What an amazing way to begin our trip. After a delicious continental breakfast, we headed to the pyramids. The first view of them shocked me in a way; we were on a three or four lane highway, and I was staring out the van window at the cityscape of Cairo. All of a sudden, you see the outer circle of buildings, and directly behind it, the sand rises into the first crests of the Sahara Desert, and there the pyramids were. It was a very powerful reminder about the lushness of the Nile and how its fertility allowed this huge city to spring up in the middle of a desert. Time spent abroad has always been good for making me challenge my own comfort zones in many ways, but especially in terms of overcoming (or at least confronting!) my own fears. Today I rode a camel. Let me tell you, to a person scared of heights, they seem very high off the ground. The fact that they spit, smell, and fart are just bonuses. Kidding- those things didn’t actually bother me…but the height definitely did until I got used to it. Also, camels growl…it sounded a little bit like when our dogs Max and Minnie get angry.Food in Egypt has been subsidized by the government for decades, and bread in particular is kept at low prices in order to make it available to everyone. If any of you go on the New York Times webpage and look through back articles (I think it was from February), you might find an article about bread prices in Egypt. The picture in the story is not unlike the one I took today. We passed just such a small bread-seller, with a crowd huddled outside, each person stretching out their hands to receive aish (in the Egyptian dialect, the word for “bread” and “life” is the same). It seemed rather incongruous to be a group of students, clearly with enough disposable income to have travelled this far, riding by a group of adults clamoring to be able to put the next meal on the table. The other side of the coin is that tourism is a viable industry in Egypt, and our excursion gave aish to someone else.
Hassan was the name of the 10-year-old boy who was leading my camel throughout the desert (on the same theme as above, think about the juxtaposition of a college kid on a camel riding to the pyramids once, being led by a small boy who might walk that same distance a few times each day that he’s not in school). I asked Hassan his name and age in Arabic (yay for practice), but either he didn’t hear me or didn’t want to make conversation with me, because another boy answered for him on both counts.
The pyramids were truly amazing. There are nine pyramids at Giza in all, six small ones for queens and children, and the three large ones for the pharaohs. They were built by three successive generations of one family, with the middle pyramid (both in the dynasty and in geographic location) being the largest (Khafaure’s pyramid). We were only able to approach the smallest pyramid, and yet that alone was incredible. Another interesting point from our visit was the guide’s insistence that those who built the pyramids were simple Egyptian laborers: not slaves, not foreigners (or aliens), and not forced into and killing during their service. He pointed out the worker’s tombs which are in front of the pyramids, and said that the only difference between the tombs of the kings and the workers was in the construction: in entering a king’s tomb (aka a pyramid), the tunnels force one to bend over in order to pass through- the low ceilings basically force you to bend in obeisance to the king, whereas one can walk fully upright into a worker’s tomb.
Our last stop at Giza was the Sphinx. Not the oldest Sphinx, incidentally, but the larger of the two in Egypt. At 22 meters, it was smaller than I had thought, given the pictures I’ve seen. Nonetheless, it was majestic and regal (even without its nose). The area surrounding the Sphinx was much more touristy than out by the pyramids, but it was definitely worth the view.
After all this excitement, the stop at a papyrus strore was a little anticlimactic, although educational (fact: papyrus can endure for thousands of years). I did get one piece with Arabic script; it says “Allah” in large script as well as one of his other names in a smaller size on the side. It’s an incredible work of art, especially when you realize that it is composed of letters alone. From the papyrus maker, we continued on to the Saqqara Nest for a lunch buffet.
A side note on the food: I’m finding it (so far) really easy to be health-conscious and still have a hearty, delicious meal (much easier than at home). For instance, a typical breakfast will go something along these lines: a one-egg omelet with onions, peppers, cheese, and some kind of herb; a piece of whole-grain bread; a bit of fruit salad with yogurt on top; a mini-salad of cukes and tomato pieces; coffee; juice; and a piece of fruit to carry with me for later in the day. Lunch today was a humongous buffet, featuring rice, some meat, falafel, again cucumbers, lentils, chick peas, etc. We’ll be getting a decent amount of meals on our own, so I don’t expect to eat such a wide variety at every meal, but it still seems entirely possible to mix it up and keep it healthy.
I’ve been reading and learning about Egypt for over a decade now, and it is still incredible in my mind that I saw the pyramids and the Sphinx today (I still want to go inside though…). To think about the time that went into building them, and how long ago it was done…in some ways, this may be the most religious experience I’ve ever had. Standing out in the desert, removed from many of the other tourist groups, it was simple to close my eyes and imagine their constuction and the people involved thousands of years ago. Also, to know that the desert itself surrounding it has remained unchanged for so long was in some ways a humbling realization. There are things bigger than humans and humanity. To an IAF major who wants to “change the world” and all that business, it’s in some ways a blow to my previously unshakeable confidence in my ability to truly affect such a change. (Note for certain loved ones: This does NOT mean that I will cease in my attempts to do so!)
In a few days we leave for Luxor and Aswan and will visit temples from Ancient Egypt as well, which I think will round out the experience and give me a more detailed look at that time period.
