticket for 200 EGP ($11 USD / £9 GBP roughly, at today's rates.)
You can also buy tickets to enter 2 of the 3 main pyramids. I've visited the pyramids before and been inside one of them, so I didn't think it was worth doing it again. There's nothing inside them. Just some small dark empty rooms. It's also forbidden to take photos or videos inside there.
As I entered the pyramids complex, several men tried to give me "gifts". I put the word in quotes because they're not really gifts. It's common practice for these guys to give you a cheap cloth headscarf or little trinket as a gift "for welcome you to Egypt" and then demand money from you.
I avoided these hustlers near the entrance and was able to explore around the pyramids complex for a good while without getting hassled. The ratio of hustlers to tourists wasn't too bad. There seems to be enough tourists to supply each hustler, so they aren't too sticky. When you brush them off, they just wait for the next tourist, rather than following you and hassling you.
I did fall victim to one scam artist of a hustler though. I saw a camel with a tattoo and asked the owner about it. He gave me a stick and told me to hold on to it. That was to keep me there while he finished up with his previous customer, who had jumped on the camel to get a photo taken.
The camel man told me he wanted to take a photo of me on his camel. I asked him how much that would cost and he said "Whatever you want to give me is no problem." I asked if 20 was acceptable and he agreed.
As soon as I got on the camel and handed him my photo to take photos, he demanded that I put my GoPro camera away. He wasn't even satisfied with me putting it in my pocket. He wanted me to put it in my bag.
His reason was that it was somehow a problem for the police, which is total nonsense. It was a problem, only for him, because he was planning to scam me and didn't want to be exposed.
The scam was that he didn't just want to take "a photo". He wanted to take a bunch of photos and force me to go for a ride around. I kept demanding that he stop and let me off the camel but he refused. I knew how this was going to turn out and that the longer I was on the camel, the more money he'd be demanding from me, so I just kept yelling, telling him to stop. Eventually he let me down.
Remember the 20 that we agreed I would pay him? I tried to pay him 50, acknowledging that he took more than just the one picture, but he was very angry, telling me that 50 is nothing and that I should pay him 200 - 300 Egyptian Pounds or give him some "American money."
It was only when I pulled my camera back out that he was friendly again and agreed to accept the 50. When he thought it was just me and him, he was his mean, scammy, horrible self. What an awful man, a scammer and a disgrace to his country.
Thankfully, after that experience, I did find an honest camel man. He took me on a full tour for 1 hour and helped me take some better photos, for only 150. That shows how cheeky the first guy was demanded 200 - 300 for a few minutes being forcibly led around.
The honest camel man's name is Hamdi and his WhatsApp number is +201222893392
0:00 Going to Ticket Office
2:51 First Hustler
5:15 Camel Men
9:58 Egyptian Headscarf
14:09 Sphinx
15:16 Khafre's Valley Temple
17:53 Touching the Pyramids
20:49 Stories from the Pyramids
25:55 Scammer Camel Man
34:24 Honest Camel Man
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