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The Pyramids July 28, 2008

Giza-”You’re a good rider,” my guide, Ali, said before whipping my horse, causing it to gallop off again through the sand.

It was a nice compliment, and Ali backed it up with an almost complete disconcern for how fast or where my horse went, letting me charge through the desert and up the mounds of sand and around. Not that there was a possibility of getting lost. There wasn’t much around. Just some sand, some tombs, the Sphinx, and a few massive pyramids.

The pyramids. The ones we all think of when we think of pyramids.

Ali was a pro. He knew all the best spots to take photos from and stopped and let me snap a few and then took my camera and did a photo of me in front of each pyramid.

The pyramids were enclosed inside a fenced off area that tourists can be driven around in a buses or ride a horse or camel through.

They were massive. Blocks piled atop one another, going up and up and up. Some pyramids took thirty years to make. Ingenious work done by humans, and, yes, humans. Visiting the pyramids you see that each block was not so perfectly placed that they were sent down by aliens from space.

Most of the other tourists were from Saudi Arabia or the Gulf countries. A lot of tourist police stood near the pyramids and off in the distance in the sand hills with guns and radios. Any kind of attack on tourists significantly drops the Egyptian economy and the government has instructed the police to keep the tourists safe.

The tour lasted two hours. A wander around the pyramids is one of those must dos in life. Having that wander on a horse or camel is even better. Egypt has some great modes of transportation. Saturday night or rather very early Sunday morning, I was in a flaluka, a small sailboat that cruised around the Nile playing what claimed to be “Cairo’s number one hit radio station.” Cairo’s skyscrapers, framed around us, were impressive as the flaluka cruised. Crazed taxis, a flaluka, a horse. In Egypt, I’m on the move.

  

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