M-whY

The pension provided a driver and transportation for my two days Cairo. Because I had signed up for a Nile cruise through them, the services were free. Joining me were two fellow Americans. Aaron and Chanda were taking advantage of their winter breaks by spending part of it in Egypt, and considering I'd be spending the next week and half in their company, I was glad they turned out to be cool people.

Our driver Sayed was a laid-back, mellow guy who had a habit of slapping my knee and saying "Welcome" whenever we were in his taxi. Our first stop of the day was a travel agency to purchase ISIC student cards. Many of Egypt's attractions were half price to anyone who possessed one, and though I wasn't a student, I had been told to pretend I was. If I'm going to fib, I might as well go all out, I figured, and told had them print "Princeton" as my university. It cost me E£70.5, though it'd end up paying for itself within two days.

"We go to Giza now to see the Great Pyramids," announced Sayed afterwards, and left behind the congestion of downtown Cairo for (relatively) less trafficked roads where donkeys still trotted down the street. Having had expressed interested in hiring mounts, Sayed parked his black and white Fiat in front of some stables. "Horse or camel?" we were offered. For myself, the choice was obvious. I can go horseback riding anywhere in the world. Camel ranches are far less common.

"Whoa..." I exclaimed as the beast stood up to its full height. I had no idea how tall these things were. And how strange these creatures looked. They looked like they were always smiling, as they found us as amusing as I found them. My camel's hump must've been a bit lopsided, because I kept thinking I was going to slip off the left side. Nor were they as comfortable as I had imagined. We hadn't even crossed into the desert, and my butt was already sore.

Postcard pictures must be doctored, because I can't see how haze from pollution ever lifts from over Cairo. That said, it's still an amazing sight, their construction being a feat that continues to spur theories of unearthly intervention. So precise, so massive, and so old... We look at Roman ruins from two thousand years ago and call them monuments of an ancient civilization. The pyramids were built more than two thousand years before that, and so they would've already been ancient to tourists back then.

"We will wait here while you go inside the pyramid," said our two guides. "Walk like an Egyptian," they called out after us, recycling a joke probably used on hundreds of tourists each day. Touts and hassle swarmed the area, offering themselves and their camels as photography subjects - all for a price of course. I nearly had a mental lapse and fell for one of them, but caught myself at the last moment. Aaron, Chanda, and I walked around the base of the Pyramid of Khafre (the second largest), to where a passageway led into its depths.

The E£10 fee was included in our camel hire, and since cameras were strictly prohibited inside, we took turns ducking through the stuffy claustrophobic tunnels which led to nothing but two empty rooms. A bit of a letdown, though it's still something I had to do.

Back on camels, we rode around the excavated tombs of laborers to view the Sphinx. Except we didn't get very close. "Can't we go a bit closer, to where those other people are?" Aaron asked. Our guides furrowed their brow, like it was forbidden or something. "Okay," they finally relented. "But hurry." The whole thing felt a bit shady; The viewing plateau promised us was more of a sand dune, the camel ride was a little shorter than promised (though two hours is plenty for the untrained butt), the cheap headwear they put on our heads cost an unexpected extra E£10.

"You never know who you can trust around here," I'd remark to Chandra and Aaron later.

Sayed was one of the good guys though. "Welcome," he drawled again, tapping my knee while that easy-going smile spread across his face. Continuing south, we arrived at Saqqara. Chronologically, the funerary monuments here date even earlier than those at Giza. "Anyone offer you anything, anyone talk to you, just say 'No, no, no,'" warned Sayed. The entrance led through colonade columns into a vast desert of tombs, many yet to have been excavated.

"So, which one is the Pyramid of Unas," wondered Chanda as we tried identifying one pile of stone from another.

"Well, that's the Steppe Pyramid of Zoser. And west is... that way?"

"Which pyramids are those then?" Even with a site map, we couldn't come up with anything conclusive.

Ignoring "Excuse me? Hello? Excuse me?"'s from touts that have also infested this area, we wandered around the complex. A replica of Zoser's statue was placed at his pyramid's north face, the original housed in Cairo's Egyptian Museum. Sayed then took us by car to see the Tomb of Ti and the Tomb of Mereruka, both of which were open to the public and decorated with Egyptian reliefs and hieroglyphics. Vulture, owl, vulture, squiggly line, candy cane, snake, they read.

"Good? You like it?" asked Sayed.

"Yeah, it was very good!"

The name 'Memphis' is probably Greek in origin, but the ancient city it refers to is where the pharaos once ruled from. Accounts from Arab travellers indicate that it still existed during the Muddle Ages, though not much of the mud brick metropolis remains today. In fact, the only thing of interest here was its museum, a colossal statue of Ramses II being the highlight of an otherwise mundane collection. We found Sayed puffing contently on a sheesha (water pipe) afterwards.

Traffic extended what was already a grueling day. A number of cheap fast food places were within walking distance of the pension, and from them, I had a shwarma (the Egyptian equivalent of the Turkish doner kebap) and an order of fries. Who cares if my eating habits don't exactly follow the recommendations of the food pyramid. As long as it fills my stomach...

Thanks to everyone for their support and comments! Knowing people are reading keeps me motivated to continue the updates!