Cairo, Egypt

Thurday, May 19, 2005:

So: The Pyramids. The Great Pyramids of Giza. They're big... Really big. And old... Really old. And while most of you probably already know this --- unless you're spectacularly stupid, of course (hey Jimmy!) --- what you might not be aware of is that if you don't like your wife, you can probably swap her at the Pyramids for some livestock, pack animals or maybe some much needed bottles of icy-cold beverage with which to refresh yourself after the arduous walk in the blistering heat.

Yeah, I'll explain all that before I go about quadrupling Egypt's tourism industry.

Mohamed --- our intrepid and enterprising taxi driver --- picked KC and I up in front of the Berlin Hotel at 1 PM as agreed upon. He kept a healthy distance from the entrance of the building and eyed it suspiciously, almost fearfully. Although the manager on duty in the hotel that morning had immediately asked me upon first seeing me if I had cancelled our plans to meet up with Mohamed (I lied and said "yes"), and then told me that Mohamed had been spotted lurking agrily outside the hotel last night for Hashim, the owner, to arrive, I really suspected that Mohamed was innocent and that what had more likely transpired was that Hashim had threatened Mohamed with imminent castration, slow crucification or, at the very least, a mild beheading. I didn't feel at all bad about lying to the manager because I was sure that he was lying to me. And we all know that its OK to lie if you think the other guy is lying. You can even get paid handsomely for this in certain professions, should you be the sort who believes in "employment" and "working."

Mohamed drove us through the teeming chaotic streets of downtown Cairo, which were even more staggering to behold in the daylight. People were everywhere, particularly in the middle of the street. Drivers in Cairo tend to occupy one and a half lanes, because they want to be well-positioned to change lanes to avoid the crazy guy ahead of them who is hogging one and a half lanes (the bastard!). That said, there is none of the clear intent to mow down and kill any pedestrian or motorist who crosses your path, such as there is in places like Lima, Peru. This is inspiring when you are walking around, but frustrating when you are in a cab and trying to get to the Great Pyramids in a hurry.

I generously resisted the urge to egg Mohamed into a homicidal driving-spree and instead let him point out the towering spires of mosques, crumbling walls of castles, posh Heliopolis apartment complexes and assorted antique domes and strange monuments that surrounded us at all times and on all sides (not to be forgotten: an impoverished suburb constructed primarily of garbage). The billboards told the story of modern Cairo: a global megalopolis and cultural center of the Muslim world where Sony sells stereo systems, Peugot sells luxury cars, Arabic pop-stars sell out concert halls and soap operas entertain their clamoring masses of fans. Our car zoomed by cell phone stores, wagons selling watermelons, donkey carts, parades of women in black burkas, and branches of American banks, such as Citibank. Along one stretch of road not far from our hotel, we saw numerous ticketing offices for international airlines you don't necessarily see all too often (in the US, at least): Libya Air, Iraqi Airlines, Malev (Hungary), Omani Air, JAT (Yugoslav Air), Saudi Arabian Air, etc... And then there were the smells: a cornucopia of savory aromas not to be elaborated upon. (And the heat. My God, the heat.)

The Pyramids are arguably at their most impressive when first seen from afar, suddenly coming into view as you zoom down the highway and spot their distant ghostly silhouettes rising up through the gaps between towering Soviet-style aparment complexes (rotting hulks, for the most part) and office buildings (rotting hulks, for the most part). Rising up and dwarfing them, that is. When viewed up close, the pyramids are certainly impressive, but seeing them from the outskirts of the Giza plateau and contrasting their size against the size of the structures around you gives you a better sense of their real enormity. The oldest and sole survivor of the "Seven Wonders of the World," the Pyramids are over 4,500 years old. At 146 meters when built (though it lost a few meters in height over the millenia), the Great Pyramid of Khufu, the largest of the trio, was the largest man-made construct in the world until the Eiffel tower was erected in 1889, giving rise to a new era of phallic super-structures, thankfully not all of which would be French. (By the way, to those who ask the question "what were the Seven Wonders of the World?" I will list them here for you in chronological order: (1) The Great Pyramids of Giza; (2) The Hanging Gardens of Babylon; (3) The Statue of Zeus at Olympia; (4) The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus; (5) The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus; (6) The Colossus of Rhodes; (7) The Lighthouse at Alexandria. See http://ce.eng.usf.edu/pharos/wonders/list.html. To those who question why the Great Wall of China, Stonehenge, Machu Picchu, statues on Easter Island, etc... are not part of the list, the reason is that the list is completely arbitrary and was compiled by Herotodus in the 5th century B.C. There are many lists circulating now and again in magazines about the "Seven Natural Wonders of the World" or "Seven Secret Wonder of the World," but these are just as arbitrary and usually assembled by uncreative travel writers looking for catchy ways of spinning locations.)

Hashim had warned KC and I that Mohamed would lead us to some sort of shlock shop or tourist operation to relieve us of our time, cash and patience.
He did have a point. As we neared the main gate to the pyramids, Mohamed suggested that we would be better off touring the area on camel-back. He did more than suggest, in fact --- he told us that he had made arrangements with a place to take us around on camel-back because this is what most tourists do and also because it is "too hot to walk" from pyramid to pyramid in the full noon sun.

KC and I traded concerned looks. "Urgh?" I mumbled, falling back on one of the most reliable in my arsenal of unintelligable grunts. "Whuh?" she murmured. Amidst the mumbling and murmuring, Mohamed drove on. We had exited the highway and were very close to the pyramids now, weaving our way through narrow streets lined with the papyrus and souvenir shops my nightmares (and Hashim's, to the extent he does not own any) are made of.

"What do you think?" asked KC.

"I don't want to ride a camel," I said decisively.

"Are you sure?" she asked. "I could go either way on this. It might be fun."

"I don't like this and I don't want to do it," I said. Mohamed seemed to be slowing the car down, searching for a turn he needed to take us the final few bends to his planned drop-off point.

"You like it," said Mohamed. "Too hot for walking. Much sun."

"Rrrrrm," I said. I was in a bad mood and deteriorating. I hadn't expected KC to even consider the camel ride as a good idea, particularly since she told me she hated camels not 24 hours earlier.

"Well?" said KC, putting the decision squarely on me. This was just as we reached a street teeming with camels and camel-riding tour-touts. We pulled up in front of a camel and tour-tout stable, in fact. A number of men descended upon the taxi all at once, waving their arms and shouting such sly and creative lines as "Hello my friend!" and "Camel! Camel! Yes! Yes!" at us. The general consensus seemed to be that whoever yelled the loudest would get our business.

"I don't how know much it is," I began.

"Good price, good price!" yelled Mohamed and about 17 new friends of ours.

"And," I said, in a much lower voice, "I don't like being pressured into this and not getting to see things at out own pace."

"OK now?" asked Mohamed, having just partaken of much high-fiving with several camel men who he clearly knew, "is good?"

And then KC impressed the hell out of me by strongly and fearlessly telling Mohamed --- in the same slow and loud tone for which I had nearly strangled her on several occasions before --- that we were not going to go on camel-back.

"NO.
MO-HAM-MED.
WE.
DO.
NOT.
WANT.
TO.
GO.
ON.
A.
CAM.
MEL."

"But---"

"NO!
WE.
GET.
TO.
DE.
CIDE!
PLEASE.
TAKE.
US.
TO.
THE.
MAIN.
GATE.
WE.
LIKE.
WALK.
ING."

That was the perfect tone of voice for that situation and one I never would have thought to use. And it worked, almost instantaneously. I almost felt a little bad for Mohamed, who seemed to get yelled at by everybody, but not for no reason whatsoever, of course. He quickly explained things to the camel men, who continued to wave and shout and promise "SPECIAL PRICE FOR YOU!" as we sped off down the road toward the main gate. Mohamed muttered a small apology, explaining that he naturally thought that we would want a camel, since all tourists do. I think he was partially genuine. And if most of your tourist passengers want a camel, why not get yourself the commission by taking them to guys who will give you a cut?

A long dusty road took us up to a gate and ratty ticket box just a few dozen meters away from the base of the aforementioned Pyramid of Khufu (Cheops). We payed our 40 Egyptian Pounds each (at about 5.8 EPs to the dollar) and walked through a metal detector and out onto the yellow-white stretch of sun-scorched sand fronting the pyramid. I looked straight ahead at it, then up, then up some more. What a piece of crap.

Of course I'm kidding. But how can I describe it? You've seen the pictures. Its a pyramid. A really big pyramid (and did I mention old?). The massive component blocks are much more evident when viewed up close, but its otherwise what I expected, plus a lot of Japanese people with cameras and young men wandering about aimlessly yelling "camel ride??!!" at everybody they can find. Fortunately, the pyramids were not very crowded at all that day. We climbed up a series of stairs that had been installed at the foot of the structure to take us up to where the entrance was. There we discovered that we would have to go back down to a separate ticketing booth (different from the first), and pay another additional fee of 100 EP(!) just to be able to go inside (the entry to the other pyramids also requires that a separate additional ticket be purchased). We did that and made our way back up. The guards quickly disabused us of the notion that we could enter with our cameras and made us leave them with some men who were lounging around for apparently just that purpose. It was a little disconcerting, but I didn't have a choice.

Crouching and ducking as we went, we moved through a narrow, low corridor and took several bends as the ceiling grew lower. Dim lights hung along the wall lit our way. Then we reached a wooden ramp that led up a 90 degree slope. The ceiling required us to squat as we walked and the hallway ran on and upwards seemingly forever. We were climbing up the pyramid. A fire burned in each leg (which would be sore for the next two days) and although you would expect the interior to be cool and refreshing it was anything but and the exertion quickly had me drenched in sweat. At about this time KC mentioned she was partially claustrophobic.

At the top we entered a large, dark rectangular room that had been the final resting place of Khufu, who is thought to have ruled from 2589 to 2566 BC. It was dim and eerily silent. We were the only ones there and our footsteps and voices echoed loudly throughout the chamber, which was empty but for the stone remnants of what was once part of the outer housing for the pharaoh's coffin. Once upon a time, this room would have been stuffed full of riches and statues of animals, servants and ships to serve the king in the afterlife. All of these artifacts were looted many centuries ago. In fact, the only surviving likeness of Khufu that has been found is a royal sculpture measuring 7.5 centimeters in height. It is on display at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

The shuffle back down the ramp was almost as uncomfortable as the ascent and we had to stop several times to squeeze by a few Italian tourists making the climb up. Fortunately, the cameras were waiting safely with the guards at the bottom and bakhsheesh (a tip) was paid, as is always the case here.

We wandered down a dusty road toward the second-largest pyramid --- that of Khafre (in photos this pyramid appears to be the tallest, but this is only because it is sitting on slightly higher ground than that of Khufu). Along the way, we saw a tomb (that of "Iasen"), which is a part of the ancient private cemetaries that lie near the pyramids. As we approached, a very eager guard walked up to us. Perhaps in his mid-40s and smiling almost insanely, he proceeded to greet me by informing me, with a nod towards KC, that:

"You are a very lucky man!"

"Hmmm, yes, uh huh," I said.

"Very lucky!" he said, beaming and leering in KC's direction. "Tomb, tomb. Come, come. This way, please!" And he quickly ushered us into the tomb at a half-jog. "This picture of pharaoh... this picture of Horus... this picture of..." he went on, rapidly pointing here and there at carvings and hieroglyphics lining the walls. He moved so quickly we could barely take anything in.

"You are a very lucky man," KC told me.

"So I've been told," I said.

"She look beautiful," said the guard. He clutched her cheeks with one hand and pointed with the other. "Like Sophia Lauren! Look! Like Sophia Lauren!"

Right. And I look like Nicole Kidman.

"Very lovely wife," the guard went on. "How much you want? I give you 100,000 camels, hah hah."

Hah hah. But what a great deal! In fact, I would settle for 10 camels. Or one camel. Or a Camel light, actually.

"Please... Take my wife," I didn't say, though I realized immediately and with a pang of regret that by passing up on this ripe opportunity, I was missing out on a chance that life might never afford me ever again. Though I can dream, of course.

I gave the guy the bakhsheesh he so clearly was angling for and we got out of there before things became any sleezier. No deals were closed, sadly enough.

We circled the pyramid of Khafre. I was desperate for water, so we stopped where an old man was selling bottles out of an ice-filled basket for 5 pounds each --- very overpriced in Egypt but relatively cheap ($.80) for the U.S. He must have been nearing 80, but seemed to be leering at KC like most of the rest of the Egyptian men. Chalk up to a steady diet of porn and "Girls Gone Wild" videos to cultivate impressions of western women.

As we walked, we drew the attention of numerous men riding camels around. We were pretty much the only tourists in sight --- there were scarcely a handful of others to be seen and they were far away, down by the Sphynx.

"Hey my friend! My friend! Hey!" So it began. In all of my 8 months of travel, I have come to dread hearing the phrase "Hey my friend!" more than any other, bar none. A man approached us on camel-back and a boy followed him on another camel, a few meters behind, leading several camels behind him. "Camel ride? For you good price!"

"No thank you," I said.

"You know how much?" he asked, following us as we walked away.

"Not interested, thanks very much," I said. I smiled at him. I was learning that its far easier to say no with a smile than to do it while scowling. The scowling only seems to give the scowlee the motivation to continue even more aggressively with their sales pitch. This guy didn't need any extra motivation at all, however, as he kept on trotting along after us.

"Only 20 Egyptian Pounds!"

"No thanks."

"Ok, ok, ok. For you, 10 Egyptian Pounds."

"Thank you, no."

"8 Pounds."

"Sorry."

"5 Pounds! That is all! Just 5 pounds!"

"We prefer to walk, thanks."

"5 pounds, no!!???" he shouted in an offended tone. "Forget it! This is fucking business I have to run here!" He trotted off, clearly upset by the way I had led him on.

From there on out, every time a camel-rider approached (clip, clop, clip, "hey my friend!") I pretended to be Argentinian and KC pretended to be my deaf-mute Argentinian wife.

"Ehh? No hablo much Ingles! How you say 'no thank you very much'? Ehh? Ehh? Urgh? Donde puedo encontrar la embajada de Paraguay y un plato de vacas y pantalones fritos?"

This worked like a charm and kept me more amused than it probably should have, my brain half-melted from the heat.

Fortunately, you can still take some good photos of the Sphynx without including the Pizza Hut and KFC building that are sitting not far away from it, just outside the second set of gates to the pyramid grounds. The Sphynx might have been the most impressive sight out of the lot. The facial features are still quite clear, though much of the clarity might be due to restoration efforts. In any event, the monument's days appear to be limited, as the face is reportedly being eaten away from the inside-out through a corroding process that experts have thus far been unable to halt. I blame it all on the proximity to the Pizza Hut and the Colonel's spicy chicken.

We left through the gate by the Sphynx and had overpriced drinks at a cafe that looked out over the sights. We then went to meet Mohamed by the designated pick-up spot and were followed along the way by numerous drivers who insisted that we would be left stranded there in the heat if we did not at once get into a car with them.

"Your driver, he never come," said one man.

"So why is he right over there?" I asked, pointing to Mohamed.

Mohamed took us back to the hotel without the slightest attempt to deposit us at a papyrus shop. We paid him generously and went back up the long winding stairs to the Berlin Hotel. The manager wasn't there, thankfully, nor was there any sign of the mysterious Hashim. This was good because, honestly, I was scared they might hurt me severely if they learned of my deceit.

Eventually we walked down to the shore of the Nile and hired a small, quiet man (Aswani, from the far south of Egypt) to take us out for an hour on a felucca. After introductions and the first 5 minutes, barely a word was spoken for length of the trip. We sailed south for 30 minutes, then tacked back up again, cutting diagonally back and forth across the two shores. Cairo seemed quiet and peaceful from the boat, the sounds too distant or drowned out by the wind and water. Mosque spires and luxury hotels rose up on either side of the river. Other feluccas passed gracefully by.

We had dinner at an overpriced but not bad Lebanese restaurant. On the way back to the hotel at about 10 PM, several Egyptian men again told me what a "lucky man," I was. I didn't get any decent offers, however, and remained without a camel to my name.