A Day at the Pyramids

‘Hammed told us he’d come by with the driver and guide at 8:30 a.m. to fetch us. At 8:45 he strolled in to introduce us to our lovely guide S_____ (we forgot her name as soon as we heard it, so let’s just call her Sally), and we walked across the street to a newer model Hyundai with a/c and a very welcoming driver. The four of us set out for Giza.

The drive would be about 45 minutes, so we chit chatted with Sally, and she ultimately filled us in on the order of the day: Giza, Lunch, Saqqara, Memphis. Ultimately the conversation turned to teaching us a few words in Arabic: hello, thank you and – my personal favorite – “habibi” (my darling). Mr. Farmer is now Mr. Habibi.

As we drove west across the Nile into Giza, we presumed we were in increasingly think smog.

Turned out it was smog plus fog, and by the time we got to the Giza Plateau, our visibility was only about 100 feet. So after getting tickets and walking through the x-ray gate, Sally explained that the pyramid was right in front of us. Could it be? We could only see tourists wandering around in the fog.

Sure enough, about 100 feet later I spotted the bottom corner. And after another 50 feet we were truly standing at the base of the largest pyramid in Egypt. (Did you know there are over 100 pyramids throughout the country?)

Fortunately the fog started to burn off as we listened to the history, which you can read HERE.

The stones are huge!

Sally gave us about 30 minutes to walk around this pyramid and to make our way to the base of the second one (situated probably 300 meters behind the first). This was a recipe for trouble, of course.

As we walked to the corner of the pyramid, a dude who turned out to have a camel (duh) insisted on showing us how to take these pictures. (Notice the man purse.)

Before we knew it, we were here:

And then he started leading us away….to here:

At that point, we figured we would kill ourselves if we tried to jump off, so what the hell:

For some reason he let Mr. Farmer off (and we nearly toppled over the head of the camel when it kneeled down), but I was still stuck and getting annoyed:

$14 and a mad camel owner later (he wanted $40), we escaped to the second pyramid and the safety of our guide.

But in the process, we saw just how large the stones were in the first pyramid – HUGE! Over 3 million of them.
 

The second pyramid is the only one that still has evidence that the pyramids were once smooth.

From there we stopped at a lookout point to capture the whole scene. In these pictures it looks like there are very few people around, but truly it’s full of tourists.

Then it was on to the Sphinx, which is actually part of the second pyramid compound. It has the king’s head to show great intellect, on the body of a lion to show great power.

(Mr. Farmer decided it was OK for me to steal a kiss.)

After Giza we made a stop at a perfume place and a papyrus place, which seems to happen to all tourists in those parts. I’m sure the guide would’ve gotten a cut, but they really weren’t pushy so we didn’t really mind. And it was quite fascinating to hear about the different stuff we were smelling. The place was actually a manufacturer of flower essences, which serve as the base for perfumes. (Or so they said.) So we smelled a whole bunch of them, and they explained which ones were the bases for many famous fragrances like Chanel No. 5 and Gucci. I’m not a perfume wearer, so I only know the difference between the smells of yellow cake and pig poop, so who knows if they were accurate. Mr. Farmer said the Polo one smelled like he vaguely recalled. The most interesting was Sandalwood, which wasn’t a fragrance but a “sticky” sap that serves as the base for massage oils. I put it on my elephant elbow, which Mom is on my case to soften. (It actually works!)

Then it was on to the papyrus place, where they showed us how to make paper. That was actually interesting, too. Then of course they tried to sell us “lovely paintings” on the paper, which were fine but nothing we’d hang in our house.

At that point we went for a touristy but super tasty Egyptian lunch that set us back a whopping $60. Ouch! That included our guide’s lunch, too – so I guess $20/person isn’t super hideous. It was pleasant to sit outside in a covered patio.

Next stop was Saqqara, which is the site of the oldest pyramid in Egypt (among many others there). It’s a very large area that is still being excavated, so we stuck to the areas around the main pyramid. It’s the one that has stair-step sides:

Here we were on the edge of the Sahara – the sand was incredibly soft and fine. And though the air felt cool in the shade, the sun beat down like the dickens. Check out the nasty smog over Cairo:

Our final stop was Memphis, which wasn’t really much to see. It was the site of the ancient capital, but nowadays it’s just a small exhibit of a few statues – none of the temples that once stood. A couple of the statues are really impressive, namely the huge statue of Ramses II and the alabaster Sphinx, which was made by (and has the face of) a queen that ruled for a time.

Then we headed back to Cairo. Traffic was hideous once we got downtown – gridlock for an hour. I think it took us two hours to get to our hotel.

At that point we were thinking we liked Cairo quite a bit, but we were starting to get the feeling that people are only outwardly polite — they don’t REALLY want to see us again when we come back to Egypt. They just want our money.

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