Redemption of the Pyramids

I had been moved from a private room in the hostel into a shared room. My roommate was a Korean. Her name was Heesup. She has been travelling for a few months. She actually recently completed the El Camino pilgrim trail in Spain. She scoffs at the suggestion that finishing that 800 kilometer walk is an impressive feat that makes her impressive. But I think she is.

She had arrived the day after me and was looking to get out to the pyramids herself. After Mohammed's lukewarm response to my difficulties with his driver, I wasn't about to suggest to anyone that they follow the same route. I told her to take the bus. And then since I was headed there again to go out with Omar, I suggested we go together. She agreed.

So we got up and headed off to the pyramids the next morning. What had cost me 180 pounds to do with all kinds of hassles to pass through on the way, cost us 2 pounds one way on public transport, with no stop in a papyrus factory, and being able to walk right on by the camel places outside the gates. I gave her a couple of pointers about just ignoring anyone who approached her. I even suggested that she pretend to be completely Korean and that she didn't understand any English. That would take care of most of the touts. Then she went in and I went off to meet Omar.

I dodged the touts again as I made my way around to the other entrance, the Sphinx entrance. It turned out that there were three entrances for the pyramid area. One was the Sphinx entrance, where I exited the day before. I had agreed to meet Omar there. But I hadn't understood his insistence on it being the Sphinx entrance. Another entrance was for camels and horses, where I had gone in the day before. But when Heesup and I got on the bus to go to the pyramids, we had asked for the pyramids. The driver told us where to get off to go to the pyramids. And it was a third entrance. This left me with a long walk/jog/run around to the Sphinx entrance. And I thought it was going to be quite a simple matter to get around to there. I expected it to be about 5 or ten minutes. It turned out to be about a half hour walk. I was very late meeting Omar. Luckily, Heesup had a phone and I called Omar to let him know I was coming.

I arrived and we hopped up on his camel and headed off almost immediately. Our initial route was on roads. The army had claimed some land as a training facility between the Giza site and the next sets of pyramids further south. This disrupted the route through the desert between the areas. It was an interesting swing through the streets, and I got to see people doing normal people things in Egypt. It still would have been nice to be able to go all the way through the desert.

After a while we got past the military base and were able to enter the desert. We started through a cemetery. That was quite interesting. All the families in the area had family plots with a number of tombs for their dead. Here they bury the bodies, rather than cremation or other forms of preparing the body (like mummification).

From the cemetery, we entered the desert proper. Unfortunately, the first part of the desert area was the part where they are treating it very badly, as a garbage dump. It's a sad sight actually, all that trash covering the sands. Some of it is burned, but a lot is just mounded up piles of trash. And it is extending out into the desert further every day. As we passed through this area, I noted ten or twelve garbage trucks taking garbage out to be dumped in the desert.

But then it was out into the desert. And although it still wasn't the desert as I think of it, with great sweeping dunes of yellow sand rolling away into the distance, it was just the desert on one side of us and silent estates on the other. I was away from the tourist scene, and doing it on my own terms. I was happy, and I felt my experience of the pyramids changing.

By the time we reached the set of pyramids between Giza and Saqqara, the pyramids had been redeemed, due in no small part to Omar and his gentle approach to tourism.

When we reached the first little pyramid, and I think it was called the Temple of the Sun, we passed by a caretaker for the site. I suppose it should have occurred to me that there would be a caretaker there. But it didn't. It also meant that I would probably be paying out some money for the visit.

The caretaker came up on the pyramid with us and showed me around. There was a big table top area, where meals were served. Apparently. I'm not entirely sure that anyone who is not an archaeologist would be able to say with any kind of authority what happened there, but it did look like a table.

Nearby were some bowl-shaped stones that looked like they could have been, as I was told, places where the animals for meals were killed and prepared.

And there was a small pyramid. It was pretty cool.

In the distance, over a hill, was a set of three larger pyramids. In order to get a good shot of them, I climbed the hill to get a look. Omar offered to have me ride the camel up the hill. But I don't ride a lot, and certainly not camels. It had been a better than two hour ride out to these pyramids. I was in pain and actually not really looking forward to the ride back because of it. I certainly didn't want to hop on the camel right away and go to the top of the hill, even if it was only a matter of a couple hundred meters. So I walked. Omar and the caretaker waited.

I got some nice photos of the three pyramids. And I watched a few people ride by on horses, heading towards Giza.

While I was up on the hill, Omar waited with the caretaker at the temple. And sometime during my time away, the caretaker apparently managed to get in touch with the site archaeologist. And he came to the temple, so that when I got back down to the temple, he was there waiting. And though it was not overt, it hung in the air that he was there with his hand out. Omar advised me to pay just a little. He even offered to pay for me. But I came knowing that it wouldn't necessarily be a simple matter of visiting a place away from Giza, so I told him it wasn't his responsibility, and I gave the guy first 10 pounds, and then when he protested, 5 more. He still wasn't happy, but I was prepared to head in and buy a ticket for the area, and give the guy nothing if need be. He didn't press me any further, though, and Omar did say something about it to him.

Then we went to the caretaker's hut and sat and had some tea while the camel had a meal of clover that Omar had brought out with him. The caretaker also brought out some artefacts that had been found at the site. This was just a collection of bones from something that he said was connected to the temple, but there was no way to tell for sure. I suspected that if they really were connected to the temple, they wouldn't be in a tattered box in the caretaker's possession, but I didn't say anything. No need to be a rude guest.

Then it was his turn to get a handout. I made him settle for 30 pounds, since he had provided the tea and had shown me around the temple, but he also kicked up a fuss. I think Omar did translate my solution of buying a ticket and giving him nothing. That seemed to shut him up, although he was no happier about it than the archaeologist. It would be nice if they understood that coming from a nation that is rich doesn't automatically make me a rich person. Oh well.

Then it was time to head back to Giza. We kind of retraced our steps, but Omar found a better way back, along the back streets of Giza surrounding the pyramid area. And in the distance we saw the great pyramids looming over the community. I guess it must be kind of ho hum for the people around there, but as a visitor, I found it really cool that they could get to live in the shadow of those things. As you can tell, my experience of the pyramids had changed. I was finding them to be pretty cool on this day.

At length, we arrived back at the Sphinx gate and Omar took me to a perfume shop. This was the sole black mark against him. I really didn't want to visit the shop, but I let him take me anyway. There was someone I thought I could give some perfume to if I could get it for a small enough price. I did, without much effort (which leads me to suspect that I could have done much better than I did), and then we were out of there.

Omar walked me to the bus stop area. He made sure it was the right place for a bus to Tahrir Square, then I said I would be all right on my own. We said our goodbyes and I paid him his 250 pounds. I gave him an extra 50 just for changing my impression of Giza and the wonder of the world that the pyramids are. He went off to his family and I waited for the bus. I waited a long time. Then the people at the bus stop all seemed to take a cue and get into a line. I thought it was a ticket line for the bus, so I queued up as well. I was wrong. It was a line for flat breads that they had brought out. When I realized that, I went to go and wait longer. Someone asked me if I wanted bread. I said yes, actually I was hungry and bread would be good. But I also wanted the bus. They pointed me towards the place I would do better for a bus. And a couple of people just gave some of the breads. They were delicious. And the people proved that, even in the midst of the tourist zoo, one can still find real people who just want visitors to have a memorable time.

I headed off to find a bus and made my way back to the hostel, extremely glad that I had spent that extra day and 40 dollars changing my impression of the pyramids. They had become way cool during the course of the day. And when I looked at some of the photos I had taken the day before, I actually felt a fair amount of excitement that I had had the chance to do so.

Thank you Omar!!!