6 Week Gap Year

Tuesday 15 January

Pic. 1 Couple of old relics (& 2 Pyramids)

Pic. 2 Some of the old (King)Tut available from hawkers.

The day of the Pyramids dawns. We are collected promptly from reception at 4.20 and herded onto a bus for the airport. Through the airport to departure gate was easy but at the departure gate it is bedlam. They allow 2 or 3 flights’ passengers to go through simultaneously and only have 2 people checking boarding cards. So we have a scrum trying to go through 2 small doors and then confusion over which bus to get on to take you to the correct plane for the Cairo flight!
We arrive via the correct flight at Cairo airport and decamp to a waiting tour bus and our guide for the day. Mahmud is a well educated and qualified Egyptologist and so should provide us with plenty of information today. We make our way through the suburbs of Cairo including Heliopolis which is the wealthiest area, past the Mohammed Ali Mosque and Citadel and past the huge area of Tombs and Tombs of the Caliphs in which wealthy Egyptian families lay their dead. We cross the Nile and into the suburb or to be more exact, city of Giza and catch our first tantalising glimpse of mist shrouded El Ahram or the Pyramids through gaps in the buildings. Actually it’s not mist it’s the pollution smog of Cairo but it sounds more romantic and ethereal to say mist. DSCN4799
The Pyramids
On arrival to the entrance of the Pyramid site we have to alight from the coach collect our entrance ticket and pass through security and a metal detector then reboard the coach. We then take a long drive around the northern and western perimeter of the Pyramids to a purpose built viewing area which we are assured is the best view available of them. This may be so but they are enveloped in a grey blue pollution haze which completely ruins the atmosphere that should surround these fantastical monoliths. Everybody rushes off the coach and is immediately enveloped by a herd of local “businessmen” offering to be in or to take your photo with the Pyramids in the background. They all offer advice as to the best place to be or the best way to take your photo and then where to buy the best high quality souvenir of your visit. (his stall selling knick knacks with ‘Made in China’ on the bottom) I know this sounds like complaining but I’m trying to paint a picture of the reality of the situation. If you are firm with your ‘La shukran’ , no thank you they move on to the next vict….. Visitor.
Well here is the perception or feeling I got standing there and not the reality of my immediate surroundings. Ludy and I are standing before 3 huge structures, the tallest of which is 449 feet high and which date back 4,500 years. That is, they have been standing there for longer than before the birth of Christ than after! And scientists and archaeologists are both in agreement that the dating is only approximate and they could be slightly older. We are standing in front of ancient history and achievement, huge tombs, monuments commemorating the life and death of ancient Egyptian Kings or Pharoahs, built for them by their people with nothing more advanced in construction terms than stone, wood, rope, muscle power and brains. The Great Pyramid of Cheops alone took over 20 years to build. This is truly one of those moments in your life where your jaw drops in disbelief of the size and beauty of your view.
We rejoin the coach to be taken to the base of the Pyramids and to enjoy a couple of hours of free time wandering around the site. DSCN4839 It’s at this time I begin to realise how many people are here. There was about 20 or 30 coaches at the viewing point and there seems to be many more at the Pyramids themselves. By my reckoning there must be in excess of 4000 visitors milling around the site at any one time.
We head off to the Museum which houses the boat or Solar Barque which was to allow Cheops resurrection in the after life. DSCN4831 The Solar Barque was discovered in 1954 completely dismantled in a pit on the south side of the great pyramid. It has subsequently been reassembled without the aid of nails by means of ropes and pegs and is now displayed in a temperature controlled building and environment. We even have to wear special canvas sack shoe covers to help reduce sand and dust exposure inside! From here we walk again past the foot of Cheops and each block of stone has to be approximately 3feet high near the base. It used to be all the rage to climb the Pyramids to the top but this is no longer permitted due to erosion and health and safety.. All the original limestone casing which was used to give the Pyramid a brilliant white smooth finish has long since worn away but there is still a small cap of it on the second pyramid of Chephren (Cheops’ son) to indicate how it must have looked. Checking our watches we discover we now only have around 20 minutes left before we have to return to the coach and we haven’t yet been inside a pyramid. I was determined that we should do so as we might never visit again. Our guide had said that we could visit the inside of both the Great Pyramid and the middle Pyramid but the charge for doing so was EG£100 or EG£40 respectively. He advised that there was little difference between the two so visit the cheaper! As we were racing from one to the other we were approached by another purveyor of fine pyramid antiquities and genuine Bedouin headgear all for nothing more than his gift to us for visiting his most beautiful and maybe a small baksheesh from us to him for his generosity to us. Our need for haste was being impeded by his ability to act like a limpet to Ludy’s arm and his need to rearrange her also unique and genuine Bedouin headgear she was already wearing. I’m afraid after more than at least half a dozen La shukran’s I lost my temper and yold him to go forth and multiply. His reply ? “Yea, whatever! “ How very Vicky Pollard. We get to the entrance of Chephren’s Pyramid only to find the ticket office is 200 yards away so I sprint over and get 2. The security guard now says no cameras inside so I take the battery and the memory card out but he still won’t let us in. So reluctantly I leave the camera with him and he gives me a receipt to collect it on our return. (hopefully) Not hopefully we’ll return, hopefully a, the camera will be there and b, he’ll return it. Ludy goes first, reluctantly I think and we descend at a fairly steep angle along a sort of duckboard. As we proceed down the air starts to get a little ’thicker’ and then the passage levels out. Did I mention that the passage is only 3 feet high? No I thought not. The level passage allows us to stand up and then immediately ahead only about 40 feet or so is an upward slope, the same height as the downward one. This goes upwards for some distance and poor Ludy is now struggling. We reach another level passage where you can stand upright. The air is stale and she is still recovering from her bronchitis and has now become very breathless. She says she will stay here and try and catch her breath while I go on. So I press on not knowing how much further there is to go. We have been told that when you reach the centre you emerge into a largish chamber where the mummy and all the possessions he needed for his trip to and to survive in the new world were left. Obviously there is nothing there now as it was all looted hundreds of years ago. So after about another 20 yards I emerge into the Kings burial chamber and as warned it is empty. There is some large graffiti on the facing wall “G B Belzoni 1818” the date the Italian explorer entered the Pyramid and discovered the chamber. And that was it. So I returned and caught up with Ludy and we retraced our steps to the entrance and fresh (fresh as you could get with the Cairo smog anyway) air. We retrieved the camera and headed back to the coach just in time. From the site of the Pyramids we are now taken around to the front or eastern side of the site before the sphinx. DSCN4851 edited DSCN4855.
The Sphinx
The Sphinx or Abu Hol stands before the Pyramid of Chefren as its Guardian and a symbol of royalty. The Sphinx was not built of stone blocks like the Pyramids but carved from a rocky outcropping and has of course over the millennia been badly eroded and subjected to vandalism. Our guide informed us that she had been dug from the sand and restored several times during her vigil and was undergoing a new rebuild even now. If you look closely at her hind quarters you will see the new blocks being added and carved. Personally I think the Sphinx is the most beautiful part of the Giza site from whichever way you look at her. She has an enigmatic air about her, no doubt the result of witnessing 4500 years of change and being charged with guarding her kings from the ever closing encroachment of Cairo’s Giza suburbs.
Cairo and the Museum
We connect with our coach again and now head back towards Giza and a papyrus centre. Here we are shown the art of papyrus making, printing and hieroglyphs. Quite fascinating and not cheap to buy, but they did seem to be good quality in comparison to others we saw later during our Egyptian stay.
From here we went to the Grand Hyatt Hotel’s Hard Rock Café for lunch buffet style which also gave an opportunity to look over the Nile. Following the very good lunch we are taken to the Cairo Egyptian Museum and given the a three quarter hour tour with our guide Mahmood then given about an hour to tour the museum by ourselves. After Mahmoods tour we had arrived at Tutankhamen’s exhibition and this is where we began. This exhibition is extensive and contains just about every artefact Howard Carter recovered from his burial place, except for the few the Egyptian Government allowed to be sent to the UK exhibition in the O2 arena. The quantity and quality of items is exceptional. He was interred in a solid gold sarcophagus which in turn was inside 3 other sarcophagi like Russian dolls are. Each contained “trinkets”, bracelets, rings, necklaces, gold slippers, walking sticks, finger covers also in gold and so on. Everything was made of 24ct gold much of it beautifully decorated and painted. If you remember Tutankhamen was still only a boy when he died at 18 and was not a particularly effective Pharaoh as his reign was not long and blighted by an injury he suffered to his hip from which he eventually died. So if as a not particularly popular king he was buried with as much gold as we saw, what amount of treasure was interred with those well loved long serving pharaohs whose tombs were robbed millennia before. The mind boggles. And all that wealth was buried with them to help the king find his way financially in the new life after death. The sarcophagi were enclosed in 4 boxes the smallest of which was also made of solid gold. The 3 outer cases were made of wood but the outermost was decorated in gold leaf and the most incredible blue, much like the colour associated with lapis lazuli. After whizzing round this exhibition and unfortunately not being able to spend the time we wanted with it we made our way to the room containing the mummified remains of a number of pharaohs. A charge of EG£100 is made for entry and I discovered I only had 140 on me! We charged around like headless chickens looking for some of the people from our tour party to try and exchange some dollars for EG£ and eventually found the Latvian girls who lived in Bradford! We exchanged some dollars and at last made our entry to the land of the mummies. I’m afraid I forget how many mummies were in the room but it was absolutely fascinating. These are the well preserved remains of pharaohs from not hundreds but thousands of years ago and their features, skin, hair and nails are all highly distinguishable and intact. The bodies are all enclosed in temperature and humidity controlled glass cases for ongoing preservation and easy viewing by the public.
Souks and Mosque
Both of us could have stayed in the museum for many hours, maybe days more but time on this tour marched inexorably on and we had to force ourselves away and on to our next destination, a Souk or market place which our guide referred to as ‘hassle alley’. Ludy was really looking forward to this to practice her bargaining skills while I decided to visit the mosque next door. We had just three quarters of an hour here as our plane was due to take off at 7.30pm for Sharm so we had to be at the airport for no later than 7pm. Ludy set of round the Souk and I changed some money in the bank on the corner. The bank teller was sitting behind a counter with no means of security and a foul smelling cigarette on the go. I made for the Mosque DSCN4883 and as I approached I was daubed with pleasant smelling oil by a local and begged to pay for a small bottle of bouquet oil. I paid him a EG£100 which no doubt was way over the top and entered the Mosque having taken my trainers off first. Even when carrying them you have to remember to place the soles together as any form of open facing soles or feet is deeply offensive to the muslims. Be sure to not bare your soles when on holiday in Egypt! When in church, both protestant or catholic we are always entreated to show a certain amount of decorum and reverence not to mention quietness as we pray or visit. However the mosque is an entirely different kettle of fish. First things first. This mosques’ beauty was external rather than internal as so many often are. However once inside it was fairly ordinarily decorated but it was what was going on that was quite amazing. I walked past a man having his dinner, being watched hungrily by a black and white skinny street cat. Another man walked by me, his mobile phone ringing, which he answered and began a conversation. There were a number of men sitting on chairs discussing heaven knows what in loud voices and further in and towards the far end of the mosque a man was lying on the floor sleeping! Oh and one or two people were actually praying. I retrieved my trainers, left the Mosque and went for a coffee with Mahmood at the café on the square and waited for Ludy to return. She duly arrived 5 minutes before the rendezvous time brandishing a small package and a triumphant smile! She explained she had walked around the 3 streets comprising Hassle alley and had negotiated not a price but a passage through over friendly shop and stall owners who entreated and pulled her into their premises with promises of ‘special prices’. However she had seen what she wanted and negotiations had begun at EG£350. She countered with an offer of 30 and during the exchanges she said that was when she some body squeezed her bum! Anyway she continued haggling and finished at EG£40 or £4. She then produced her purchase with a flourish and visions of Salome and belly dancing came to my mind! She had a black cloth scarf with little tassels and imitation gold coins on small short chains sewn to it in long lines across its width. Very alluring! I can see belly dancing lessons on the horizon.
We made our way back to the coach but were missing 2 of our passengers. After a 20 minute wait our guide sent the coach off to the airport and he disappeared into the early evening crowds to try and find our wayward couple. After a few minutes of squeezing the bus down small lanes and only knocking down half a dozen or so pedestrians our fugitives were spotted on the pavement and the coach driver was requested to stop for them to hop on. Sheepish grins were the only sign of contrition in answer to our clapping of their arrival. I don’t think I mentioned that our coach party was made up of English, Filipino, Dutch and Latvian. During the trip and subsequently we got to know and enjoyed the company of a couple from Utrecht called Peter & Ineke. By now of course we are getting late for our flight and we still do not have our guide onboard. As we negotiate the roads of Cairo (slowly) our guide reappears, running alongside the coach but on the pavement separated from us by iron railings. The coach slows down in the traffic & Mahmood leaps the railings, the coach door opens and he jumps in and up the stairs to us as if nothing has happened! I wonder aloud how many times he has done that as it seemed like a well rehearsed routine. We arrive at the airport with 5 minutes to flight take off time & find our tickets already waiting for us but without our names on. We are led to the departure gate which is a scrum of bodies everywhere, but mostly in our way and get waved through by some guy who may or may not be an airport official and out onto the waiting coaches to take us across the apron to the plane. And there we stayed. Blocked in by 2 other coaches who then started taking on passengers. They then left and as we started off also, a guy came running out of the terminal with bag, coat and hat toward us. So we stopped to collect him and eventually set off to the waiting aircraft……..20 mins late. We took off eventually 35 mins after departure time and eventually arrived back at our hotel at 21.40 in time to have a little dinner (what was best politely called leftovers!) and round off an 18 hour day.
Time travel
But what a day. Today we travelled 700 miles & 4500 years. We saw, touched and walked inside the only remaining one of the original seven wonders of the world. We viewed the mummified remains of kings, queens & princes dating back 2000 to 3000 years past. We gazed in awe & wonderment at the sheer beauty and opulence of the burial accoutrements & sarcophagi of the boy king whose reign was, by other Pharaoh reign standards, very short. We watched how to make papyrus, the oldest manmade writing medium in the world & we walked in one of the most populous & polluted cities in the world. And in this city of extremes and archaeological & historical antiquities we lunched in the Hard Rock Cafe !