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(Our trip out to Giza and Saqqara actually took place on two separate days so I've got the experience broken up into three different pages, which means that the Giza pages here aren't perfectly chronological. This shouldn't affect the overall storyline though and I shall highlight the shifts in timeline when necessary.) Page 2 : Saqqara / Page 3 : Giza Part II After arriving at the Mariott the evening before and having sighted the Pyramids from atop the Citadel, Aungela and I decided that in addtion to visiting the pyramids on the 17th as part of our organized tour package, which wasn't to start for another three days, that we wanted to see the millennia old monuments on at least two separate occasions to ensure we wouldn't miss anything due to bad weather, crowds, or a potentially rushed tour guide. So on the evening of the 13th we asked the travel staff at the Marriott to organize a tour of the Pyramids at Giza as well as a drive out to Saqqarra where some of the first pyramids of the ancient Egyptian dynasties are located, and the price of the private tour worked out to about $120 for the both of us - a bit pricy by Egyptian standards - but for $60 per person we were getting ourselves an airconditioned car with leather interior and a fluent English speaking guide who was going to be with us the whole day and take us wherever we wanted to go. |
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As we sat there at the table gobbling down our Eurasian breakfast, we wrote out our travel plans for the day while simultaneously people watching around the restaurant trying to figure out what other types of people were staying here in the Marriott with us. Half of the fun in travelling around the world after all comes from the people you run into and the people you stay with in the hotels and on the tours. In this particular cafe there were lots of Europeans, followed by Arabs, and then followed up by a smattering of Americans, Canadians (identifiable by that rediculous maple leaf on their backpacks!) and Far East Asians. Personally, I was rather intrigued by the Muslim Arab women in the restaurant who were wearing beautiful clothes with colorful headwraps with their faces completely exposed. I suppose the reason I found them so interesting was that in Saudi Arabia, at a minimum, non-Saudi Muslim women have to wear black and black only out in public, and the Saudi/Gulf women have to cover their faces completely (though this is not stated specifically in the Quran). During the whole trip, in fact, I was fascinated by the different way the various nationalities of Muslim Arab women dressed wherever we went. . . from the more conservative to the rather liberal. |
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Explanation of the above pictures: Picture #1: Aungela riding through the dilapidated Giza neighborhood bordering the pyramids. Picture #2: our transport and camel guides. Picture #3: moi! Picture #4: a close-up of my hot rod camel. Actually, I think the poor guy was feeling a bit under the weather that day since he kept on sneezing everywhere we went! Picture #5: Aungela getting her camel to spin around for a picutre. |
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Interestingly enough, even our horse-guide Khalid leaned over and asked me why Aungela was wearing the head wrap to which I replied, "Because it's hot." Khalid then asked, "So, she does it for fashion?" Me: "No. She wears it because her skin is sensitive to the sun. You might not know this, but women the world over wear scarves and head coverings all around the world. It's not just in Islamic countries." I wanted to ask him if he had ever seen the movie Thelma & Louise but I figured that might be pushing it just a bit. |
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Atop the plateau there are three major pyramids and six minor pyramids plus an array of cemetaries and tombs. The three major pyramids are: |
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The Pyramid of Cheops (Khufu) - the Great Pyramid of Cheops is the oldest pyramid at Giza as well as the largest which stood 146.5m (489ft) high when it was completed around 2600 B.C. although today it only stands 137m (457ft) tall. At the top of the pyramid there is a truncated platform measuring 10 meters (yards) square. Today the pyramid has completely lost its external facing, thus revealing the enormous internal blocks of stone which were used to build it. The Pyramid of Chephren (Khafre) - (above) - southwest of the Great Pyramid, with its similar dimensions, is the Pyramid of Chephren. At first it may appear larger than the Great Pyramid of Cheops because it stands on higher ground and because it still retains part of the original limestone casing that once covered the entire structure, but it was actually shorter than Cheops when it was first constructed. Today though it is roughly the same hight. According to various reports, both pyramids had red granite facings at their bases upon completion. Among the interesting featurs of the Chephren pyramid are the substantial remains of its mortuary temple outside to the east. The Pyramid of Mycerinus (Menkaure) - (below) - at a hight of 62m (207ft), though originally 66.5m (222ft), this is the smallest of the three pyramids. Extensive damage was done to the exterior by a 16th century caliph (Muslim ruler) who wanted to demolish all the pyramids. It too was originally reported to have been covered in a red granite facing.
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Above: The Pyramid of Chephren as seen from the base of The Great Pyramid of Cheops.
Above: The Sphynx |
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Before too long we were back at the Camel Depot dismounting our irksome but lovable transport devices and were greeted by our Marriott Hotel tourguid Emad who was having a cup of tea with the perfume shop owners. Once we got off the camels tipping time geared up into full swing - an Egyptian tradition as we were coming to find out - and after paying off the horse-mounted pyramid tourguide 40 Egyptian pounds (about $10), I decided to give the little boys who had led our camels 20 pounds ($5) to split among themselves. They were rather excited to get such a big tip (remember, this is a 3rd World country after all) and I was humored by their father's command, in Arabic (which I understood!) that they keep only 5 pounds of it and that the other 15 go to him and the shop keepers. That's reasonable I suppose - it is the parents after all who are raising and needing to pay for the children and the business. In any case, after the baksheesh (tipping) session was complete, so too was our tour of the pyramids. That is, until 6:30 p.m. when we'd be right back in Giza for the evening lightshow! So Emad pulled up our little Chrysler Neon, opened the door, and in we went. We had a schedule to stick to so he quickly closed the door behind us and we sped off from Camelsville and zoomed out toward Saqqara. Along the way we pulled off the side of the two laned highway and snapped a picture of the great view below.
Nice picture, eh? ;-} Actually, it's a mosaic of three separate images, though not perfectly aligned. Your task is to find where the pictures don't exactly line up!
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14
April 2001 - Day 3 - Giza, Egypt
We
woke up on the morning of the 14th, hung out and relaxed in our room
for a while then went down to Omar's Cafe on the ground floor and had
a nice bi-ethnic breakfast of Western and Japanese cuisine. Our
plates probably looked a bit odd with bread, fruits, cheeses,
seaweed, rice, and tofu sitting side by side, and we probably looked
a bit wierd switching back and forth between forks, knives, spoons
and chopsticks, but who cares! Aungela and I love both types of food,
so why not mix? Variety is the spice of life after all!
We
finished breakfast by 11 a.m. and then went back up to our room to
freshen up and prepare for our tour which was scheduled to begin at
12 noon. We returned to the lobby of the hotel at our scheduled time
of departure and were greeted by a nice Egyptian man named Emad
Roshdy. Emad stood about 5'9" tall (177cm), had a full head of
dark, wavy hair cut short, and smooth tanned skin. While not fat by
any stretch of the imagination, Emad had a very round-ish
appearance about him that made him look jovial and completely
approachable. Upon meeting him I was glad to see that his English was
virtually flawless and that he had apparently had plenty of
experience with Americans and knew how to socialize with them
(specifically us!). He was fun and chummy, and we felt comfortable
with him right away. (Right Aungela?!? :-} ) We stepped into the car
- a black 2000 Chrysler Neon - and sped away through the tree lined
back streets of Gezira Island where our hotel was located (an
artificial island in the Nile River), crossed over the 6th of October
Bridge and headed south toward Giza about 15km (10 miles) away.
The
road down to the Pyramids, Shari al-Haram (lit: Road of the
Pyramid), ran through the middle of high apartment blocks that went
on for miles and miles. On our way we passed by the University of
Cairo where thousands of young students were running across the busy
streets getting to and from class or going wherever it was they were
going, and then we passed by a big zoo along the western side of
street, whose greenery and shade which was a nice break from the over
crowded apartment blocks and population madness of the rest of Shari
al-Haram. As we drove through this urban landscape I kept
wondering, "Are we getting close? I don't see the desert
anywhere around here." since I was kind of under the impression
that the pyramids were located out in the middle of the desert away
from urban Cairo. At least that's what I remembered from the scores
of pictures I had previously seen of the pyramids. . . giant stone
structures towering above the blowing sands of the Egyptian desert.
Well, apparently all those pictures taken of the pyramids were shot
from one direction only because before we knew it the buildings and
apartment blocks suddenly ended - as if they had been cleanly severed
by a surgeon's scalpel - and the pyramds stood there before us in all
their glory right on the edge of urban Cairo! It was a bit of a shock
actually - to be speeding through buildings and people all over the
place and then without warning Cairo ends, al-Haram Rode spills out
into the desert, and three 4,000 year old pyramids rise majestically
before you. It was unexpected to say the least!
Once
in Giza, the neighborhood where the Pyramids are actually located,
Emad drove us to small perfume/camel shop where we were to a) be
shown around a little perfume-glass souvenir shop and be given a
sales pitch to buy some of their goods (typical of 3rd World tours),
and b) to begin our camel-ride up to the pyramids. Once leaving the
shop empty handed - by choice - we went outside where we met up with
a new tour guide, who with his two sons would be responsible for
leading us and our camels up to the world-famous triangular stone
mountains just under a kilometer (half a mile) away. Having lived in
Saudi Arabia for 8 months prior to the trip to Egypt and having had
numerous run-ins with camels before, I was well aware of the
difficulties involved in mounting a camel so I tried to give Aungela
a crash course in how not to be thrown off the camel once she
got on top of it and it went to stand up. I told Aungela that it
would probably stand up on its front legs first when meant she would
have to lean forward as much as she could, and then when the camel's
rump shot into the air, she would have to lean backwards as much as
she could in order to avoid being ejected. Well, I am proud to report
that Aungela managed the task like a pro and was towering 9 feet up
in the air before she knew it! And before I knew it my camel was
thrusting his rump up into the air as well and I was flying up in the
sky right beside Aungela just moments later!
The
neighborhood directly butting up against the hill on which the
pyramids are located is 3rd World through and through. Stone and mud
abodes with walls crumbling to the ground, broken earthen and
thatched rooves that let in all the elements, trash blowing around
between the buildings, and chickens and goats cockledoodledoo'ing and
mee'ee'ee'ee'ing their way through it all. Our horse mounted
tourguide, whom I shall call Khalid for lack of a better name, told
us that the neighborhood is being allowed to fall into disrepair in
an effort to eventually get the residents to move out, which I assume
means that local government officials are trying to kick out the poor
residents of the area so that multi-million dollar hotels can be
built in their place someday, but because the local residents have
nowhere else to go (and no money to get there!) that they're just
hanging around until their entire neighborhood turns into a pile of
dust. Whatever the story, the neighborhood had a certain charm about
it and I was actually surprised by the occasional well-painted
building here and there and couldn't help but think that if the
Egyptian money injected just a little bit of money into the
neighborhood, cleaned it up, painted it and paved the streets, that
it could easily become a hip little market district with trendy cafes
and tourist shops all over the place. Alas, it's probably easier just
to evict everyone, buldoze down their homes, build a mega hotel and
forget about trying to social-engineer the poor.
So
anyways, we rode through the little neighborhood watching wrinkly
old ladies go about their business washing and hanging up clothes,
men transporting heavy items on their back or leading around
animal-driven carts while children kicked around cans and played with
whatever objects they could find amongst the rubbish. Since Aungela
is quite sensitive to the sun, she wore the black semi-transluscent
headwrap I brought for her from Saudi Arabia and wore it switching
back and forth from leaving it open to covering her face completely.
This was apparently quite a shock, or at least a point of curiosity
among the locals, since many of them were staring at us like there
was no tomorrow. You see, in the Quran it states that both men and
women need to be modest in their dress, and with regard to women it
requires that they cover themselves from the crown of their heads
down, which includes their necks, arms, and legs. This would not be
very noteworthy in and of itself since Aungela could easily pass as a
Muslim woman, all things considered, with her beautiful brown skin
and East African features.
The
problem arrises with the clause in the Quran which states that while
Muslim men are allowed to marry non-Muslim women, Muslim women on the
other hand are not allowed to marry non-Muslim men, so this would
mean - as interpreted by our local Egyptian townspeople - that if
Aungela were Muslim, as he must be according to the way that she was
dressed, I would automatically have to be Muslim as well since
Aungela wouldn't be able to marry me otherwise (even though we're not
even married!), and the simple fact was that with my white skin,
baseball cap and t-shirt I was probably the most unMuslim
looking creature on the face of the planet to them. But since I had
to be Muslim, in order for Aungela to be Muslim, they were probably
just thoroughly confused by the whole sight, or perhaps even offended
that a presumably Christian-European man would be married to a
presumably Muslim African woman! And Giza wasn't the only place we
were stared at like we were space aliens. In fact, everywhere
we went all eyes were on us, especially when we were walking and
running around holding hands. Not that we minded since it was usually
quite entertaining, and being that Aungela is not a shy person AT
ALL, she was always more than ready to stare back at everyone
starinig at us! :-)
After
discussing the scarf issue, our two-camel caravan made its way up a
curvy little dirt path out from the neighborhood below past a series
of ancient cemetaries where we then had an excellent view of the
pyramids. Which is a perfect lead-in for giving you some historical
information about the pyramids:
Once
we reached the upper plateau where the pyramids are located, the
camel ride and sightseeing program was rather sedate. As mentioned
above, there are three main pyramids plus six minor pyramids and we
spent the better part of our time just meandering around them perched
atop our camels snapping up pictures. Aungela and I quickly got used
to how we were supposed to control the camels - pulling the reigns to
the left to go left, and to the right to go right, pulling back to
slow down and kicking the camels with our feet to give it a little
oomph - so for the most part we just bobbed up and down as the
pyramids rolled by.
Well,
our round-about camel tour of the pyramids continued on a little
while longer, but since we still had to get out to Saqqara, stop by a
couple tourist shops and be back in Giza by sundown for The Great
Pyramids Lightshow by 6:30 p.m., we didn't have a whole lot of extra
time to spend at the pyramids. . . so we slowly moseyed on back
toward the camel shop where we had begun the tour. Aungela and I were
scheduled to return to the pyramids in three days time, so we didn't
mind not having the opportunity to actually climb inside the pyramids
on this particular occasion. Nor did we mind flying by and barely
seeing the Sphinx from atop a neighboring hill because we were
scheduled to see that monument up-close on the 17th as well. (See 