Egypt's Giza Pyramid's change by Livia Cseresova

The holidays in Egypt will not be (and already aren’t) the same as they used to be. While now and especially in the past during visiting the famous beautiful Giza Pyramids, there are peddlers selling camel rides and pharaonic charms everywhere, it should change in the near future.

The first step of modernizing the destination was getting rid of the hawkers, and so making it more attractive for tourists. Also, security cameras and 12-mile fence with infrared sensors surrounding the place should be helpful in making it more tourist-friendly.

According to Egypt’s chief archaeologist, Zahi Hawass, they are just “protecting both the tourists and the ancient monuments.” The Giza pyramids, the 5,000-year-old Wonder of the World have been strangely open to tourists. In other World Wonders like Colosseum in Rome or Acropolis in Greece, the security is very tight and the movement of tourists is controlled.

The “protecting”, however, really saddens the hawkers, who were often looking to benefit from the tourist dollar and had free rein. They were following the visitors offering rides on camels and selling imitations of pharanoic statues and scarabs, T-Shirts and many other souvenirs. It will become history soon, though.

One of the hawkers said: “I've been working here for 25 years. Now I don't know if I will be here tomorrow. I have five children, a wife. What will happen to us?”

Kamal Wahid, the general director of the site claims that removing the sellers won’t be sudden or unkind. But “two years from now, you won't see them inside the site.”

Tourists seem to be very satisfied with the current –and the future- situation. Some say “it looks clean and beautiful” and that they feel “very comfortable and secure.”

by Livia Cseresova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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posted by Lucia Adamova