Egypt Travel Nightmare: INSANE Harassment at the Pyramids of Giza

Another issue is poor security. In contrast to other “wonders of the world” attractions I’ve been to, like Machu Picchu, the Pyramids complex pretty much let anyone in. There are thousands of guys yelling at tourists, selling trinkets or photos, and pretty much no security besides at the base of the actual pyramids. The complex is just too big to police the whole thing. 

Also, Egyptians tend to respect the hustle.

Authorities turned a blind eye to touts taking tourists on camel rides, and then shaking them down for cash once they got them 10 ft up on a camel (there’s a saying in Egypt – “It’s one price to get ON the camel and another to get OFF”) is just kinda baked into the culture. 

Despite the whole time at the pyramids being a crazy ride of touts screaming “Camel??? Where are you from?” And “Shakira” at me (Shakira is the default cat-call in Egypt. Don’t ask me why), two specific instances stand out in my memory: 

The Grabby Little Boys

We had to drive from the entry to the complex where we went inside the pyramids to where the Great Sphinx was. Once we arrived it was already 3 PM and the complex was closing at 4 PM (It’s open till 5 PM in the summer but we visited in October) so our guide dropped us off and went to park the car. This left us on our own, and free to run into problems 😅.

I set up my tripod so we could all take a photo together in front of the Great Sphinx with a timer, and in the 30 seconds that took we were already descended upon by a pack of adolescent boys. 

In some parts of Asia and Africa, it’s common for people to ask to take a photo with foreigners, which throws a lot of Western tourists off, but it’s not considered weird.

I have taken SO many photos with people while traveling, especially in Egypt.

One time a mom had me take a photo with each of her kids and it was actually really cute. However, I have heard stories about female travelers taking photos with men or boys and they’re not always respectful. Sometimes they’ll show the photo of you together to people and say that you slept with them, other times they’ll use the photo as an excuse to get grabby.

So when the pack of little boys showed up asking for photos, I respectfully declined and went back to fiddling with my camera. 

My friends, however, are less jaded than I am. I would say the boys were between the ages of 13 and 16, and likely on some kind of school trip because it was a huge group. It started off innocent enough.

The first one asked for a selfie with my Friend Rita, then another, then another. REALLY quickly it turned into a mob situation where more and more showed up (there were at least 20 teens) all DEMANDING photos and not accepting “La!” (No) for an answer. 

I hadn’t taken any photos with the boys and had been preoccupied trying to set up my camera when, because my two friends were already occupied taking photos with other kids, frustrated boys started demanding pictures from me too. I said “La” and then they started GRABBING me, and yelling “PHOTO! PHOTO! PHOTO!” (!!!) 

I don’t put up with this kind of stuff. My friends were trying to be polite as they were being jostled in all directions by the child mob and I just SCREAMED “LA. NO MORE PHOTOS.” To 20, angry, adolescent faces, while making the “shoo, go away” motion with my arms.

Would this alone have helped? No, probably not. But the situation had escalated out of hand SO quickly, and it was the best I could do. 

Always. Make. A. Fuss. If. You’re. Being. Bothered. In Egypt. Always. Do people harass and mob tourists? Yes. Are they allowed to? No. Especially female tourists.

As soon as I had made a fuss two older men heard and came to help and started absolutely screaming at the boys who were giving us a hard time. The boys all ran away, scared of getting in trouble, in less than 30 seconds, and as quickly as the situation had started it was over. 

The Fake Pyramids Employee

The little boy mob had taken up a good deal of the dwindling time we had left at the complex before it closed for the day. We were a little bit frazzled, trying to see everything there was to be seen before we had to leave. While we were sitting on rocks trying to take a good shot in front of the Sphinx without 1,000 other tourists in the way some guy kept coming up and bothering us. 

First, he was throwing compliments our way. “Beautiful”, and “Shakira” (the default catcall in Egypt), and we were ignoring him, thinking he was just some creep (which he was).

Then our guide, who had finally come back from parking the car, shouted down to us we only had 15 minutes left before the complex closed. He said we would have just enough time to visit the last stop, the elevated platform overlooking the Great Sphinx if we made a run for it. The guide wasn’t going to run with us. So we left our bags with our guide, which was slowing us down, and made a dash for it.

Sprinting towards what looked like the entrance and wound up being a dead-end the creepy guy sprinted AFTER us and told us he could show us the correct entrance. I said “La, Shukran” (no thank you in Arabic) as a reflex and then he flashed his badge and said he worked for the pyramids complex and was just trying to be nice. 

Should I have taken a closer look at the badge? Yes. But we had 10 minutes left at a bucket-list destination I didn’t know if I would ever make it back to and we were rushing around, so we trusted him at face value and let him lead the way. 

The “pyramids employee” immediately started acting sketchy once we turned the corner to the correct entrance. He said “It’s closed now, but I can still get you in” – it wasn’t closed.

People were streaming out of the little gated entrance because it was about to close, but we made it with no problem while the guy with a badge made a big show of “talking to the guard on our behalf.” 

The viewpoint over the Sphinx isn’t all that great. We were over it in about 5 minutes, just trying to see everything before we went. Unfortunately, the only way out of the viewpoint was the same as the way in, and the fake Pyramids employee was waiting for us at the exit. 

As soon as he saw us he called “Follow me for the best photo spot! Quick! And scrambled up a tiny ledge.

I can’t lie, what followed was pretty fun and unexpected. He took our phone and started giving instructions “to the left! Little more! Arms out like this! Hand up! Hand down!” Etc. Setting up funny shots where it looks like we’re kissing the Sphinx, touching the tip of the pyramid, or the Sphinx is kissing our bum (I actually really liked that one).

Had we asked him to do any of this for us? No. He was just kinda barking orders at us. Had we refused and said “no, don’t” – also no.

It’s pretty common in Egypt that someone will do something for you in an aggressive manner, like grab your bags out of your hands and run ahead and carry them for you, and then expect to be paid for it at the end.

If you don’t negotiate fees for services upfront you can wind up in a situation as we did. 

Here’s the thing. No one who works in tourism in Egypt is actually ever trying to do something nice for tourists.

There are LOTS of nice people in Egypt – but none that I’ve met work in the industry because they view tourists as a paycheck. So, a “pyramids complex employee” would never, out of the kindness of his heart, be showing us around and taking photos of us and all that. I knew that. I also knew I had enough cash for a tip on me when (not if) he asked for it so I thought we were fine. 

After about 5 minutes the fake employee said “This has been fun for me – now it is time for you to tip. Remember, a tip is given from your heart – any amount is fine. $50, $70, all is fine” 🙄 (he had spent about 10 minutes with us, total).

We had tossed our bags and purses with our guide but I had 100 EGP (at the time, around $7) in my pocket that I handed over. It wasn’t anything close to the 50-100 US dollars he had asked for, but even in America, I wouldn’t pay some guy $50 for taking my photo with my own phone. 

Then came the anger. 

This was a fake guide. Most, if not all, of his income comes from tricking and pressuring tourists so even if we had given him $50 it probably wouldn’t have been enough.

He looked at the bill and said “You insult me?” And I said, “No, this is just all we have, we don’t have our wallets on us” (which he could see).

I knew when we were letting him take our photos we were getting into a situation like this, and I was dreading it, I just didn’t realize how bad it was going to get.

He started screaming at us, “Why do you hate Egyptians??? WHY do you insult me????” – I wasn’t having it. I said take it or leave it, gave him the money, and took off.

My friends stayed and tried to reason with him saying, “No, we don’t hate Egyptians! We love Egyptians! We are so happy to be here!” 

I ran ahead and told our guide what happened, my friends showed up a few minutes later, the tout STILL screaming at them and had followed them the whole way back. The thing is, touts aren’t allowed to harass tourists with private guides, so when he saw me standing with our guide he got a bit bashful.

Then doubled down and started screaming at the guide that we had hired him to take our photo (!!!) and refused to pay the agreed-upon price at the end. The guide knew this wasn’t true, we knew this wasn’t true, but we still had to bribe him to get him to go away. 

I tried really really hard to not let these experiences ruin my time at the Great Pyramids, but I can’t lie it was difficult. It was only our second day in Egypt and all of our nerves were shot. We were so exhausted by the whole ordeal we went back to the hotel that night and ordered dinner. 

I couldn’t imagine that this was what Egypt was going to be. 10 more days of constant harassment and angry men. Luckily, that wasn’t the case. The pyramids of Giza were, by far, the most difficult time I had in Egypt. We visited all of the main temple complexes during our stay and they all had much better security and kept the touts out. 

I think Egypt gets a bad reputation for travelers, especially female travelers, and a lot of that is probably people going to Cairo, seeing the Great Pyramids, and leaving – while thinking all of Egypt is that crazy, but I’m happy to report in comparison to the Pyramids the rest of Egypt was pretty chill!