An Evening in Cairo, Part 2

After getting to our hotel, the wife and I discovered that the electricity in the room apparently didn't work. Until I went to the front desk, and the clerk demonstrated that you have to put your room card into a slot next to the door to engage power for the room. The clerks had a hard time trying to stay serious looking, as this is pretty common in all the hotels we stayed in on vacation. I've never seen it before in the States, but then maybe I'm too cheap to stay in the good hotels when I'm at home.

After returning to the room and showing The Wife how to turn the room on, we had a quick look around the grounds. The grounds themselves were really nice, lots of vegetation, restaurants, shops etc. What was disconcerting was the blocks of concrete highrises all around the grounds. Think of housing projects built in our major cities back in the '60s and you'll have a pretty good idea of what they looked like. Most of these were at least ten stories, so we could get a nice view of the drying laundry outside the windows, and the residents inside could watch everything going on in the hotel grounds. One terrorist with a good rifle and some skill could have a field day.

Eventually our tour guide came back and picked us up the Pyramids Light Show. Basically, you go into a seating area (after passing through the mandatory metal detector), and watch colors and images projected onto the pyramids while blaring loudspeakers deafen you with an English-accented vocal accompaniment done in full overblown master thespian tones, and bursts of obnoxious brass horn sections to let you know the last bit of recitation WAS VERY IMPORTANT.
This is also accompanied by the constant car horns of Giza, and a nice blanket of smog from the mix of beat up autos from all over the world.

When the show is over, we filed out to the sounds of live bagpipes, played by local Egyptions wearing pseudo-pharonic outfits. How they came up with bagpipes, I have no idea. They were far better than the music accompanying the light show though.

Then, packed into the van again, and off to the hotel for tomorrow's expedition to the pyramids during daylight. Which will be addressed on a different day......