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Our return trip lay through the Sinai desert and further through Cairo. When exchanging dollars for Egyptian money, I received a lot of banknotes of different advantages. It turned out that a penny (piastra) here is also paper. I separated some banknotes from others and a bunch of dilapidated, dirty penny banknotes squeamishly hid in a special department of the wallet, deciding to get rid of them at the first opportunity. The opportunity introduced himself only the next day when we went to watch the pyramids. Pyramids act not from afar, but near. They are incredible to an infinite number of blocks of them as in the brick wall of a large house. But these “bricks” are almost from the room, the concept of scale is canceled, a person ceases to understand how growth he is. All this literally amazes: somehow paralyzes the imagination. Light scum begins in the mind.

The general flavor of Egyptian tourism enhances these scree, makes not so easy. No less than ten people simultaneously claim your time and cash. The oblique crooked robbers in dirty hoodies in unrecognizable English offer to become your guide. Camel drovers call camels, horses on horses. Donkeys, carts are offered, I don’t know that there are still stretchers, nozzles, karachka. They ask to photograph or take a picture. Children do not ask for anything, but grab hands and demand money. “Mani! Mani! " Not poor at all. Well -groomed cheerful kids are separated from a walking, bourgeois type of parents and sticks on tourists. (Parents seem to not see.) “Mani! Mani! " Now it seems to me that we decided to get inside the pyramid for the pyramid, we only decide to escape for the time of this poor lamin. The solution was erroneous, this bad place, and people have nothing to do there.

It was very stuffy inside the pyramid, and when they got out, I wanted to drink. The wind blew and began to raise yellow dust. She thickened in the air, darkened him. (In general, this is called “Hamsin begins,” but we did not know this.) All people disappeared somewhere. We walked along the soft sand to the next pyramid, and she trembled a little like a mirage.

Suddenly an old man appeared, completely fabulous. I drove up on a donkey, dressed in a blue (once) hoodie, my head was wrapped in a gray scarf. The nose is crooked, a bump above the eye. In a wet bag, Coca-Cola bottles. “Come on a bottle,” Alena suggested. “Not worth it, we’ll buy minerals somewhere.” "Only fifty piasters!" I counted the service station, trying, as I decided, to get rid of paper trifles. The old man at that time uncorked the second bottle, and she did not open. I watched in surprise how ineptly, his hands were convulsively twitched. And some frightened eyes, almost crazy. “Apparently, he is afraid that we are changing in, I guessed. Poor, rarely he manages to sell something. ”

The bottles were dirty, the drink was warm and did not satisfy their thirst.

The Sphinx stood all in the forests, it was just faced with brand new tiles. Unable to endure this sight, we went to the citadel through the dead and black old city. This is also a tourist place, and two and a half pounds are taken for the entrance. I opened my wallet, looked at its contents for some time, not understanding anything. And suddenly it seemed to spray with black acid in the brain: I did not give the old man money.

In one branch of the wallet lay pounds, in another piastra (penny). The holes were approximately the same, but the piastras are smaller and completely littered, brick-sand color (like pyramids), and pounds are pinkish or green. It is not so easy to confuse even on the second day of stay in the country. I cannot explain this. Everyone knows: I am a thorough person, I add money carefully, and in a foreign country I count it at least three times - just in case. It was some kind of damage to me some kind of Morok. This is all the pyramid.

In the eyes, it gradually developed, but the left side of the body came to life with difficulty. Recalculation of penny banknotes gave a couple of dollars in total. With this amount, it was necessary to live a day in a strange, very unsafe country, get to the plane and it is still unknown how much to pay for the transition of unknown borders. Nightmare. In the evening, Alena entered the bathroom with a desperate-hard step, poured a glass of water from the crane and took several sips. I followed her example with horror. (Already in Moscow, we read some kind of leadership in which it was not recommended to use Cairo water even for washing. About rinseing the mouth, all the more oral consumption, we did not come.) About how we got to the airport, we need to talk separately. They got, as you see, and returned to their calm and little -bitten, comfortable city. But for a long time after our return, Alena, in response to my reasonable and fair remarks, screamed like a parrot from the “Treasure Island”: “Pia-Astra! PIA-Asters! "