We were staying on the seventh floor of a hotel operated by their friend Mary, a Chinese Christian woman who has lived in Cairo for years. The hotel is in Maadi, one of the two districts in Cairo in which most foreigners live (the other is Heliopolis). At either end of the hallway from the elevator there were doors which led to apartments or “flats” as I believe they’re called. Inside ours there was a kitchen, dining area, and sitting room with a big red rug on the floor with large pillows on top of it. I sat on one of those the night before to send a brief email home to tell my family I had arrived.
In the opposite direction there were three rooms and a bathroom. Lizzy and I shared one, her mom and dad had another, and a very quiet Korean girl was allegedly rooming in the third, but I never saw her. In our room there were two single beds, a night stand, an armoire of sorts, a small table at the end of my bed (from which I had scooped up my clothes), and a shuttered window which I opened (of course) so I could look out at the other cement apartment buildings and the small junk-filled spaces between them far below. When I took a picture out the window the flash caught the dust in the air, so I took one without flash.
The shower was much better than it could have been; I actually got hot water, courtesy of the gas water heater on the wall at the other end of the bathroom, which I could hear turn on every time I used the hot water faucet. I finished some final repacking and pulled my tennis shoes out of my backpacking backpack. I figured they would be a better idea than the dress shoes I had traveled in. (And yes, Mom, I put my hair up in a bun in preparation for the day of touring. So far I’ve had no trouble with it attracting a lot of attention, but at times it’s a good idea to hide it.)
Breakfast was Kellogg’s corn flakes which are sweetened with honey and some nuts, which makes them much better than the American version. I also had some “Yellow Label Tea” which is the standard here. (There’s really no telling how many labels I’ll have from it by the time I leave here if I continue to collect them.) It’s black, but we added some vanilla milk, so it was sweeter than I expected. A pigeon roosted on the railing outside the window long enough for me to snap a picture of him and the buildings in the background. I think I’d really like it if he were in better focus.Shortly before 8 am we loaded our luggage into the elevator, which is big enough for no more than three people, and brought it down to the entrance. The owner and driver of the touring van which was there to meet us loaded it into the back of the ten-passenger vehicle. Since there were only four of us, we had plenty of space, even with the luggage.
The boab, the name for the doorkeeper who lives in a small apartment at the entrance of just about every building, may have helped, but I don’t remember him doing so. Boabs are responsible for keeping an eye on the building’s maintenance, cleaning, and security. As you walk down the street it’s not uncommon to see vehicles (parked on the sidewalk of course, so that there’s room for people to walk in the street) with their windshield wipers extended up into the air as a signal from the boabs that they have done their job by washing their building’s inhabitant’s cars.
The driver managed to make his way down the street which was narrowed by the vehicles parked on both sides with at least a few inches to spare. Driving in Cairo is a little different from driving in Brandon, to say the least. In the first place, Cairo has a population of nearly 20 million. (It’s actually the largest city in Africa. Lagos Nigeria is second place with about 11 million, and Alexandria is in third place with around 5 million. Or at least, so I’ve been told.)
I took my driver’s test on a lazy Tuesday afternoon in September in Ripon, Wisconsin which has a population of about 7,000. Now don’t get me wrong: I like to consider myself a good driver and even enjoy driving through Chicago. But not all drivers’ licenses are created equal. I used note this by comparing my experience to that of people who earned theirs in cities like New York, but now I think I shall have to reference Cairo instead. In New York there are stop lights and people at least recognize the existence of lanes and turn signals. I have yet to see a stop light in Egypt.
Instead, the busiest intersections have police officers who direct traffic by stepping out into the road when they think that one direction of traffic has gone long enough. Usually a few more vehicles will push their way through, but the flow of traffic in that direction is soon stopped since those who have been waiting their turn on the cross street are more than eager to move on through.
Lanes are entirely optional. Mr. Rohland told me that once he asked his driver if he knew what the lines on the road were for. “Sure,” the driver said, “They’re to line my hood ornament up with, so I make sure I’m going straight.” But most drivers don’t even bother with hood ornament alignment. So a road which was designed for four lanes of traffic will have about five or six, with vehicles passing every which way throughout. Most of the main roads have a median of sorts, so that the traffic on each side goes only one way. But the smaller streets are usually only wide enough for one vehicle to pass through, even though they’ll have cars parked on both sides of the street (facing both directions). But as long as you make it through with an inch or two to spare on either side, you’re good. It’s not uncommon to see pedestrians weaving between vehicles, since it’s next to impossible to make it all the way across three or more “lane” roads in one motion. So needless to say, it’s not quite the same as the driver’s ed. movies which my mom remembers in which every time a child showed up on the sidewalk you had to stop your vehicle because it was certain that he would run out into the middle of the road chasing his stray ball.
Since turn signals wouldn’t do much good in this crowd, the best way to avoid vehicles and pedestrians is with one’s horn. So it’s one short tap every time you come up behind a vehicle you want to pass (to make sure it doesn’t decide to change lanes at the same time you do), a tap when a car is backing up and you want to make sure it knows you’re there, a tap to warn pedestrians that they’re getting a little too close, and a long, loud blare if the vehicle in front of you isn’t moving fast enough. Somehow they think the horn will encourage them. If I didn’t know better I’d think they were upset, but I have yet to see any road rage.
The pyramids at Giza are just outside Cairo, on the southwest side of the city. Many people lined the road as we drove out to them. Apparently most of them were waiting for taxis or vans, although I’m not sure how they got there. The entrance road was slightly uphill, and led to a nice parking lot in which we climbed out of the van. I stowed my hand-size spiral notebook (from El Museo Nacional del Prado, which Profesora Feurch gave me in 2006) and mechanical pencil in my pocket and my camera in my hand so that I could leave my backpack in the van. The only reason I regret doing so is because I forgot my sunglasses, but otherwise it was nice to be without it.
We stepped into the bathroom (known as a W.C. courtesy of the British influence) and handed some change to the woman who was barking at those who tried to get in without paying her. (That is, if Arabic can sound like barking. I’m not sure that it can. It’s generally much smoother sounding than that.) It’s culturally not acceptable for her to require payment, since it’s supposed to be more of a courtesy. But I’m not sure what those who didn’t pay intended to do, since she only dispensed toilet paper to those who paid her.
The weather was warm enough for 9 am that some of the foreign tourists were wearing short sleeves and/or shorts. I can’t imagine coming in the summer; it would be intolerably hot. There were lots of people there, but it didn’t get very busy until we went down by the Sphinx later in the day. Many (if not most) of the people came in coach tour busses, so that by the time Lizzy’s dad Ray bought our tickets the one hundred tickets to get inside the largest pyramid (Khufu), were all sold out. My ISIC (International Student Identity Card) reduced the price from 30 LE to 15 LE for the entrance into the Khufu pyramid, a slightly smaller one. I should probably keep track of how long it takes that card to earn back the $22 that it cost me. The entrance to the pyramid area cost 30 LE (Egyptian pounds, each worth about $0.20 right now) and the Cheops Solar Boat museum entrance was 25 LE.
Somehow there was a miscommunication with our driver, so instead of taking the tour through the pyramids area in the vehicle, we walked around to everything for four hours. That was ok with me, but not with everyone else. It was a different sort of touring experience for me, since we didn’t have a tour guide and I didn’t do my “homework” to study up on the pyramids before I left. There were no signs, not even to name the pyramids. Reportedly that’s because they want everyone to hire a guide.
But we didn’t, because the Rohlands have been there many times over the past twenty-one years; for about five years Ray ran the tours for those who came to visit them. So the pyramids are nothing new to them. It’s kind of the same scenario that I saw with the Greeks in Thessaloniki who only noticed the ruins of the Roman aqueduct that was on the sidewalk right next to the road when it served them as a shelter from the rain. Otherwise they walked right past it.
So I really wasn’t sure what I was seeing. I knew it was significant, but I didn’t have someone to tell me how it was significant or what was significant about it beyond the general knowledge that I already knew. If I could do it over I’d change that, but it probably won’t have a long-term impact on my experience. In all honesty, I don’t remember most of what our tour guide said last year when I was in Greece. I guess that’s why notes and the internet are as important to me as they are.
We walked up to the first pyramid, Khufu, which is also the world’s largest. I’ve learned since that it was built in 2550 BC and is 481 feet tall. I climbed up some uneven steps carved along the side, making my way past Egyptians, Americans, Japanese, British, and more Italians and Indians (speaking British English) than I expected to see. All were posing for pictures. I did so when I got a little further up, and then walked to the entrance and handed the security guard my entrance ticket. He waved me away, explaining that my ticket was for the second pyramid. So I climbed down and we headed back in that direction, stopping along the way to take more pictures.
I was surprised by how uneven the sides of the pyramids were. I expected them to be smooth because that’s the way they appear in most of the pictures. They do look like that from a distance, but up close they look like you could almost climb them. Don’t worry, I didn’t try it. There were far too many security guards around for that. Later in the day I saw some guys who had climbed up about 15 feet on Khafre, but within a little while a guard discovered them, yelling all the while it took him to get there. Reportedly they haven’t always been as closely guarded, though. Lizzy told me that she knew of a few guys who snuck in at night several years ago, climbed up to the top of one of them, spent the night in their sleeping bags, took lots of photos, and came down the next morning to greet some very surprised security guards. I wonder how you’d explain that one. . .
The second pyramid was Khafre, which is 471 feet tall and was built in 2520 BC. As we walked up to its entrance, which was at ground level, we received many offers to purchase post cards and miniature glass and plaster pyramids. One of the kids offered them to us in Spanish, with the price in Euros. The answer was always “La Shukran” (No thank you). They left us alone much more quickly when the Rohlands responded in Arabic. I wish I could do that. (Perhaps someday. I got the Arabic CD and book today, so I hope to start learning more soon.)I left my camera with the Rohlands (who didn’t go in since they’d been there so many times), since photography is permitted inside the pyramid. At first the walkway was high enough to stand up in, but shortly it was only about 2 ½ feet high and 3 feet wide, so we had to walk bent over at the waist. The ground was covered with some sort of metal sheeting, I think, to which they had attached wooden crossbeams for steps. At times there were also people walking out, so we passed with two “lanes.” I can understand how some people would get claustrophobic, but there were enough lights and some places to stop along the way that it was fine for me.
We went through the lower descending passage (which you can see if you hold your cursor over the pyramid on this National Geographic website), which goes down, then horizontally, then up briefly, and then down a long passageway which was tall enough to stand up in. At the end we reached the burial chamber, which was about twenty one (of my) paces long and probably four paces wide. The ceiling was probably plaster, and twenty feet high at the highest point (it sloped in like a peaked roof). At one end there was an empty red granite sarcophagus, which looked about nine feet long, four feet wide, and two and a half feet deep. The cover, which was propped up against it, was about ten inches thick.
It was kind of difficult to imagine what the burial chamber looked like more than four thousand years ago, since it was nearly empty now. But even though there wasn’t that much to see I was surprised that people came and went so quickly. I pulled out my pocket notebook and wrote down those dimensions that I recorded above and some other notes about what I saw. The most interesting thing was the painted letters about ten feet up on the wall: “Scoperia da G Belzonia 2 Mar 1818.” It seems likely that they were written by Giovanni Battista Belzoni, who discovered the passageway to the burial chamber in 1818. But then again, that would also have been a very good “historical addition” for someone to make later. Eventually I persuaded myself to leave, and followed some New Yorkers (judging by their sports apparel) out the passageway.
In comparison to the interior of the pyramid, the fresh desert air outside felt cool. Mr. Rohland had arranged a 40 LE camel ride around Khafre for Lizzy and me while they waited. Our would-be guide waited eagerly at a distance while we finalized our decision. Once we agreed he walked up and welcomed us to our ride by wrapping his brown and white-checkered scarf around Lizzy’s head, “Bedouin style.” She wasn’t exactly thrilled, but he would not be dissuaded, so she obliged. Then our guide went off to get his camel, which he had left standing several yards away near a wall. The camel wasn’t exactly thrilled about the idea of giving rides either, and spun around in circles with his lead rope just out of reach until another man rode his camel over to sort of corral the thing so that the man could grab its lead rope.
He brought the beast over near us and somehow communicated to it that it was to get down on its knees. I didn’t understand how he told it to do so, but that’s probably ok because the message wasn’t for me. The camel balked loudly and first leaned forward onto his knees, and then bent his back legs so that they tucked underneath him. And then we were to get on. Since she had done this before, Lizzy knew that she wanted me to ride in the front, so she wouldn’t have to worry about falling off when the camel got up. Since I had not done this before, I obliged. The saddle had a horn at the front which I gripped as I climbed up from the single metal stirrup. Lizzy climbed up behind me, Bedouin scarf and all, and we waited.
The man directed us to lean back as the camel lurched forward by standing up on its hind legs, which I’m glad we did. I’m fairly certain the experience would have ended with somersaults off the front of a camel if we hadn’t. Then we leaned back a bit as he brought his front legs up to match his rear ones. Then our guide thought it would be entertaining to get Mrs. Rohland in on the experience, so he gave her a Bedouin headscarf to match Lizzy’s and brought her over next to his friend’s camel. He tried very diligently to get her to climb up on it, but she insisted that it was just fine for her to stand next to it to have her picture taken. Later she said that if she had gotten on it, even for a picture, they would have had the camel stand up to take her for a ride. Then they would have had another reason to charge us more. So instead she avoided that scenario altogether.
With that we were off on our twenty-minute camel ride. If I understood our guide correctly, the camel’s name was “Snoopy.” He (the guide, and I guess “Snoopy too) was fairly pleasant throughout, only interrupting our conversation a few times. “Where are you from?” he asked. Lizzy told me she usually says, “Canada,” but I went with “the United States.” (Somehow that had better connotations for me than “America.”) Then he wanted to know if the ride was “very good,” and I told him that it was—each of the four times that he asked.
From the other side of Khafre we could see down into Cairo, which comes up right to the edge of the fence around the pyramid area. The rooftops of brown and white cement apartment buildings were dotted with satellites. No wonder they say that radio is the best way to reach people. On the third side of the pyramid we met a family of about six white Americans atop a caravan of camels. They narrated their camels’ antics to each other as they rode along, while their Egyptian guides led the animals by guide ropes. When we reached the end we repeated the camel lurching in the reverse order and dismounted.
Then it was time for payment, but (surprise?) the guide had apparently “misunderstood” that the ride was to be for two people rather than one, so he needed 80 LE rather than the 40 they had agreed on. It was funny how predictable the whole scenario was: the Kauffelds, who were there in 2005, were exactly right when they told me to expect the camel drivers to increase the price which they had previously agreed to. I’ve heard numerous stories about guides who take people out on longer rides into the desert and then stop to demand more money if the tourist wants to get back. And considering that most people don’t want to be left in the desert, many end up paying it. But fortunately Ray launched into Arabic and wouldn’t back down, so the man eventually left him alone. He wasn’t too eager to have the tourist police called out on him.
From Khafre we walked over to the smallest pyramid, Menkaure, which is a “mere” 213 feet tall and is from 2490 BC. The entrance was blocked off by a gate, so we paused only long enough to take some photos and watch the men rebuilding the foundation of some ancient building. While we stood there we observed another guide who was selling rides on his donkey. The tourist just wanted to take a picture of his friend standing next to the animal, but that wasn’t enough for the guide. The man protested, but the guide wouldn’t take no for an answer. As we watched he grabbed the tourist around the waist and hoisted him onto the donkey himself. How embarrassing. . .
From Menkaure we walked up the road at least a quarter mile to the overlook from which we could see the pyramids, sphinx, and Cairo. Along the way we saw people riding camels and donkeys out in the desert. The top was crowded with people, most of whom had arrived on tour busses. There were plenty of security guards with guns (which looked more imposing before Lizzy told me that they aren’t always even loaded) lounging around next to their vehicles and small phone booth-like structures, but they weren’t very watchful. Ray got after them when a man trying to sell something (probably a camel ride) came up and touched Lizzy’s shoulder (which is a cultural taboo) and they did nothing. I didn’t understand the conversation, but reportedly it included some accusations, questions about whether he would have sat idly by if such a man was touching his daughter, and a request for his name so that Ray could “report” him (which he actually had no intentions of doing). “It’s all a game,” he said.We walked past the stands in which they were selling touristy things with the promise that we’d find things which were marked for Egyptians rather than foreigners, and headed back down the long road to the Cheops Solar boat museum. Lizzy and I went into the museum alone and her parents waited outside. We walked through a metal detector and then got coarse slip-on cloth covers for our shoes, which were intended to keep the sand of pyramids out of the museum. The boat was suspended above the original hole in which they found it.
It was discovered in 1954 in thirteen layers of pieces in a thirty-meter long pit in beneath forty-one stones weighing eighteen tons (total). There are 1224 wooden pieces, some of which are made from Lebanese cedar. The boat was used for the funeral procession which brought the Pharaoh down the Nile to his pyramid. It was then taken apart and buried so that it could be used to transport him to the afterlife. I heard about it from my dentist a week and a half before I saw it. He said that there are actually four such compartments, but they’ve only opened one because they’re waiting for advances in technology which might enable them to take better care of it before they open it. But I didn’t see any evidence of that when we were there.
We wandered through a few small rooms with displays before Lizzy realized that we were being followed by a group of young teenage Egyptian boys. (I must admit that I was oblivious of it until she said something, since I was reading the displays and taking pictures.) So we turned our museum tour into a game of “lose the Egyptian boys,” which we won by taking several interesting routes and pausing at opportune times. We were so proud of our success that Gail said she could tell by the smiles on our faces that something was up as soon as we walked out of the museum.
From the museum we wandered through the ruins of the building that was used for the final burial preparations and headed down the road to the sphinx. There were several Egyptian school groups along this route, and which made the larger crowds even larger. It made me wonder what it would be like to visit the pyramids for your fourth grade class trip.
The sphinx wasn’t as impressive as I expected, probably because I don’t understand its significance. It’s a big cat with a human head, located next to the ruins of what must have been an impressive building complex. In one large room which still had most of its columns we walked past a Spanish tour, and I eavesdropped for a few moments before we walked on. There were a few bratty children trying to sell postcards in the viewing area who were quite distracting, but it was still an excellent view of the sphinx (including the restorations recently completed on it) with the pyramids in the background
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From there we walked out through the crowds to the gate, where I paused to take a brief video. Somehow in retrospect a video, even if it is only twenty seconds, makes it so much more real than a photograph. We crossed the street to the Pizza Hut (which was also a KFC), climbed to the third floor, and chose a table next to the window through which we could see the sphinx and all three pyramids. While we waited for our pepperoni and mushroom pizza to arrive the Muslim call to prayer sounded through the loudspeaker of a local mosque and two of the Pizza Hut workers stood in the corner of the room and prayed while everyone else continued with business as usual. An intriguing collision of cultures, I think.
After lunch Ray called our van driver, who met us just around the corner. It was a relief to pile into the vehicle and sit down after an extended morning of walking. I sat and watched the city for a while until I convinced myself that I should be journaling. I did that for most of the three and a half hour drive along the desert road from Cairo to Alexandria, but after a while I gave into my tired eyelids and slept. After about twenty minutes the blaring car horns from “lane” changes and rush hour traffic as we neared Alexandria were loud enough to wake me, so I gave up on sleeping and watched the road and journaled instead.
We were traveling through Alexandria with about six “lanes” of traffic when we rounded a corner and saw the Mediterranean. Lizzy said it finally felt like home. The Rohlands’ new apartment (as of February 2008) is about a block and a half from the sea, but the view is blocked by several apartment buildings which probably have higher rent as a result. Somehow the driver made it up their narrow street—the most impressive bit of maneuvering I’ve seen yet—and we unloaded the luggage at the entrance. Their boab wasn’t there to help with the luggage, but they weren’t surprised, since he’s consistently unreliable. So instead we took turns hauling it up two flights of dirty stone steps to the apartment.
Their apartment is a significantly smaller than the one that Lizzy grew up in (which they lived in for seventeen years), but is a good size for a couple. It has a kitchen which connects to a dining area which extends to a sitting area, a bedroom, a bathroom, and an office (which has been converted into a bedroom for the month that we’re visiting). We poked around a bit before Gail persuaded us that we needed to unpack before Lizzy’s friend and her parents came over for New Years’. So I opened up my cavernous backpacking backpack and pulled out my wardrobe, each piece neatly rolled into tubes of various sizes. The small things ended up in a plastic shelving unit and the rest was hung up before we slipped the backpack under the bed and came out for supper.
For dinner we had chili (sans noodles, of course) on top of rice cooked Egyptian-style, just the way Lizzy likes it. It was excellent, something that I’d like to learn how to make myself. After we had cleaned up from dinner their friends arrived and we all gathered in the living room to talk and eat the white-chocolate coated salty-stuff which Gail had prepared. (Now that is definitely something that I will remember to make on my own.)
From my perspective as an outsider, the conversation was fascinating although I imagine that it was fairly routine for everyone else. They passed on recommendations for taxi and van drivers, compared experiences flying to Egypt, talked about their holidays, caught up on news among their friends here, and talked about their recent trip to Siwa, the desert oasis six or seven hours to the west of here, near the Libyan border. The conversations continued over a game of Mexican Train dominoes which lasted until nearly midnight. By acquiring 105 points in her last turn Gail just managed to bump me out of last place, which I had held consistently through the rest of the game.
Around 11:30 pm the firecrackers became more frequent and were interspersed with fireworks which were launched from the rooftops of the neighboring buildings. Reportedly the Alexandrians celebrate with the Greek tradition of throwing something made of glass out of the window into the street to welcome the New Year. Once the Rohlands saw some men throw a chandelier from their apartment balcony. For some reason one guy let go before the other, so it landed on the Lexus parked beneath them rather than out in the street. They took one look down below and retreated quickly into their apartment, closing the shutters behind them. It seems that the Greek tradition has been replaced by fireworks, since we didn’t see anyone throwing things out the window. (But part of that could be because none of this apartment’s windows face the street.)
By midnight it was like the 4th of July: the fireworks show was quite impressive. I welcomed 2010 with a countdown from ten to one while by standing at the window overlooking a fireworks show launched from atop ten story apartment buildings in at least two directions, with the occasional firecracker thrown in from elsewhere. And then I went to call my family and wish them a Happy New Year which they were still eight hours away from entering.
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