Pyramids

Sitting here watching the sun set over the Nile—the sound of the call to prayer and a cool breeze carrying fallucas down the river, the Valley of the Kings fading into darkness. It is unbelievably peaceful—a peace that is much needed after our first few frantic days in Egypt. On our first full day in Cairo, we joined the hoards of tourists to explore the Pyramids of Giza, Dashur, and Saqqara—the iconic symbols and images of Pharaonic Egypt. They were everything I expected—a magnificent testament to human accomplishment and our desperate need to deal with our own mortality. We only entered one of the pyramids, Dashur, and that was enough for me…..As I slowly descended into the pyramid, crouching to fit into the 4 foot high passageway, fighting ascending tourists, the light slowly disappearing, the stale air becoming thick with human sweat and motion, I felt claustrophobic for the first time in my life. The passageway was 60 meters long, opening into a series of three chambers…although quite large, I felt like I was being asphyxiated by ammonia fumes (they fill the chambers with ammonia to discourage bats from nesting inside the tombs)….I scrambled up the steep passageway to the exit, desperate to escape the fumes and oppressive heat into the overpowering desert sun…even thinking about it makes me feel a little anxious..

The one thing that really surprised me (and probably made more of an impact on me than the pyramids themselves) was the location of the Pyramids of Giza—they are nestled between the great expanse of desert and city slums. The bus route to the pyramid site is along a small river choked with garbage and sewage…it was upsetting–It seems so strange to me to be visiting the monuments of a highly complex and advanced ancient civilization while modern-day Egypt is considered a “developing” country….

We finished the day with a brief trip to the incredible Cairo Museum—a virtual warehouse of antiquity….room after room of spectacular artifacts, amazingly displayed mummies, and thousands of tourists….It was fantastic.