If you fall off of the horse, do you get back on?

Quite simply, yes. But it was terrifying!

After our short nap we were up and getting ready for the day. Only getting a few hours of sleep is worth it when you know you get to see an Ancient Wonder of the World that morning.

We knew that it was going to be a rather busy first day with little sleep. Our tour guide has been doing this for a while, his name is Michael. He said that ever since he was 5 years old he knew he wanted to be a tour guide. I could tell right away that he was resourceful and efficient. Two important things if you are traveling with a tour group.

We set off and Michael taught us about the history of the pyramids and promised that he would give us more history about Egyptian and some of the more recent revolutions. I hadn’t researched too much ahead of the trip – so I am looking forward to hearing more as we go.

All of a sudden we rounded a bend and we could see the tip top of the pyramids. There is something so surreal about seeing THE pyramids in-person. I mean, we have all read about them – saw pictures – and maybe even heard a little bit about their mythology when we were younger. To say we were eager to get off of the bus is an understatement.

Michael knew that most busses would stop at the first pull out (where you can get close and snag some great pictures) right away. We headed past that pull out to where the camels and horse-drawn carriages were.

I was wearing a dress so I felt like riding a camel wasn’t a good idea, so we opted for the horse drawn carriage. We saw a lot of people from our group already trotting away on camels. They had us get into the carriage. At this point we were excited to get to a better vantage point of the pyramids where you could see the smaller ones behind the big ones. Did you know that they were there? We didn’t!

We had been on the “road” for about 15 seconds when the carriage started to flip. I’m known to be a little bit over dramatic when riding as a passenger in a car. So naturally there was a moment where I thought No, this isn’t actually going to flip – they do this all of the time! Right? NO – no. We are flipping! Based on where Andy was sitting – he hit the ground first.

I tumbled over him and landed face first in the sand. It knocked the wind out of me. I was in shock – Andy was too. Within 1-2 seconds he was already on his feet helping me up. By the time we stood up there were probably 15 of the workers surrounding us and helping dust us off.

We were both really shaky, but they promised that they would get us on a more stable cart. (Why did they even use the first one?!) So we went out – and that’s when we realized that Andy’s arm was bleeding and really scraped up. We think he hit the side of the carriage as he fell out. I had one spot on my knee, but was otherwise totally fine. Our driver tried to make it up to us and took so many pictures of us.

Honestly, we couldn’t have gotten a better day! Clouds in the sky made the pyramids look more dynamic, We got back to the parking lot and our tour guide came rushing up – he translated for us and let us know the owner was so sorry. He offered us some hats and said he would refund our money. However, Michael told us it would not be good for the owner. Honestly, I felt compelled to let them keep the money. Any time you enter into an activity like that (without any kind of waiver) – I feel like it’s at your risk. So – we let them keep the money.

I was more concerned about getting Andy a first aid kit. Everyone was trying to help. It’s just a remote area and there weren’t great facilities. We got really lucky. We could have broken bones, teeth, had the horse/cart roll onto us. We had picked up travel insurance (because it’s supposedly a requirement to get into the country). And in the back of my mind I’m glad we had it. No one wants to spend their vacation in a hospital! (Looking at you Jon!)

We went to the other spot – that we had passed on our way to the horses/camels and took some even more amazing photos. We also got to touch the Great Pyramid!

I was spitting sand out of my mouth the rest of the day. HOURS later Andy noticed I had something between my teeth. It was sand. It really stuck with me!

In the end, we got back on “the horse” in this instance – it was a different one. (Don’t worry, the first horse was completely fine. Not sure about the carriage). And we were able to still make a lifetime memory over it.

If you are going to the pyramids, I’d highly recommend taking a camel. 😂