On Saturday the 8th we made our first real trip to the pyramids. We hadn’t planned to visit the pyramids until October or November, because we had been told that it was a hot, miserable, crowded experience during the summer months. However, we were on special assignment, the nature of which I cannot disclose lest valuable information be leaked earlier than appropriate!
So, we asked around, got the scoop on where to park, what to make sure to see/take/know beforehand. We called Mohamed Ali and asked him to arrange a driver for us, and at 8AM, Moussa was waiting outside our apartment with a real car (not a taxi!). It had seatbelts and everything! The three of us climbed into the back of the car and spent most of the drive discussing what we were on our way to see. Luke, in particular, was excited to see the Sphinx again, and Jason was awed by the fact that he was about to check off another of his life’s goals.
We arrived at the pyramids much sooner than I expected. Our experience on the way to the sound and light show left me with a distorted idea of how far we actually are from them. It only took us 15 or 20 minutes to get there, and there was no traffic. Once the pyramids were in view, we all got excited, even though we’ve been fairly close to them once before. It is still amazing to see them. First of all, they’re enormous. Then, I feel so small and insignificant when contemplating how old they actually are and how many people throughout history have visited them. These pyramids were old when Jesus was born, and I have a hard time comprehending how long ago THAT was!
I knew we were almost there when we started to see the tourist shops
with tacky souvenirs in the windows. This is also where we saw the first camels we’ve seen here. (Donkeys are used everywhere to haul all kinds of things around Cairo—they share the roads, highways, and even sidewalks with us.) At first, I saw four or five camels lined up, tied with ropes to old-west style hitching posts. Then a minute or two later, Moussa stopped the car and motioned to another man, who came and got in the front seat. He introduced the man as his friend. Then we drove another hundred yards and parked next to a whole flock of camels (Did you know that many camels is a flock? I looked it up!) that were seated on a sloping road. The camels were saddled and their handlers stood around waiting for tourists like us to prey upon. Moussa and his friend got out of the car and told us we should get out. One of the camel wranglers had led a camel right to the side of our car, so that when Luke and I got out, his growling face was right in front of us. Moussa’s friend began explaining that we would get on the camels and ride to the pyramids, all for the low, low price of $50. He told us there was no other way to get there, that it was too far to walk, and that driving to the actual pyramids was impossible. We knew this sales pitch was probably coming, but we’d thought we might avoid it by hiring our own driver. We stubbornly insisted that we did not want to ride a camel (been there, done that—not nearly as smooth a ride or as comfortable a perch as riding a horse), and that Moussa should drive us on up to the pyramids. (This did not stop 
Moussa from setting Luke down in the camel’s saddle—Luke was NOT thrilled!)
Ultimately, Moussa’s friend relented, and the three of us got back in the car. The man did not join us for the drive up to the pyramids, though!
A quick note on camels: I had my first experience with a camel in Dubai on our desert safari, back in 1999 or so. Until that point, I used to think they were beautiful, noble-looking creatures. I loved their long eyelashes, and their faces looked very intelligent. I was thrilled to get to ride one. I got up close to the camel I was supposed to ride and he opened his mouth and roared like Chewbacca. All my illusions of a camel’s nobility and grace went right out the window. I was further disillusioned when I got on the seated camel and discovered that in order for the camel to stand, he rais
ed up his rear end and straightened his hind legs first, leaving his forelegs bent underneath him, and leaving me holding on for dear life at an angle much akin to the big first drop on the Titan at Six Flags! Once he stood up all the way I found it difficult to get anything close to comfortable. I was glad my camel ride in Dubai only lasted two minutes. Had I not had that unpleasant experience, I might have thought it a romantic idea to ride to the pyramids on camels. Thank goodness I had already learned my lesson!
So Moussa drove us up to the pyramids, and Jason got out to buy entrance tickets and a parking ticket for the car. Moussa parked in the lot and waited in the car while we went to explore one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World! WOW!
Our first set of tickets basically got us in the gate and gave us access to the outside of the pyramids and the Sphinx. To go inside the Great Pyramid, we had to purchase additional tickets. Tour groups arrive first thing and buy out the 150 tickets allotted for the first half of the day. Jason was very concerned that we’d arrived too late to buy these tickets. When he reached the sales booth (a different one than the one selling the entrance tickets…why don’t they consolidate and make it easier on everyone?), he found out that he was right—the tickets were all gone. He walked away to tell me, and then turned right back around to talk to the man at the booth. The next thing I knew, Smug Jason walked away with tickets in hand. He’d bribed the guy to sell him the tickets. With two dollars. Amazing.
We walked around the outside area, fending off hawkers every few minutes or so. We’d been warned about the hawkers, and so we were prepared to say, “La’, shokran” (No thank you) over and over, and to be rather insistent and rude if necessary. At one point, Luke and I were walking alone and one guy approached us and started trying to sell me things. I said, “La’, la’.” “Ah, you speak Arabic!” he said. Then he handed Luke a little blue scarab beetle bead. He said, “a present for the baby.” Then he handed me a package containing a white head scarf with a braided rope headband, like Egyptians wear in the movies. He said, “A present for you.” I kept walking, took the stuff in my hands, and said “Shokran!” He handed me a postcard, another “gift.” Then he said, “Please, just five pounds.” “La! You said these were gifts! No money!” He began taking the things back, leaving Luke with the beetle bead. All in all, the hawkers were not nearly as persistent or numerous as I’d thought they would be. The ones at the Great Wall were much worse—on one of our trips there we were followed halfway up the hill to the Wall by a pack of 7-8 people, each trying to sell us something. At the pyramids they were more easily deterred.
After we explored the outside of the pyramids for a few minutes, took a few pictures, and let Luke run around, we went inside. We had to leave our camera at the entrance, so I don’t have pictures of the inside. We entered through a tunnel and had to hunch down and walk like a duck for a few feet before we got to the ramp/stairway that led to the King’s Chamber. We climbed and climbed and climbed up, up, up. It seemed like forever. The passageway was very small and the roof was really low, so the climb was pretty taxing. I remember thinking that Daddy would have a hard time because he’s so tall and broad-shouldered. He’d really have to hunch. Jason helped Luke do the climb, and I climbed ahead quickly. I do not love cramped places, and breathing in there felt difficult for me. The pyramid itself felt hotter inside than the desert outside did. It’s very humid with very little moving air, and I was not the only person I saw who had to stop and calm down after getting out of that passageway.
We finally reached the King’s Chamber. When we entered the room, I heard a thrumming noise. I had not really heard the noise while in the passage, so it surprised me. I am not sure what caused it—could’ve been generators supporting the ventilation system, or it could’ve been something with a more interesting mystical explanation—but it was weird. Other than that noise, I was a little disappointed. Actually, I wasn’t sure we were really in the king’s chamber. I guess I expected colorful paintings or etchings in the walls, but it was basically a rectangular room with tall ceilings. Inside was a granite (?) rectangular sarcophagus. There was no decoration anywhere in the room. Of course the room must have originally contained treasure and artifacts, and those are long-gone; still, I expected some sort of ornamentation.
We stood inside the chamber for five minutes or so. We had the room to ourselves. I reached down and touched the inside of the sarcophagus. Then we left and started back down the long climb to the bottom. We passed a huge 50-person tour group on their way up, but when we reached the bottom we were by ourselves once again. In that entrance passage, there is a closed gate with a stairway leading down. The gate was only secured by a piece of thick wire looped through the keyhole, so Jason Bourne got right to it, undid the wire, and sneaked down to see what was down there. I stood in the passage, hoping Luke would not remember this incident and learn to be a rule-breaker like his father. While Jason was exploring down below, the entire tour group returned from their visit to the King’s Chamber. They were coming down the ramp, which faced the stairs Jason had gone down, making it impossible for him to return undetected. Luke was saying, “Daddy’s downstairs! Where’s Daddy? He’s downstairs!” On top of that, one of the men working the entrance to the pyramid came and stood in the passage with his hand held out, asking each person for a tip on his way out of the pyramid. I was really irritated—both at Jason and the guy asking for tips. What did he need a tip for? It wasn’t like he went up those stairs with us or gave us any valuable historical information. He just stood at the entryway with his buddies while we went in by ourselves! (This is one of the things that bugs me about Egyptian society. People want tips for everything.) Anyway, the tour group seemed to have reproduced while they were up in the king’s chamber—they kept coming and coming and coming. Finally the Egyptian guy went back outside, and I decided that if Jason was going to come out, he needed to go ahead and do it, even with the tour group still streaming down the ramp. So I said, “Come on now, if you’re coming!” about three times before he finally came up the stairs. I am sure the people in the tour group were shaking their heads at this crazy, disobedient American… It would’ve been funny if he’d pointed down the stairway and just said, “toilet.”
We left the Pyramid in a great mood. Jason could not get over himself! He’d A) bribed his way into the pyramid, B) checked another of his life’s goals off his list, and C) played-like he was a secret agent and explored a restricted area of the pyramid (which turned out to be a light/ventilation shaft of some sort).
We left the pyramid area of the plateau and walked toward the Sphinx. It was unbelievably hot. (Duh…the desert…I have to keep reminding myself.) None of us had on sunscreen, or hats, and our water ran out pretty quickly. We decided to get down to the Sphinx, take a few pictures, and then go home. We know we’ll be back when people come to visit, so we didn’t mind skipping some of the extra stuff. On our way down to the Sphinx, though, we made a pit-stop in a small building that looked sort of like a temple to me, but I think it is actually a princess’s tomb. It was
pretty cool (literally and figuratively) because I got to climb down a little shaft to the burial chamber, which contained another sarcophagus. The lid was still on top of this one, but it had been propped up by some big rocks so that you could look inside. Know what was inside? Dirty Kleenexes. Nice, people. Anyway, I was pretty sure that Buffy the Vampire Slayer had been in that same tomb at some point. 
When I climbed out of that part of the tomb, the security guard led us around a corner to another part of the building, where there were some figures carved in the stone walls. I was excited about that. The guard took our picture in front of the carvings. 
After that, we walked down a big hill to see the Sphinx, took more pictures, and then walked back up the same hill to meet Moussa, who was patiently waiting in the car, reading the newspaper. We were all exhausted, hot, and hungry. We had Moussa drop us off at the Grand Café on the Nile, where we had lunch and relaxed before going home for a big nap!
A few random observations:
-The landscape around the pyramids was exactly what you’d expect it to be—desert, desert, desert—except this desert “park” area is right in the middle of Cairo. The city has grown outward to engulf the pyramids. Still, you get a good view of lots of sand dunes, and I took this picture of a camel caravan from the plateau the pyramids are on.
-It’s kind of neat how the pyramids look smooth from far away, but up-close the edges are not smooth. The boulders that they’re made from are tall (4-5 ft) and rectangular. One of the pyramids once had a covering to smooth out the edges, but it has eroded over time. I think you can see the remains of it in some of the pictures.
-It’s hot in Egypt.
And one last note: Jason has also blogged about our pyramid visit. To read his blog, go to www.myspace.com/cairojason .
So, we asked around, got the scoop on where to park, what to make sure to see/take/know beforehand. We called Mohamed Ali and asked him to arrange a driver for us, and at 8AM, Moussa was waiting outside our apartment with a real car (not a taxi!). It had seatbelts and everything! The three of us climbed into the back of the car and spent most of the drive discussing what we were on our way to see. Luke, in particular, was excited to see the Sphinx again, and Jason was awed by the fact that he was about to check off another of his life’s goals.
We arrived at the pyramids much sooner than I expected. Our experience on the way to the sound and light show left me with a distorted idea of how far we actually are from them. It only took us 15 or 20 minutes to get there, and there was no traffic. Once the pyramids were in view, we all got excited, even though we’ve been fairly close to them once before. It is still amazing to see them. First of all, they’re enormous. Then, I feel so small and insignificant when contemplating how old they actually are and how many people throughout history have visited them. These pyramids were old when Jesus was born, and I have a hard time comprehending how long ago THAT was!
I knew we were almost there when we started to see the tourist shops
with tacky souvenirs in the windows. This is also where we saw the first camels we’ve seen here. (Donkeys are used everywhere to haul all kinds of things around Cairo—they share the roads, highways, and even sidewalks with us.) At first, I saw four or five camels lined up, tied with ropes to old-west style hitching posts. Then a minute or two later, Moussa stopped the car and motioned to another man, who came and got in the front seat. He introduced the man as his friend. Then we drove another hundred yards and parked next to a whole flock of camels (Did you know that many camels is a flock? I looked it up!) that were seated on a sloping road. The camels were saddled and their handlers stood around waiting for tourists like us to prey upon. Moussa and his friend got out of the car and told us we should get out. One of the camel wranglers had led a camel right to the side of our car, so that when Luke and I got out, his growling face was right in front of us. Moussa’s friend began explaining that we would get on the camels and ride to the pyramids, all for the low, low price of $50. He told us there was no other way to get there, that it was too far to walk, and that driving to the actual pyramids was impossible. We knew this sales pitch was probably coming, but we’d thought we might avoid it by hiring our own driver. We stubbornly insisted that we did not want to ride a camel (been there, done that—not nearly as smooth a ride or as comfortable a perch as riding a horse), and that Moussa should drive us on up to the pyramids. (This did not stop 
Moussa from setting Luke down in the camel’s saddle—Luke was NOT thrilled!)Ultimately, Moussa’s friend relented, and the three of us got back in the car. The man did not join us for the drive up to the pyramids, though!
A quick note on camels: I had my first experience with a camel in Dubai on our desert safari, back in 1999 or so. Until that point, I used to think they were beautiful, noble-looking creatures. I loved their long eyelashes, and their faces looked very intelligent. I was thrilled to get to ride one. I got up close to the camel I was supposed to ride and he opened his mouth and roared like Chewbacca. All my illusions of a camel’s nobility and grace went right out the window. I was further disillusioned when I got on the seated camel and discovered that in order for the camel to stand, he rais
ed up his rear end and straightened his hind legs first, leaving his forelegs bent underneath him, and leaving me holding on for dear life at an angle much akin to the big first drop on the Titan at Six Flags! Once he stood up all the way I found it difficult to get anything close to comfortable. I was glad my camel ride in Dubai only lasted two minutes. Had I not had that unpleasant experience, I might have thought it a romantic idea to ride to the pyramids on camels. Thank goodness I had already learned my lesson!So Moussa drove us up to the pyramids, and Jason got out to buy entrance tickets and a parking ticket for the car. Moussa parked in the lot and waited in the car while we went to explore one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World! WOW!
Our first set of tickets basically got us in the gate and gave us access to the outside of the pyramids and the Sphinx. To go inside the Great Pyramid, we had to purchase additional tickets. Tour groups arrive first thing and buy out the 150 tickets allotted for the first half of the day. Jason was very concerned that we’d arrived too late to buy these tickets. When he reached the sales booth (a different one than the one selling the entrance tickets…why don’t they consolidate and make it easier on everyone?), he found out that he was right—the tickets were all gone. He walked away to tell me, and then turned right back around to talk to the man at the booth. The next thing I knew, Smug Jason walked away with tickets in hand. He’d bribed the guy to sell him the tickets. With two dollars. Amazing.
We walked around the outside area, fending off hawkers every few minutes or so. We’d been warned about the hawkers, and so we were prepared to say, “La’, shokran” (No thank you) over and over, and to be rather insistent and rude if necessary. At one point, Luke and I were walking alone and one guy approached us and started trying to sell me things. I said, “La’, la’.” “Ah, you speak Arabic!” he said. Then he handed Luke a little blue scarab beetle bead. He said, “a present for the baby.” Then he handed me a package containing a white head scarf with a braided rope headband, like Egyptians wear in the movies. He said, “A present for you.” I kept walking, took the stuff in my hands, and said “Shokran!” He handed me a postcard, another “gift.” Then he said, “Please, just five pounds.” “La! You said these were gifts! No money!” He began taking the things back, leaving Luke with the beetle bead. All in all, the hawkers were not nearly as persistent or numerous as I’d thought they would be. The ones at the Great Wall were much worse—on one of our trips there we were followed halfway up the hill to the Wall by a pack of 7-8 people, each trying to sell us something. At the pyramids they were more easily deterred.
After we explored the outside of the pyramids for a few minutes, took a few pictures, and let Luke run around, we went inside. We had to leave our camera at the entrance, so I don’t have pictures of the inside. We entered through a tunnel and had to hunch down and walk like a duck for a few feet before we got to the ramp/stairway that led to the King’s Chamber. We climbed and climbed and climbed up, up, up. It seemed like forever. The passageway was very small and the roof was really low, so the climb was pretty taxing. I remember thinking that Daddy would have a hard time because he’s so tall and broad-shouldered. He’d really have to hunch. Jason helped Luke do the climb, and I climbed ahead quickly. I do not love cramped places, and breathing in there felt difficult for me. The pyramid itself felt hotter inside than the desert outside did. It’s very humid with very little moving air, and I was not the only person I saw who had to stop and calm down after getting out of that passageway.
We finally reached the King’s Chamber. When we entered the room, I heard a thrumming noise. I had not really heard the noise while in the passage, so it surprised me. I am not sure what caused it—could’ve been generators supporting the ventilation system, or it could’ve been something with a more interesting mystical explanation—but it was weird. Other than that noise, I was a little disappointed. Actually, I wasn’t sure we were really in the king’s chamber. I guess I expected colorful paintings or etchings in the walls, but it was basically a rectangular room with tall ceilings. Inside was a granite (?) rectangular sarcophagus. There was no decoration anywhere in the room. Of course the room must have originally contained treasure and artifacts, and those are long-gone; still, I expected some sort of ornamentation.
We stood inside the chamber for five minutes or so. We had the room to ourselves. I reached down and touched the inside of the sarcophagus. Then we left and started back down the long climb to the bottom. We passed a huge 50-person tour group on their way up, but when we reached the bottom we were by ourselves once again. In that entrance passage, there is a closed gate with a stairway leading down. The gate was only secured by a piece of thick wire looped through the keyhole, so Jason Bourne got right to it, undid the wire, and sneaked down to see what was down there. I stood in the passage, hoping Luke would not remember this incident and learn to be a rule-breaker like his father. While Jason was exploring down below, the entire tour group returned from their visit to the King’s Chamber. They were coming down the ramp, which faced the stairs Jason had gone down, making it impossible for him to return undetected. Luke was saying, “Daddy’s downstairs! Where’s Daddy? He’s downstairs!” On top of that, one of the men working the entrance to the pyramid came and stood in the passage with his hand held out, asking each person for a tip on his way out of the pyramid. I was really irritated—both at Jason and the guy asking for tips. What did he need a tip for? It wasn’t like he went up those stairs with us or gave us any valuable historical information. He just stood at the entryway with his buddies while we went in by ourselves! (This is one of the things that bugs me about Egyptian society. People want tips for everything.) Anyway, the tour group seemed to have reproduced while they were up in the king’s chamber—they kept coming and coming and coming. Finally the Egyptian guy went back outside, and I decided that if Jason was going to come out, he needed to go ahead and do it, even with the tour group still streaming down the ramp. So I said, “Come on now, if you’re coming!” about three times before he finally came up the stairs. I am sure the people in the tour group were shaking their heads at this crazy, disobedient American… It would’ve been funny if he’d pointed down the stairway and just said, “toilet.”
We left the Pyramid in a great mood. Jason could not get over himself! He’d A) bribed his way into the pyramid, B) checked another of his life’s goals off his list, and C) played-like he was a secret agent and explored a restricted area of the pyramid (which turned out to be a light/ventilation shaft of some sort).We left the pyramid area of the plateau and walked toward the Sphinx. It was unbelievably hot. (Duh…the desert…I have to keep reminding myself.) None of us had on sunscreen, or hats, and our water ran out pretty quickly. We decided to get down to the Sphinx, take a few pictures, and then go home. We know we’ll be back when people come to visit, so we didn’t mind skipping some of the extra stuff. On our way down to the Sphinx, though, we made a pit-stop in a small building that looked sort of like a temple to me, but I think it is actually a princess’s tomb. It was
pretty cool (literally and figuratively) because I got to climb down a little shaft to the burial chamber, which contained another sarcophagus. The lid was still on top of this one, but it had been propped up by some big rocks so that you could look inside. Know what was inside? Dirty Kleenexes. Nice, people. Anyway, I was pretty sure that Buffy the Vampire Slayer had been in that same tomb at some point. 
When I climbed out of that part of the tomb, the security guard led us around a corner to another part of the building, where there were some figures carved in the stone walls. I was excited about that. The guard took our picture in front of the carvings. 
After that, we walked down a big hill to see the Sphinx, took more pictures, and then walked back up the same hill to meet Moussa, who was patiently waiting in the car, reading the newspaper. We were all exhausted, hot, and hungry. We had Moussa drop us off at the Grand Café on the Nile, where we had lunch and relaxed before going home for a big nap!A few random observations:
-The landscape around the pyramids was exactly what you’d expect it to be—desert, desert, desert—except this desert “park” area is right in the middle of Cairo. The city has grown outward to engulf the pyramids. Still, you get a good view of lots of sand dunes, and I took this picture of a camel caravan from the plateau the pyramids are on.
-It’s kind of neat how the pyramids look smooth from far away, but up-close the edges are not smooth. The boulders that they’re made from are tall (4-5 ft) and rectangular. One of the pyramids once had a covering to smooth out the edges, but it has eroded over time. I think you can see the remains of it in some of the pictures.
-It’s hot in Egypt.
And one last note: Jason has also blogged about our pyramid visit. To read his blog, go to www.myspace.com/cairojason .
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