Walk like an Egyptian

“Egypt is a policed country,” our guide told us first thing on the bus this morning. We were lucky in that we were in the first bus (of well over 20) so we would be the first one on the road. Because the tour was loooooooooooooong, we had to meet our bus group at 6am, then head down to the bus for a 6:30am departure. But it was not to be.

Egypt has a special branch of police for Tourism and Antiquities. The “tourist police,” we’re told, will give our bus an escort through the city, stopping traffic for us and making our trip more speedy. Well, cool!

But no. They tell us that the first group out will be four buses, so we will wait until all four are loaded and ready to go. Some time later, around 7am, we’re told that the first group will be eleven buses. So we sit. Eventually, around 7:45 or so, we headed out on our 6:30am departure. Disappointing, but seeing the police block intersections for us and zip us through town makes up for that… for a bit. Then we get to the highway.

They blocked the highway traffic as we entered, so we had open pavement as far as the eye could see in front of us. Fantastic! Now we’ll make up for all that time we spent waiting to go this morning!

But no. For the next half hour or so, we crawled along at about 50 kph (31 mph) on an open highway. It was absolutely maddening. It didn’t help when the guide informed us that we’d all need to be back on the bus at each stop very quickly because of all the time we’d lost in the morning. Egypt, like Israel the other day, was making a pretty poor first impression. Every ten minutes, it seemed, there would be a checkpoint or a toll booth or some sort of inspection. Our first stop was supposed to be around 2.5 hours’ drive from the port, but it was going to take us about twice that.

Along the way, we saw some amazing things. OK, not really. About a third of Egypt’s population lives below the poverty line and it shows. High rise apartment buildings that look like they should be condemned are full of people living there.

Some of the buildings obviously pre-date the freeway, as they have been partially demolished to make way for the road. The remainder of the buildings are still occupied, however. The old wallpaper and paint from the interiors of the now-exposed apartment walls are still visible.

But poverty doesn’t have to mean dirty or trashy. We’ve been to places, such as Costa Rica, where you can pass by areas of obvious poverty, but they’re clean. The people try to take care of their things and they attempt to make their surroundings as pleasant as possible. This simply isn’t the case here. There’s trash everywhere. Even in the irrigation canals that ferry water from the Nile to the farmlands and villages.

We eventually arrived in Memphis (no, not Tennessee) at our first stop. An archeological site full of artifacts on display, such as this ‘baby Sphinx’.

Off to one side is a large, two-storey building. The guide tells us that there’s a statue of Ramses II in there. I expected to see a bunch more artifacts and a life-sized statue. But wow, was I wrong. The whole building is needed to house the statue. It’s jaw-droppingly incredible.

How did they even carve granite back then? The strongest metal they had was copper, which would be completely useless against granite. And yet the detail, the polished finish, the textures and etchings and realistic human form is as good or better than anything being done today. Nobody knows how they did it.

From there, it was off to Sakkara (or Saqqara, if you prefer) to see the oldest pyramid ever discovered. Unlike the famous pyramids in Giza, this one is a ‘step pyramid,’ so named for obvious reasons.

The tomb of Djoser, which is under the pyramid, is inaccessible to the public, but off to one side are other tombs that you can go into, one of which still has hieroglyphs on the walls, a few of which still show colours. Really impressive.

Then it was (well past!) time for lunch. It was a buffet affair, which is always nice when you’re in an area with unfamiliar food.

The tandoori chicken was really good (cooked in a clay oven called a tandoor, common in Indian cuisine as well), with a nice smoky flavour. The kebab pieces above that were lamb (maybe?), which got wrapped in the flatbread for a makeshift taco. Even though I’m Canadian now, I spent enough years in Texas to know that anything can be a taco. I also snagged some familiar foods: pasta, fries, rice… you know, just in case. Those other things on the plate, there on the right side, are steamed cabbage leaves filled with cheesy couscous and some seasonings. Full disclosure: I hate cooked cabbage and I’m not a big fan of couscous, either. But wow, were those things good. Not sure what the seasonings in there were, but they were tasty enough to make even cooked cabbage and couscous appealing. I went back for a big plate of seconds on those.

Dessert was baklava (kinda bland), a dense coconut cake, and a dish of orange glop that was amazing. The closest thing I can compare it to is the filling in a sweet potato pie, but fluffier and with a very slight hint of marshmallow right at the end. I could’ve eaten a pound of that stuff. That would’ve been difficult for me later on, probably, so it’s a good thing we were pressed for time and I couldn’t go back for seconds. Back to the bus!

Egypt and the Sahara desert (which I’m trying to get used to pronouncing as “sa-HAR-a” rather than “sa-HAIR-a”, since that’s how the locals say it) is chock full of pyramids. More than a hundred of them discovered so far. There were even three of them off in the distance that we could see from the step pyramid in Sakkara.

But if you say ‘pyramids’ and ‘Egypt’ in the same breath, there is only one set of pyramids that come to mind right away. You know the ones.

Visible from miles away, they stand sentry over the surrounding landscape. And I hate to admit it, but the above photo might represent my favourite view of them. The reason is that Egypt has made the actual site of the pyramids far, far too accessible and touristy. When Rob was here last, you had to do a bit of a hike from the spot where you left your car to the pyramids themselves. Now, there’s a road right next to the Great Pyramid, a parking lot between it and the second pyramid, and a road from there down the hill to the Sphinx. All over the complex, vendors are hawking their wares and selling camel rides. Stray dogs roam free and it stinks of bus exhaust, garbage, and camel poop. Honestly, it feels like a cheap amusement park attraction. Still, when you get back far enough, they’re very, very impressive.

And I think this is really where Egypt dropped the ball. The design of the pyramids is such that the scale and magnitude of them is lost when you’re up close. You can’t really get a sense of it when the slope removes all but a tiny portion from your view.

No, the pyramids are most impressive when you step back a bit and can see them as a whole. So putting a road within a couple feet of one of them is robbing them of that. And putting a wide spot in that road between two of the pyramids for bus parking prevents you from ever seeing them as they should be seen. And then there’s the trash. Everyone has stuff in their hands. Brochures, bottles of water, whatever. There’s not a wastebasket nor trash can anywhere. So people just throw their crap on the ground. Not just the tourists, either - the locals trying to make a buck, who are almost as plentiful as the visitors, are just as guilty when it comes to trashing up the place. Perhaps more so.

Rob was heartbroken. One of his favourite places on earth has gone downhill to the point that he said, “I can’t come back here.” I really felt sad for him, but I’m glad that he was able to see them years ago, before it got to this point.

Due to the many delays in the morning, we had to rush (hahahahaha- there was no “rush”. It was a massive traffic jam all the way down the hill and pedestrians were easily outpacing the bus) to get to the Sphinx to see it before the sun went down.

By the time we got down the hill, any chance of getting that iconic shot of the Sphinx with the pyramids behind him was doomed. But that’s OK, really, as everyone has seen that shot a million times before. I did manage to get all three with some camels in the foreground, though, before it got too dark.

And as the sun began to dip down in the sky (which happens really quickly here), I had a particular shot in mind that I hoped I could get during that tiny window of time and I managed to get to that spot just as the sun was right where I wanted it, and voila! Sometimes, things just work out really well.

In spite of all the frustration of the travel delays and in spite of the historic sites being overrun with trash and crap souvenirs and in spite of all of that sucking some of the majesty away from the sites themselves, I still have to say that I’m really glad that I got to see these things. The wonder of it all and the incredible weight of history is still something that will never translate in a photo or video. You just gotta see it. And I’m glad I did.

On to the Suez Canal

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