Letters from Egypt - The Pyramids

Egypt, Jordan, Israel

Egypt - The Pyramids of Cairo

 Egypt Photo Album

Well - I actually did make it to Cairo, fast & furious - never sleeping Cairo!  The traffic is full tilt 24 hours a day but absolutely bumper to bumper during peak hours. I was still struggling with my fears of crossing the streets and would typically shamelessly shadow any man, woman, or child who was crossing the street. And, if solo, I sometimes would even take the long way just to avoid having to cross a street.

My hotel was just around the block from the national archeology museum so that was my first stop and I did not have to risk getting killed to get there. The museum is of course what you would imagine in terms of the age & volume of important ancient Egyptian art & treasures.  It was so much better than the reviews I had read that complained about poor organization and labeling. The building is huge and is well organized: the ground floor by era & the top floor by ruler. The King Tutankhamun display is really impressive and yes - I really did get to see his gold & jeweled burial mask. Except for King Tut's mummy, which is still sleeping in his tomb in the Valley of the Kings near Luxor, there are so many artifacts from Tut's tomb  that you really get a feel for the life of the privileged in ancient Egypt in the early-mid 1300s BC.  I was glad that I had seen so many of the important tombs & palaces in Luxor before coming to the museum as I actually had some basic knowledge of the era's & rulers of the new kingdom.

I ended up meeting a professional, bona fide guide as I was trying to cross some complicated streets while walking about Cairo. An older gentleman offered to help me… now I know that is usually the way the touts find vulnerable tourists but this fellow, Rashida, was really genuine.  He ended up telling me about his business but asked that I look at this web site and reviews before making any judgments. His personally guided tours of the pyramids were a much better deal than what was being offered at the hotel. Best of all - he would take me to see not just the Giza pyramid complex, the big 3 (Cheops, Khafre, & Menakaure) & the Sphinx that we are so used to seeing in travel photographs, but he would take me outside the city to see the  earliest pyramids of the old and middle kingdoms. Once he picked me up he gave me a pad and pen so that I could take notes - like a historian, he pumped me full of dates, names, and places of the ancient Egyptians throughout the day. 

Did you know there is a Bent Pyramid of Dashur?  This design signified an important transition in the evolution of the now classic triangle shape we are most familiar with. The ancients were learning from design & structural flaws as early as 2,600 BC.

One of the sad realities of the world is the sporadic terrorist attacks that take place. After leaving Cairo I found out that one of the Coptic Christian churches in old Cairo that I had spent some pleasant quite time in -just to chill out - was bombed a few days after my visit. It is was fairly empty when I visited but in order to make a spectacle the terrorists chose a time when parishioners had filled the church.

I left Cairo on a night bus headed to the Sinai - one that would take me all along the coast of the Red Sea's Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Aqaba & up to the small charming beach town of Dahab. The sea is beautiful there and the town takes advantage of good diving and great fishing by offering lots of quaint inns & beach side restaurants.  But I had my sights on reaching Jordan so after a short stay, I continued on up the coast by bus to a port and then by ferry on to Jordan. I teamed up with a couple of 20-something Japanese to share a taxi to Petra and so enter the highlands and cold temperatures that I had not experienced for a long, long time.