Down the Nile

Look Like an Egyptian

2009-12-06T22:46:00.000-08:00

I was utterly exhausted (just look at my eyes!), but it was a special dinner and we all wore something we had purchased on the trip. I wore my pectoral collar. It really is the most fun thing I got on the entire trip and despite the fact it looks expensive, it cost all of about 6.00. Not sure how often I can wear it in Eugene, but I'm sure I'll find a way!

Luxor Part Two--After Noon

2009-11-30T14:54:00.001-08:00

Despite my life-long fascination with ancient Egypt, I have to admit that when I think of Luxor and Karnack, it’s not the temples or the monuments that come to mind, but Johnny Carson’s skit about Karnack the Magnificent. Apparently that bias is more pervasive than I realize because I took almost no notes as we visited these famous temple sites. Perhaps it has as much to do with the fact that they were inundated with the herds of tourist (at least the Temple of Luxor was) as much as anything else. We had definitely been spoiled by the freedom and unobstructed views we have had the last few days in Middle Egypt and landing back in the midst of thousands of other tourists was a bit of culture shock. It might also have a teeny bit to do with the fact that by the time we set out, in early afternoon, I was actually ready for a nap. But one cannot visit Egypt without seeing ancient Thebes, and so onto the bus we climbed, cameras in hand for another afternoon of Temple Tromping.

The area or Luxor has been described as the world’s largest open air museum and that’s not an exaggeration. We began our tour by visiting the Temple of Karnack, an immense complex that Pharaohs added to for more than 13 centuries. The size is simply breathtaking and the scale model in the museum is about the only way to really appreciate what it might have looked like in its heyday with hypostyle halls, courtyards, a lake, avenue of Sphinxes and temples to as many gods as Rome has churches dedicated to saints.

We were privileged to have the director of antiquities for Upper Egypt join us at the site and give us a tour of the most recent excavations. (Could I have written a more dull and boring sentence straight out of some tourist diary if I had tried?) The thing that intrigued me the most was the bathhouse, with its little “private” closets. I would have liked to have learned more about the way it was plumbed, but perhaps that’s not something the excavators know yet. In any event, it showed that the ancients were just as fond of their creature comforts, including a nice refreshing bath, as we are.

The Temple of Karnack and the Temple of Luxor were connected by an approximately two mile long avenue of Sphinxes. A cult figure of the god Amun was periodically taken from one temple to the other. As we walked through a line of the remaining Sphinxes, all I could think of was that I hoped Fadel didn’t think we had any desire to recreate that pilgrimage by personally walking the distance. There’s hands-on-history and then there is butt-on-bus history and this afternoon I am definitely in the bob category. What makes these Sphinxes unique is that instead of human heads, they have rams’ heads.

Visiting the area is a little like speed-surfing through centuries of architectural styles, historical events and famous names. Everywhere you turn, is another amazing vista—an obelisk here, a pylon there, a pillar over there, a monumental statue at the next turn. Ramesses, Tuthmosis, Hatshepsut, Amenhotep…the litany of names rolls around my head making me almost giddy. I wander in a bit of a daze, the scenes, the hieroglyphs, the buildings rising like the Nile itself in a flood in my mind. Perhaps when I put this up on the blog, I’ll just let some of the pictures speak for themselves. A picture is worth a 1000 words, right?

The next stop for the day is Luxor Temple. Our visit has been timed so that we arrive just at sunset, to take full advantage of the enchanting play of light against the stone and then the stunning effect of the artificial illumination. Fadel takes us down the other end of the row of Sphinxes that we saw at Karnack and while I’m tempted to lean against one of them, it is sunset and I recall reading that nasty creatures like scorpions and vipers come about now. Of all the things I would not like to encounter on this trip, an Egyptian cobra is probably at the top of the list, with Cleopatra’s asp a very close second. Although seeing as how this is one of the most visited tourist sites in the whole country, no self-respecting snake should be here, says the woman who came home to find a huge black snake coiled in her kitchen and she lives in the middle of the city!!!! With my ability to attract venomous creatures, I think standing instead of leaning is the wisest option right now.

The statues and pillars take on a life of their own after dark and it’s not hard to imagine being transported back to the days when the Pharaohs ruled, despite the crush of tourists. The soft yellow glow illuminating the temple almost looks like it could be flickering torches and fires and the buzz of languages—I catch bits of German, Japanese, English, Arabic, something Slavic, Spanish and Italian—becomes almost chant-like, the individual words all blending into a kind of prayer for the ages. It is an enchanted, enchanting moment in an enchanted, enchanting place.

Fadel has arranged for an authentic Egyptian dinner at a private home, but some of us, me included, just aren’t up for it tonight. It was a long day and tomorrow we have to be on the bus by 7 am to go to the Valley of the Kings, so about half of us choose to just go back to the hotel. I’m sure the meal will be outstanding, but I’m not very hungry and besides, I’ve lost my guidebook which accounts for the rather truncated historical context. Without notes or guidebook, I’m forced to rely on my memory of what Fadel told us and at this point in the trip, my memory card is getting a bit full.

There is a bookstore in a complex of shops near the hotel, along with a much needed ATM, so I decide to go there immediately and not return to my room where I would be tempted to take a hot bath and curl up watching French tv. The bookstore is small, but has a goodly selection of English books. I tell the owner that I am looking for a guidebook and he offers me The Rough Guide, which is the one I had. I wasn’t all that delighted with it, so I opt for Lonely Planet instead. If I had the carrying space, I’d have brought home dozens of marvelous books about Egypt, but I decide on just one more—a guidebook to the language of the ancient Egyptians translated into modern English—expressions that would have been in use in those times, which may come in handy if and when I ever write that novel.

I give the man my credit card and he has a problem with getting the machine to work, so he gets one of the other merchants to help. When he hands me the receipt to sign, it’s for LE15 (about $5) more than the price he quoted. I sigh interiorly, figuring this is just another one of those incidents when tourists get ripped off, but I point it out anyway. To my surprise, he immediately opens the drawer and hands me the LE15, with an apology. No fuss. No argument. Just the money back. I’ll admit I’m a little shocked. Every other time I’ve had a dispute over change, the merchant has sworn up and down that he didn’t have the change and couldn’t possibly give me anything.

I start to put my purchases into my purse when the owner softly, almost shyly says something that literally causes my jaw to drop. “Do you know Jesus as your savior?” I blink. And then I blink again. “Excuse me?” He repeats the question. I’m more than a little taken aback. “Are you a Christian?” I ask stupidly, since why would a Muslim ask me about Jesus. He nods. “A Copt?” He shakes his head vigorously. “No, I am a Protestant. I do not worship Santa Maria,” he says.
I may have just encountered the only evangelical Protestant in all of Egypt in, of all places, a bookstore in Luxor. He really wants me to answer his question and so putting aside all of my own theological conundrums and questions, my own issues with Catholicism and Protestantism, doctrine and dogma, I recall when my Nazarene minister friend insisted that I “walk the Roman road of faith” with her and so I say, “Yes, I have.” He smiles and begins to speak about his own faith and the role Jesus plays. I’ve had a good many surreal experiences in my life, but this has to be up near the top. Being evangelized in Egypt. All of a sudden, he reaches under a pile of boxes and brings out a small black-bound New Testament in English. “I’d like you to have this,” he says, handing it to me. At first I was going to refuse since I have more than enough New Testaments to start my own bookstore, but then I realize that a gift refused blesses neither of us. I thank him for it, and place it in my bag with the other two books. “If you are here tomorrow, come to see me,” he says. I tell him that we are leaving early in the morning to see the Valley of the Kings, and thank him again.

I head back toward the entrance to the hotel, barely seeing the armed guards at the entrance. From the Temple of Amun to the New Testament—a living metaphor of the history of the Middle East encapsulated in a single afternoon.

Recovering

2009-11-28T18:50:00.000-08:00

I'm recovering from a possible case of swine flu (Oh, N1H1, sorry pig lobby). As soon as I have the semblance of a brain, the rest of the blog entries will go up. Bear with me. This trip will be finished!

Speaking of Zahi

2009-11-26T07:45:00.000-08:00

Speaking of Zahi, our group got a shout-out on his blog. A brush with fame....

http://www.drhawass.com/blog/morning-sphinx

Zahi Hawass

2009-11-23T15:08:00.000-08:00

Phyllis Brown who was on our tour just sent me these pictures. See, I did meet Zahi Hawass!!!

Day Eight--The Luxury of Luxor part One

2009-11-23T12:47:00.000-08:00

Midway through the journey, we actually have a morning off. I suppose even the Foreign Legion got the occasional rest period. Our hotel is the Sheraton Luxor and like most Sheratons, it’s lovely and modern. Which makes it all the more difficult to remember not to put the toothbrush under the tap or take a drink of the water.
What makes this place so wonderfully amazing is the view—a balcony overlooking the Nile. Could anything be more romantic? Fadel suggested that we might want to visit the Luxor museum or the Market on our free morning, but I opted to sit outside, enjoying the slight breeze, the chirping of the birds and work on my journal and this blog.

I’m not really sure why I feel so compelled to complete the blog, at least in journal form, even if I never get it transcribed and put up, but perhaps it is so that I don’t forget, so that I remember as much of this magical trip as I possibly can. And even a few days afterwards, I know the images will begin to fade and all that will be left of the memories will be the photos. I’ve found that happens frequently. Memory will be reduced to shuttered images and the nuances, the sensations and the emotions will gradually fade. This is one trip I’m determined to hold onto as many of the thoughts as I possibly can.

In addition to writing this morning, I’m also doing some housekeeping aka washing of clothes. We had a detailed list of what to bring and while I have been okay, I haven’t been nearly as fancy or as fashionable as the rest of my traveling companions. I brought three cotton tee-shirts, a couple of long sleeved cotton shirts and two silk/cotton blend tees. The silk/cotton were a mistake because they are just too hot to wear. The cotton is by far the best; little wonder Egypt is known for its cotton. If I had it to do over, I’d bring several more tee shirts and some Capri pants, instead of the safari type pants with the zip-off to shorts feature that I did bring. And I’d put in more jewelery. All the ladies on this trip have gorgeous bangles and spangles and since I brought exactly one pair of earrings and promptly lost one of them, I’ve been the shabby downstairs maid fashionwise. I suppose it really doesn’t matter if I look magnificent since I’m a drenched puddle of dripping hair and soaked shirt 90% of the time anyway. I am going to look for a pair of earrings at the market outside the hotel so when we have our final dress-up dinner, I can look semi-put together.

The morning off is a real blessing. I need to be able to put my feet up and just let my mind absorb what I’ve seen and experienced. In fact, I think I may take a little nap before we head out to see the Temples of Luxor and Karnack this afternoon, so this entry is going to be very short. I’m sure the afternoon will make up for it!

Day Seven--Abiding at Abydos

2009-11-22T18:54:00.000-08:00

I’m still on an incredible high from actually seeing and standing and breathing and being where Akhenaton and Nefertiti and Tut lived. Well, mentally I’m on a high. Physically I’m feeling the climbs in every cell of my body. But it was worth it. It was so worth it. Sometimes we do things that we pay for afterwards, but the price, no matter how high, is worth the experience. Yesterday was that for me.

It doesn’t help that we have a very early morning; out to the bus by 7 am, which means suitcases at the door by 6:30 at the latest. I can never quite figure out how to put everything I need for morning in a small bag and get all the rest tidied up the night before. Not to mention, I don’t understand how a suitcase can get so incredibly jumbled when I have carefully put everything in ziplock bags. Since we still have a long ways ahead of us, I am fighting the good fight to keep things in order. Entropy is winning, however.

Before we got too far this morning, the bus had a broken fan belt. We pulled off the side of the road while the driver repaired it. I’m not sure what impressed me more—the fact that he could replace the belt or the fact that he carried a spare belt with him. It made me wonder what other parts were tucked into the belly of the beast? Do bus drivers in the states carry replacement parts? Do they know how to repair their vehicles? I ponder these things as most of the people get off the bus and wander around. They seem to think it would be cooler off the bus than inside. Despite the lack of air conditioning, I think the relative shade of the bus is preferable to the heat of the outdoors. But then the thought of moving makes my legs throb and so I opt for sloth instead of seeing.

We are driving through little villages with dirt roads, narrow alleys, men milling about and children waving excitedly.
Not many women are out, unless they are doing laundry at the banks of the river or, occasionally, working in the fields. This part of Egypt has been considered dangerous for tourists, so we have at least two police guards, usually front and rear of the bus, and an on-board guard, the one who helped me climb to the tombs yesterday and gave me the sprig of revitalizing mint. It is still in my left pocket and I can smell the faint traces of the spicy aroma in the heat. One of the reasons that this area is considered a danger spot for tourists is because the University of Asyut has been associated with Islamic fundamentalists and also this area is home to a fairly large Coptic Christian population. Even while we were here, there was a shooting resulting in death between a Muslim and Christian over the price of a coke. You’d think that I would be scared, but the little girl who wanted to be a war correspondent and became a religion writer instead seems perfectly at home. After the initial shock of seeing weapons all time, I’ve become fairly inured to the sight of large weapons I can’t readily identify and don’t really want to.

I keep reflecting back on yesterday, mainly because it was the highlight of the trip for me and I can hardly believe that I actually made it to Amarna, but also because we haven’t seen much this morning. One of the reasons for the early departure was to cover the distance we have to cover. Most tourists visit Cairo and then fly to Luxor or Aswan; we are driving and that takes a fair amount of time. As does repairing broken fan belts.

Our first stop is the White Monastery, a Coptic Church founded in the 5th century by St. Shenouda, a saint I’ve never heard of, but then I’m not well versed in Coptic saints. Apparently it once housed a large monastic community, but now it seems more like a cross between a tourist attraction and a regular church. In fact, a baptism just occurred before we entered the courtyard and the proud family was taking pictures of an adorable little girl in a gleaming white communion dress. The papa handed her to one of the women in our group for pictures and then she was passed off to me. I was surprised at how light she was and how tiny, a dark-eyed beauty surrounded by white lace. The language was foreign, but the joy of the parents and the family was the same world over. A new life, entering into the old traditions, celebrating a faith and future.

What really stands out for me about the White Monastery is the bathrooms. They were wonderful, clean, spacious, with toilet paper. When you are getting used to peeing in a toilet that has been used several times before and tossing the scrap of paper the attendant hands you in a basket instead of flushing, modern bathrooms are like a little slice of heaven. They even have running water to wash your hands. One odd thing, each stall had what looked like a shower head in it as well as the fixtures. I never did figure out what that was all about and the lack of language skills made it impossible to ask. Maybe it was used to hose the stalls down at the end of the day. Or not.

I have to admit I missed a bit of the scenery today as the warmth, the hum of the engine and the rocking motion sort of put me to sleep. But by the time we got to Abydos, I was wide awake.

Abydos is considered one of the most beautiful temples in all of Egypt and I can definitely understand why. The main cult center for the god Osiris, the god of the dead, it was used as a necropolis for more than 4500 years. It is here that an Englishwoman, Dorothy Eady, took the name Omm Sety and lived for 35 years, claiming to be the reincarnated lover of Seti I. I’ve read about her story and while parts of it are completely outlandish, she did know some things about the working of the Temple and locations of relics that would be hard to explain. Maybe I’ll look up her story when I get home.

The Temple of Seti I is one of the most complete in Egypt. It is simply breathtaking. It also requires a great deal of walking. Have I mentioned that one walks and walks and walks when visiting Egypt? I don’t want to bore the reader (or the writer for that matter) by describing the layout of an Egyptian temple, so suffice to say they are long, relatively narrow and incredibly beautiful, from the stately pillars to the incredibly vivid wall murals.

I have to admit that some of the magnificence of the site is going over my head because I am so tired from yesterday. I slip away from the group now and then and lean against a pillar, occasionally sitting on a base if it looks undecorated and if no one is watching. In one of these rest stops, I look up and am captivated by the painted ceiling. How did they get up there to paint it? What sort of scaffolding did they have? The craftsmanship is still breath-taking after all these millennia. I keep bending over farther and farther until I almost lose my balance, catching myself only by backing into one of the pillars. So much for not touching the artifacts!

At one point, sunlight from a small window high on the wall streaks into the temple and I manage, in a small miracle, to capture it on film.
Even though we are no longer in Amarna, I can see why Akhenaton depicted his god as rays of light ending in hands. In this place, with the strong Egyptian sun streaming into the dimly light cavern of the temple, it is easy to see why the Sun, as the Aten or as Re, was worshipped. I pause in silent reverence for having had the chance to experience this moment of complete awe.

The colors on the murals almost defy description. They are still vivid red, blue, yellow, looking more like a Hollywood set than something thousands of years old. One of the women on the trip is an expert in dyes and paints and she asks Fadel if they used lapis or turquoise for the blue. He says lapis, but I can tell from her expression that she thinks turquoise must have been included. I wouldn’t know, but the blue is deep and rich, sometimes with a slightly green cast. In the Egyptian museum, I saw some artists’ palettes with their stone grinding kits containing ochre (I recognized that) and other minerals. I didn’t see any blue or green stone; perhaps that was too valuable to just leave lying around.

We turn a corner and my weariness evaporates as I see the famed King List! The ancients didn’t reckon time as we do, from a given starting point, marching relentlessly into the future. Rather, they dated events as occurring in such and such a year of a King’s reign. The count started over with each new king, so figuring out the sequences of kings was vital for archaeologists. And now here I am, looking at the only remaining King list still in situ. Fadel points out the solar disc and the duck signs, which indicate “son of god,” a designator of the Pharaoh. Once he has shown it to us, it suddenly appears everywhere on the wall. Isn’t that always the case? Once something comes into your field of awareness, you begin to see it all over the place. Of course, this Kings’ list doesn’t list any of the so-called Heretic Kings such as Akhenaton or Tutankhamen or that radical feminist Hatshepsut, but it does contain 75 (I think that’s what Fadel said) of Seti I’s predecessor. I’d love to reach out and touch just one of the cartouches, but if everyone did, the rock would be destroyed by the heat and bacteria on our hands, so I content myself with merely staring, gap-jawed, at the rows and rows and rows of names, all neatly tucked into their cartouches, a record of some of the greatest men to ever rule this part of the world.

Outside, behind the Temple is an odd structure called the Osireion which is partly underwater.
Seeing water in the desert is odd enough, but apparently this building was always partially surrounded by water, although the rising water table has flooded much of it today. While what we saw was apparently built by Seti I, this area seems to have been a site of worship back eons into the distant past. I wonder what it is about certain areas that cause them to give off a sense of holiness? Many of the cathedrals of Europe are built on pre-historic prayer sites, where people gathered to worship the Divine millennia before written history. This site, which seems to be in the middle of nowhere, was one of those places. Was it because there was water here? Or was it something else, something more elusive, more mysterious, more intangible? Staring down at the giant blocks of granite, “floating” in the greenish water, I feel a certain pull, a certain resonance that perhaps is my answer.

One of the things that most amazes me about these sites is how hot they are. The stones that make up the temples absorb the unrelenting heat of the sun and radiate it back in almost palpable waves of heat. I hold my hand a few inches from the stone I’m resting my elbows on and it almost pulsates. One would not survive for very long in this climate without water or shade, especially not when you are of Northern European descent and consider 65 to be a nice comfortable temperature. I’m sure that 65 would be considered arctic by those who live here all the time. In fact, I don’t think the air conditioning in my hotel rooms goes that low, but then it is in Celsius and by the time we get to the hotel each night, my ability to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit is non-existent.

We clamber back on our bus, each of us pausing for a moment at the front to pull a cool bottle of water from the chest. We who live in a land of potable water take it so for granted. Here, it is something to be cherished, treasured and even hoarded. When there is water on the bus, we all take a bottle, just in case we might need it later on. I think I have two in my case, but I grab another one, feeling only slightly guilty at having more than my share. But I rationalize by telling myself that I don’t drink any of the soda on board; just the water.

The sky here is a remarkably clear blue but it is frequently marred by plumbs of dense black smoke pouring from molasses factories. It looks like the smoke from a forest fire dangling over the Nile or volcano shooting soot heavenward. Clearly pollution standards are not the same here.
I can’t smell it inside the bus, but something tells me that a molasses factory wouldn’t be the most aromatic of places; most food production plants aren't. I remember going through a chocolate factory and while I adore chocolate, the smell was almost nauseating. And I’m really not that fond of molasses.

Jostling along, the countryside begins to become a blend of fields and villages. I find myself nodding off a bit until Fadel comes on the microphone and tells us that we are passing near Nag Hammadi hills where the famous papyrus codices including the Gospel of Thomas were found. To be honest, the hills look like all the other hills we’ve been seeing in this part of Egypt and my only thought was, “Thank God we aren’t going to climb up there and look at the caves!” I am perfectly content to see them from the windows of the bus, thank you very much. I suspect some of our group are disappointed that they aren’t doing to be able to trek up there, but I’m sure they’ll have another chance to march endless miles in the heat before we are finished.

The last stop of the day is the Temple of Hathor at Dendara. Hathor, the cow-headed, is the goddess of love.
Fadel says that he called his wife his “Hathor” and she asked if he thought she was a cow. She has a point. I understand that the rationale for having a cow be the symbol of love is because of the tender care that the cow has for her calf, but I think I might have chosen a different image if it had been up to me. It’s the ears, I think. At any rate, Hathor is one of the most recognizable of the Egyptian gods. Once you’ve seen her, you’ll never mistake her for anyone else.

We arrive at her Temple in the late afternoon, as the sun is setting and the mosquitoes are coming out. I have sprayed my pant legs with poison everyday and finally it’s paying off. Either that or the mosquitoes don’t really like the taste of very hot, tired, middle-aged woman. In any event, I’m not getting bit.

The Temple is one of the more intact in Egypt and so it’s not hard to imagine the ceremonies that must have occurred here but confession time: the temples are starting to run together a bit. Of course, I can see and appreciate the differences, but it’s kind of like visiting churches in Rome. Eventually, they begin to blur, and even good notes and pictures at night don’t always sort them out. The things that stand out here for me are the zodiacs on the ceiling (Leo is always easy to spot) and the defaced images of the goddess. Throughout the country, many of the old temples were turned into Christian churches and images of the gods and the Pharaohs were defaced, the faces and limbs hacked out. To be fair, it seems to be the Egyptian way since the ancients were chiseling out each other’s images long before the Christians arrived. But I still cringe a little to see Hathor, traces of blue still on her headpiece, her face a ripple of blank stone. Why do we feel we have to destroy what we don’t accept? This defacement is hardly different than the Taliban’s destruction of the Buddha statues; it just happened much much longer ago. I really don’t know how to express what I feel when I see a great temple turned into a Christian shrine, its art destroyed in the process. I’m sure the people who did it acted out of what they believed were the highest motives, but it still makes me sad and leaves me with an empty, bitter feeling.

As for the zodiacs, they, too, were defaced,
only this time by the French who wrenched them from the ceiling and transported them to the Louvre. A rather poor plaster replacement which is chipped and fading was left in their place.

This is one of the few, maybe the only, temple that still has the second floor intact and so we climb well-worn stairs to the roof. So many feet have trod the stones, they are worn almost to a ramp. Fadel explains some of the rituals that took place here and how they related to other sites closer to Luxor, ancient Thebes, where we will visit tomorrow. I move to the side of the wall and look out over the countryside. The sun is beginning its descent and long shadows begin to shroud some of the enclosure walls. The mud brick takes on a slightly reddish hue and the distant hills look like cardboard cutouts against the endless, cloudless sky. Our guard joins me at the wall, staring deeply into the distance. I ask him if he has a family and he says, “Not yet,” with a bit of a smile. He will leave us tonight and go home since we will soon be out of Middle Egypt and into the tourist centers of Luxor and Aswan.

We descend from the roof via a different staircase, not nearly so worn and walk around to the back of the temple where we gaze at a relief of Cleopatra (yes, the Cleopatra) and her brother/husband Ptolemy. If we hadn’t been told it was Cleopatra, I’d never have known. Even the reliefs are beginning to look a bit alike at this point.

The sun is setting as we get back to the bus. The driver speeds up, our misadventure with the fan belt has made us a bit later than planned. As we skirt the Nile, water pipes lie on the banks like giant snakes and modern pumps gush water into the fields. It’s easy to see the difference between farms. Some are very tidy, with organized rows, carefully spaced and tended. Others are haphazard, with shaky lines and meandering trails. Clearly, personality emerges even in the way the land itself is tended. The fields and trees reflect in the calm water of the irrigation canals, like an Alice in Wonderland Through the Looking Glass world of upside down and reversed images. The light is fading and it is beginning to be difficult to see, but as we pause at a corner, I notice a duck, his head tucked under his wings, bedding down for the night. Soon we will be in Luxor and we too will be able to tuck our heads beneath our wings for one more Egyptian night.

Day Six--Amarana Part Two

2009-11-19T11:32:00.000-08:00

Akhetaten, the city of Akhenaten. I can see why Egyptologists call it Amarna or Tel Al Amarna instead of Akhetaten. I can never keep the name of the King and the name of the city straight and I’m betting neither can most people.

This is the reason for my trip. The reason I can on this tour and not another. To visit Middle Egypt. To see the land where Akhenaten and Nefertifi set up their new city. To be honest, there isn’t much to see. A crescent of desert bounded by the Nile and high rocky cliffs But the very air is infused with the romance of the period and I am excited beyond imagining.

We drive to what I can only describe as a landing area, where we park the bus and Fadel points up the side of the high cliffs where little dark blotches appear—the royal tombs. That is our first destination.

There are stairs, many many many stairs, leading up the side of the cliff, but fortunately there is also a trail alongside them. It’s much easier to trudge up a trail in blinding sun and broiling heat than it is to do a stairmaster in the same condition. I have a couple of bottles of water in my pack, but I’m really wishing I had gotten a camelback pack so I could just drink and pant. The climb may not be all that tough in reality, but it is hard for me. Not only because I’m out of condition, but because every step grates on my knees, but I am absolutely determined that I will finish the climb, no matter what. I trail behind the rest of the group, but in some ways that’s a relief because I know I’m not obstructing anyone. I’m panting. No, I’m gasping. Fadel’s assistant who has accompanied us on this part of the trip, a beautiful young woman who works as a professor of architecture most of the time tells me to breathe through my nose instead of my mouth. I would if I could, I think. Right now I’m just focused on breathing period.

Our armed guard, who rides on the bus, notices me and waits at one of the slightly more level spots, his eyes questioning. “I’m okay,” I say. Well, that’s probably a lie. I’m probably near heat stroke, but if I have to die, Amarna is as good a place as any. I stop, red-faced and puffing, about 15 steps from the top and the guard takes me by the arm and pulls me the rest of the way.

I am standing on the rim of train far above the valley floor. My God, I’ve made it. I’ve made it to the Royal Tombs of the Heretic King.

Now I’m not sure if my heart is pounding because of the climb or because of excitement or some of both. There are 25 tombs in this area, but we are visiting only three of them. (Thank God. Walking a narrow ledge on the side of cliff in the desert isn’t on my list of things I want to do very often.) The tombs themselves aren’t awesome in the same way that the Temple of Karnack is said to be awesome, but what makes them so incredible to me is that I know members of the royal court stood here, on the same ground I’m standing on. It’s a bit like standing in the agora at Athens and realizing that St. Paul debated the philosophers in that very place. A tangible connection with history in way that erases the centuries. My mind is swirling and I’m almost dizzy. Not from heat stroke, but from the realization that I am actually here.

As Fadel guides out of the tomb of Ahmose, “Fan-bearer on the King’s right hand,” I linger a bit, standing in front of an image of the King and Queen on their way to the Aten Temple. The curtain of time parts for just a moment and I feel as if I am actually witnessing the moment in reality, the first recorded worship of a single god by a monarch. I wonder where the belief in monotheism came from? Did Akhenaton get the idea from the Hebrews? Some people suggest that Moses might have been raised with him or been his tutor and he developed his idea of a singular powerful god from that influence. I’m not sure the time frame of the Exodus has ever been clearly established so without access to some current data, I can’t say if that’s plausible or not. The similarity of Ahkenaten’s hymn to the Aten with the Psalm is striking however. It simply can’t be coincidence that two prayers, from the same part of the world, would be almost word for word identical. I remain in front of the painting as long as I can, in an act of homage and reverence. It is a holy moment for me, a moment suffused with grace and gratitude, a moment to be tucked away in my soul forever.

We walk slowly, walking quickly in this heat and ledge edge would be very unwise, to two more tombs, including the tomb of either Pentu, the royal physician, or Panehsy, a priest. I honestly can’t remember which is which. Now if their names didn’t both begin with “P,” I might have had more luck.

The bus is very very far below us and with an unpleasant jolt, I realize we do have to walk back down there.

Fortunately, we do not retrace our steps, but the trail down is steep enough to cause an ache in the thighs. I stumble once and the guard catches my arm. I’m not panting nearly as much on the way down as the way up so I don’t think he fears for my life. He hands me a spring of mint that he found god knows where. Surprisingly, the crisp fresh aroma is invigorating and I crush the leaves to release their scent.

Once we are back at the bus, we proceed along flat nothingness to what was the Northern Palace. I hadn’t realized just how large Amarna was. It’s about nine miles from side to side and three to four from the Nile to the rock cliffs, a massive undertaking for a city that would exist only 30 or so years and become a highpoint in artistic design. The Northern Palace was Nefertiti’s home near the end of the period. Her mother in law came for a visit and shortly afterwards, Nefertiti and the children moved out of Ahkenaten’s palace to this place on the northern edge of the city. I wonder what the mother in law said or did that created such a rift in what had been a happy family? One of the little human dramas lost literally in the sands of time.

The traces of the palace can be seen in low walls and flooring. It doesn’t look like much now, but once upon a time it was the epitome of modernity with bedrooms, bathrooms, public rooms, reception rooms, gardens, pools, and servants’ quarters, complete with structural details that caught the northern breeze and created a sort of natural air conditioning. Even though the area is guarded by barbed wire and I couldn’t actually walk on the palace floor, just knowing that I was within feet of where Nefertiti and Tut, Meretaten and Ankhesenpaaten, Horemheb and Ay lived, loved and plotted takes my breath away. (And I have recovered my breath since the cliff trek!)

From the Northern Palace, we drive a surprisingly long way to the ruins of the Temple of the Aten which consists on one rather phallic looking column and the broken remains of the main altar. It’s difficult to mentally reconstruct what this must have looked like, even with the evidence of paintings and murals which are now in places like the Cairo museum. I try to imagine how the area would have been laid out, but one pillar just isn’t enough to give a clear idea. I’ll have to find a recreation somewhere. As I stand next to the column, it reminds me of the single pillar that remains of the Temple of Diana at Ephesus, a lonely reminder of what was once one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. In its own way, this temple too, was one of the marvels of the ancient world and now it has been reduced to a solitary sentinel.

We retrace our route out of the desert back to the fertile land bordering the Nile to the ferry that will return us to the other side. This time, we share our space with a donkey cart and a truck.
Our fashionista is not called on to drive the ferry this time; maybe it’s a different captain or perhaps it’s nearing the end of the day and there is no time for frivolity. Just get over the river and back to home. We reboard our big bus (we had taken a smaller, almost van-like bus to the actual site), I look out over the land, seeing what King Akhenaton saw for the land cannot be all that much different than it was when he first decided to build here. The sweeping scope of the flat plain, the soaring cliffs, the broad Nile with its rich fertile banks. No modern structures, no cell phone towers or electrical wires mar the vista. It possesses a certain timelessness that I can only hope will last another thousand years.

Our hotel for the night is, well, interesting. It is apparently a private hotel for employees of a cement company, sort of like a corporate residence. The rooms are enormous. You almost need a breadcrumb trail to get from the bed to the bath, but the sheets are threadbare and slightly stained, the shower sprays everywhere but down and in place of a washcloth, we have a sponge mat. I wash the dirt of the day off my face and hands and go down to the dining room for dinner, where we are served kushari, a traditional Egyptian meal, consisting of rice, lentils, chickpeas, macaroni, and caramelized onions. It sounds like it might be a heavy pasta sort of meal, but it’s actually very light and flavorful. I guzzle water, wondering where I put my Advil, listening to my fellow travelers chat about the day. My mind is no longer here. It is somewhere back on a rock cliff, overlooking a gleaming city rising out of the yellow sand, returning to vibrant life after millennia of sleep.

I have fulfilled my dream. I have seen Amarna. Everything from now on will be lagniappe.

Day 6 on the way to Amarna

2009-11-13T06:31:00.000-08:00

I wake up with an incredible surge of excitement. Today we are going to Amarna. This is the reason I am on the tour. I would have paid the entire price just to go to the site of Akenaton’s city. I have dreamed of this place and visited it a thousand times in my imagination. To see Amarna with my own eyes. Can it even be possible?
But to prolong the anticipation or maybe because of the way the roads run, we first are going to Tuna el Gabal, the necropolis for the ancient city of Hermopolis.
I’m beginning to grow accustomed to the sight of mud brick houses with dirt floors, and ducks, donkeys, goats, and buffalo on the front porch, but I am still startled to see a woman sweeping the ground with a reed broom just a little bigger than a whisk broom under the gaze of a satellite dish. Fadel calls Egypt the land of contradictions and indeed it is—arid and fertile, modern and ancient, donkeys and cell phones. It is as if the front foot of the land has stepped into the 21st century while the back foot remains in the 1st.
If I can divert a bit from the travelogue, I think it is the mixture of the new and the old that most Westerns can’t understand unless they experience it first hand. The people retain a sensibility of the centuries, of farming, of living along the river, of the vast desert. Their minds and mindset are still shaped by the same forces that shaped the lives of their ancestors. And yet they now talk on cell phones, carry submachine guns and drive motorcycles, all the while transporting sugarcane to market on donkeys and washing clothes in the river. It’s no wonder they see the world in ways those of us who have never pounded our underware on rocks can’t understand. Ancient minds in a modern world make for a tinder keg where responses to situations can have disasterous consequences. Until we who live in the West realize that just because someone wears a tie and carries a iPhone, he doesn’t think the way we do, I believe there will be continual misunderstanding and confusion. And yet, especially here in Egypt, the people are gentle, kind and hospitable. It is possible for the world to live in peace. We just have to work a little harder at it.
Okay, small political commentary over. I’ll try to stick to ancient sites for the rest of the entry. As we pass a Coptic Church with a large mosaic image of Our Lady on the front, Fadel says that Egyptian tradition holds that Joseph and Mary brought Jesus to Heliopolis, the City of the Light, when they fled Israel to avoid the Massacre of the Innocents. It’s interesting to realize that I have been to Jordan where Jesus walked as an adult and now to Egypt where he walked, or rather toddled, as a child.
It is very early in the morning…at least for me since we got on the bus by 7:30 am. In the villages or even larger towns instead of workers heading off to offices, the water buffalo are being brought to the fields. Every now and then I see a man with a briefcase waiting to cross the road alongside a buffalo. That’s certainly not something you’d see anywhere in America. Because it gets so hot here, work starts in the cool of the morning. I see a man wielding a hoe in the field looking exactly as if he has stepped out of a wall carving. His hoe unchanged in four millennia. He raises it over his head and pulls up a chuck of dark, black soil. Over and over, he carves the earth, readying it for planting. In the next field over, another man sows, flinging seeds from a leather pouch over his shoulder just as his ancestors have done from the beginning of agricultural cultivation. The seeds spray in an arc and almost in the same motion, he reaches into the pouch and repeats the gesture over and over.
A small truck passes us, overladen with cabbage,cauliflower, tomatoes and at least three people standing on the bumper, hanging onto the top with one hand. Fadel says that a recent law has made talking on the cell phone while driving illegal because it is too dangerous. Apparently falling off the back of rapidly moving vechiles isn’t a danger, but I’d take cell phone chatting over holding on for dear life any time.
I’m surprised by the number of Christian symbols I see in this part of Egypt, even though the Copts were among the first believers in Christ. I just assumed that Chrisitianity had been completely supplanted by Islam and so seeing crosses and images of the Virgin stop me. I am particularly surprised to see a mosque right next to a Coptic church. The minuret next to the Cross. I wonder what the Crusaders would think if they could see the at least nominally hospitable relationship?
Tuna el Gabal is another one of those remote, rarely visited by tourist sites. I sometimes get the feeling we are waking the guards up from their naps when we drive up to the gates. Fortunately for me and my aching legs, we aren’t going to be doing any climbing until this afternoon. The catacombs of the god Thoth are an easy walk from the guard stations.
I really didn’t know what to expect. I knew that Thoth was represented by either an ibis or a baboon and that these catacombs had been used to store mummies offered to him, so when we descended, not all that far under the ground to see a city of the dead was breathtaking. As far as you can look are corridors filled with little niches for ibises and bigger niches for baboons. In some areas, piles of pottery are tossed aside, either because it is worthless or because it awaits further investigation. Either because we are with Fadel or because so few tourists visit the area…or both…the guard brings out an actual ibis mummy for us to touch. The resin coating makes it very hard and very heavy, almost like a brick. Despite the layers of wrapping and coatings, you can still see the shape of the bird, with his head tucked back under his wing as if he had merely been asleep for centuries and might, at the behest of the god, suddenly awake from his slumber and send forth his call of adoration. The guard also brings out a sarcophobus filled with ancient linen wrappings. We are allowed to touch. I can barely believe it. We are touching a mummy and its wrappings. The linen is very heavy, finely woven, but weighty. It still remains its white color although additional fabric on the bottom is a deep saffron.
I could have stayed in the catacombs for much longer, just staring into the niches and exploring the area devoted to baboons where a sculpture of a baboon scowls across an offering table and a baboon mummy, its unwrapped skull grinning in grim amusement. Even in life, baboons are unattractive animals with their large canines and pointed snouts and mummification does little to improve their appearance. With reluctance we waddle after Fadel back out in the heat of the desert. If this is what it is like in November, god help us what it must be like in July or August. I either would never go outdoors or die instantly of heat stroke. I’m quite sure those would be my only two options.
Before we leave this site for Amarna (Oh Amarna, I’m coming; I’m coming. It won’t be long now.) we visit the tomb of Petosiris, a man who lived at the time of Alexander the Greek and who had his tomb done in the new-fangled Greek style. Well, sort of done. All the scenes are typical of Egptian tombs with the characteristic front/profile posture of all Egyptian art, but the clothing is Greek.
I’m getting anxious to see Amarna. I’m sure Petosiris and his tomb are very interesting to scholars, but I have deliberately avoided anything to do with the Greco-Roman period of Egyptian history on this trip, Perhaps another time, to see Alexandria and explore that later facet of history. But not now. Now I want to see what I came to see. The city of the Horizon of the Aten, the home of Akenaton and Nefertiti and Tutankamen—Amarna.
But not yet. I’m beginning to feel like a kid on Christmas eve, thinking that Christmas morning will never come. We bundle back into the bus and watch the movie of life stream past the window. More villages, more children, more laundry, more donkeys, more dirt roads. We stop to see all that remains of a Temple to Thoth, two huge baboon statues. People leave the bus to take pictures, but I am too excited to waste energy on Thoth, so I snap an image through the bus window and take a deep breath. Soon. It has to be soon.
Fadel tells us that we will be leaving our bus to take a ferry across the Nile and board a smaller bus that will take us to the actual site of Amarna. The ferry is definitely not for tourists. We share it with schoolgirls in their navy clothes and white veils, obviously some sort of uniform; mothers, babies, a vegetable truck and a donkey cart. We are as much a source of intrigue and amusement to the other passengers as we are to them. I catch the eye of one young mother who has been staring at me and smile. She smiles back, clearly embarrassed that she has been seen, but the universal language of the smile erases the unease. A grandmother sends a frightened young boy and a bold young girl over to shake my hand and welcome me to Egypt.
As we pull away from the dock, our fashionista, who has never met a stranger and who is one of the most outgoing, exhuberent women I have ever seen, gets invited by the captain to steer the ferry. I suspect it is on underwater steel cables, so she won’t be able to drive us around on a sandbar, but her blond presence in the wheelhouse causes amusement among Americans and Egyptians alike.
Finally, we get on the bus that will take us to Amarna. As we pass by a newly cultivated field, a cloud of white butterflies performs a ballet in the blinding sunlight. My heart dances with them.
I am almost there.
What is it like to visit the place of your dreams? Sometimes, when you see something you have imagined forever, it isn’t what you expect and you are, as much as you hate to admit it, just a touch disappointed. I felt that way when I saw the Mona Lisa. So small. So unimpressive. So not what the Mona Lisa was supposed to be like. Part of me was fearful that I would experience that same sense of disappointed when I finally laid eyes on the Temple to the Aten, the Northern Palace, the Royal Road. But the part of me that could have been an archaeologist knows that there probably won’t be much to see, except rubble and sand, and besides, it isn’t the ruins, but the land, the horizon, the place that I have come to experience. If nothing remains to be seen, so much the better for then I shall see what Akenaton saw when he sailed the Nile and declared, “Here I shall build my city and here I shall live for the rest of my life.”
At last we are there. How can you even begin to describe what is being processed internally while still trying to describe what is being seen externally? How do you step back enough to report while being flung mentally back and forth over the centuries? How do you put a dream into words?
Amarna is desert. Pure and simple, both in the metaphorical and actual sense. There is nothing here but rocks, dirt, sand and heat. Akenaton was looking for a virgin location to establish his new city and this certainly would have been that. Even now it’s about as desolate as you can get and still be near the banks of the Nile which we know the city was from ancient illustrations and documents. But it is filled with light, filled with the glory of the one God, the Aten. The words of his Hymn to the Sun, which are almost identical to Psalm 102 of the Hebrew Scriptures, fill my mind:
Because Thou has risen, all the beasts and cattle repose in their pastures; and the trees and the green herbs put forth their leaves and flowers. The birds fly out of their nests; and their wings praise Thy Ka as they fly forth. The sheep and goats of every kind skip about on their legs, and feathered fowl and birds also live, because Thou has risen for them.
Why does Akenaten’s hymn sound so much like a prayer to Yaheway of the Hebrews? Could it be that Moses, raised as one of the children of the Kap, the household of the Pharaoh, might have been Akenaten’s friend? Could he have passed on the idea of the one god to the man who would be King? The similarities are too close to be mere chance. Somehow there is an overlap of influence here. What might have happened to the world if Akenaton’s beliefs had prevailed? How would the course of history have changed? Things to ponder in the night.

Day 5--Entering Middle Egypt

2009-11-11T01:53:00.000-08:00

Day 5 Middle Egypt
Today we begin our journey into Middle Egypt, an area of the country where tourists rarely go because it simply hasn’t been safe in the past. I’m not exactly sure it’s safe now, but this is the reason I’m on this trip. The things I want to see the very most are located in Middle Egypt—Amarna in particular.

But first we head to Al-Fayyum and the Pyramid of Maydum. The images flicking by my window are endlessly fascinating. I’ve discovered that I prefer to sit on the starboard side of the bus. Not exactly sure why, but I instinctively favor that side and when I’ve been forced, like today, to take a port seat, I kept scouring the bus for an empty seat on the right (literally) side. As we leave Cairo, the fields unfold like black and green leaves of a living book. When the field is freshly cultivated and the rich black soil mounds, herons fill the rows like strings of white fairy lights. Every now and then the head heron must give a signal because they all fly to a tree and perch there like Christmas tree ornaments until it is time to redecorate the fields.

As the bus stops for a non-existent traffic light, a family dashes across the street—the father in one of the long grey robes whose name escapes me, but I’ll eventually look it up, the mother in a burka and the little boy in a full-on military uniform with shoulder epaulets and chest medals. I wonder who is the ruler in that household? The little family disappears in the village streets and then the village itself is left behind as we make a sharp turn onto another road.

We are on the Desert Road which runs parallel to the Nile in the, yes, desert. This part of Egypt is filled with a good deal of rubble. Half-build, or half-destroyed—it’s hard to tell the difference houses and multi-story buildings are everything. As are piles of dirt that look like miniature pyramids, made of rocks, dirt, yellow sand, red sand, chunks of old concrete, limestone bricks, red bricks and even just plain garbage. This is truly a land of pyramids, some intentional, some accidental. What puzzles me is where the garbage comes from in the middle of the desert, for with that shocking abruptness that is so characteristic of Egypt, we have crossed from the Black Land to the Red Land in a literal heartbeat. Perhaps it blows in across the miles of undisturbed sand. Where the sand is not criss-crossed with wheel marks (and at least 90% of it is), the land does look like waves on a red, dry ocean. Every now and then, we see a camel or a donkey, the ships that sail this desolate landscape. Next to the road, lies a dead water buffalo. He looks as if he had simply dropped of exhaustion and dehydration, his legs giving way to breathe his last on the scorching desert. I have expected to see vultures circling, but maybe it’s too hot even for scavengers.

Everywhere in the midst of this nothingness are short, as in one or two brick high walls or small triangles, like corners of imaginary houses. Fadel explains that these are the way people mark their land. Even if you should purchase the land officially, it would hard to prove it is yours without these boundary markers. Akhenaton did the same thing when he moved his capital from Thebes to Amarna—established his domain with boundary stellae in the desert.

All of a sudden, and I do mean, all of a sudden, we are surrounded by lush green, palm trees and flowers—the Al-Fayyum oasis. In Pharoanic times, it was a favorite hunting area of the Kings. While the area has been modified since Amenemhet I of the 12th Dynasty drained the swamp and formed a reservoir, the Aswan Dam has blocked the flow of fresh water and the once vibrant area used for water health cures has become small, polluted and salty. However, the area is still a literal oasis.
I never really understood what an oasis was like until now. Imagine nothing as far as you can see but sand. Imagine being as hot as you have ever been…and then upping that by about 10%. Your mouth is cotton, your head is aching and you are on the verge of heat stroke when you see green. A mirage? A hallucination just before you drop to become bleached bones? No, it’s real. Trees, grass and blessed, life-giving water. Your relief, your joy, your gratitude would be almost indescribable. You who were near death have been given life again. We who live in areas of mountain rives cannot fully appreciate the importance of potable water.

Soon we are at the Pyramid of Maydum, another not on the tourist trail site. Maydum is of interest because it is the transitional form between the Step Pyramid and the true pyramids of Giza. It’s sort of hard to describe, so I’ll put up a picture as soon as I can. What’s very cool is that we get to go inside—and not with hoards of other tourists clamoring about the site, vendors hawking the same identical wares for “one day alone” bargains. Just us and the Ministry of Tourism guards—and their guns. I don’t know guns, but they carry heavy-duty firepower. I definitely don’t want to be in a situation where they decide to open fire.

To get into the Pyramid of Maydum, you climb up the pile of rubble that extends maybe 1/3 of the way up the side and then mount a rather precarious wooden stairway with those unpleasant open steps that look way way down. Once you get to about the middle of the pyramid (have I mentioned we have been doing a great deal of climbing? If no, we have.) you descend a steep ramp/stair of a type favored by the inside of pyramid conservators all the way to bedrock. At that point, you (or we) are once again at the very bottom of the structure. Then begins the fun part—an Indiana Jones type ladder ascending to the burial chamber which is about 2/3 of the way back up the Pyramid. I don’t like ladders. I don’t like ladders that go straight up a Pyramid in the dark. But this is one of those things that you either commit to or don’t but there’s no changing your mind part way through. So up and up we go. The burial chamber which, like all the others, is empty, is also extremely hot and crowded with sweaty American tourists pretending to be Egyptologists. The main feature of this pyramid, besides being a transitional form between the Step and the “real” is the corbelled ceiling which will eventually reach its zenith in the Grand Gallery of the Great Pyramid. However, being hot, tired and facing the descent down the Temple of Doom ladder, architectural features are not exactly captivating my attention at the moment.

Back on the bus (obviously I survived getting out), we leave the desert to return to the banks of the Nile where small villages with dirt roads, smiling children and omnipresent, overloaded donkeys reemerge. Everywhere laundry hangs from upper story windows, the whites blinding in the unrelenting sun. How they get their whites so white is a mystery since the women pound their laundry on the roads along the side of dirty irrigation canals. I can’t see how they can get anything clean in such filthy water. I can’t even get my socks clean using Woolite in a hotel sink! The women use large flat metal basin to cart their laundry to and from the river. In one home, a woman with a heaping basin hangs her clothes to dry while three children play in the dirt courtyard. As we leave the village, a young boy on a donkey try to race the bus. As we pull ahead, he smiles and waves. I suspect the donkey merely pants.

Old fashioned hand pumps pop up every few “block” so it is clear that the houses do not have running water. With my American sensibilities, I find it a bit disconcerti8ng to see goats, donkeys, dogs and children all going in and out of the streetside entrance to the house.

One of the most striking features of this part of Egypt is that almost everything under current construction is built of white brick with mud mortar. The fresh limestone gleams in piles but once used in contraction, the wall takes on a grey hue as the black mud stains the stone.

Once again images race by: A man trotting on a donkey, talking on his cell phone. A woman kneeling on a dirt street, rinsing clothes in a huge basin. Children smiling and waving. Men smoking water pipe, their beautiful silver and ornate designs a jarring contract to the dirt floor homes. Little shops with bottles of coca cola. Bread makers, their grills smoking. Fruit stands with lush looking, not to be eaten by delicate travelers, fruits and vegetables. Bundles of reeds stacked by the side of homes. Those same reeds—and corn stalks—creating fences around courtyards and homes.

And in the distance, the high hills of Middle Egypt.

I won't have internet connection for several days, maybe inshallah, so I probably won't be posting. I appreciate the comments. It's a blessing to share this trip with you who are reading.

Day Four--Storehouse of the Pharaohs

2009-11-09T10:36:00.000-08:00

Today’s schedule features the Cairo Museum, a visit to several mosques and shopping in the Khan el Kahalilli market. As we maneuver the incredibly crowded streets of Cairo in our huge bus, suddenly there it it—the striking pink Cairo Museum, the premier museum of the world for Egyptian antiquities—which only makes sense since it is in Egypt.

The crush of the crowd pouring into the garden area is dizzying. I catch snatches of German, Japanese, Italian, British English and American as we pass through the security screening and follow Fadel into the first room where we cluster around Namer’s Palette, the commemoration of Menes’ unification of Upper and Lower Egypt. One of our group keeps muttering, “It’s Namer’s Palette. It’s Namer’s Palette. Oh my god, it’s Namer’s Palette.” I have to admit it’s almost surreal to see something I’ve known from art history classes, Egyptology reading and the history of the ages. Pristine, unmarred by the centuries, it is an astonishingly beautiful piece of functional art.

But there is no way to linger as the crowds press behind us and we sweep into the Great Hall which looks a bit like a cross behind an exhibit hall and a storage area. Everywhere the eye feasts on a buffet of history and art until the mind can barely absorb more but it would take a lifetime or perhaps two to look at every object, so gapping and gawking, we attempt to keep up with Fadel’s voice on our radios as we make our way to the second floor where Tut’s artifacts are kept.

I have seen some of these when they toured the United States in the 70s but a finely orchestrated exhibit of select pieces isn’t the same as seeing the objects together. I’ve seen many pictures of Tut’s tomb…the first book I read as a girl was an account of Howard Carter’s discovery, but the size and the extent of the objects is almost impossible to grasp. No wonder the only thing he could say when he was asked if he could see anything was, “Yes, wonderful things.”

We move from case to case, looking at Tut’s famous mask, his sarcophagus, his jewelry, his clothing. In one of the displays holding the third of his nested chapels is a piece of linen that looks as if it were a modern polka dot scarf. The dots appear to be sequins sewn onto the material, but I can’t see the underside. It is so contemporary in appearance, I thought for a moment it was a protective drape, although why a drape would be polka dotted did cross my mind.

After racing through some highlights, like a sarcophagus that was cracked in construction, the famous statue of the dwarf, his wife and children, daily artifacts and a blur of other objects, we are given 45 minutes to return to areas we most want to look at. (Just an apologetic aside here. Somewhere along the line, my Guidebook to Egypt has gotten lost so my memory not being what it could be, I’ll have to fill in the names of things like the dwarf when I find another Guidebook, or get home, whichever comes first. )

I immediately head back to the Amarna Gallery and after circling through the cases holding Kiya’s canopic jar, a rough-cut head of Nefertiti and exquisite wall paintings of marsh lands, I slide down, back to the wall to commune with the statue of Akhenaton. Looking into the slightly almond shaped eyes, noticing the rather delicate hands, large hips and full lips, I feel like I am truly seeing the Heretic King. I can’t stop staring into his eyes. What made him decide to abandon the old ways and worship a single god? What made him move his capital from Thebes to the desert and build an entirely new city? What was it about his passion that made the beautiful Nefertiti become his companion in the new religion? I ask the questions much more educated scholars than I have asked for centuries, but Akhenaton merely smiles that slight smile as if he knows we still search his mind for answers.

I decide to return to Tut’s exhibits while I still have a few minutes and, as I turn a corner near a staircase somewhere in this labyrinth of a museum, I come across a smallish case holding the funeral bouquet that Tut’s wife placed on his coffin. I couldn’t be more awestruck if I came across a relic of the True Cross. This is it. This is THE artifact that began my fascination with the Boy King, the Heretic King and the 18th Dynasty of Egypt. I can remember reading about this bouquet when I was five years old and trying to imagine what it looked like. In my mind all these years, it’s been a wreath, but this is much more like a modern funeral spray, the stems bound at one end. The petals are all dried to the same brownish color, but for a moment I see them in their vivid freshness—yellow, orange, red, blue—the same colors of the flowers that we see today at the side of the road. I can see the young Queen placing them on her husband’s coffin, her eyes red-rimmed, but her composure intact, as befits a queen. Perhaps the closest we have seen in modern times were Princess Diana’s boys, racked with grief at the death of their mother, but composed and old beyond their years. Such a very human object in the midst of all the splendor. A bunch of flowers, carefully gathered and laid on the lid of Tut’s coffin, a final gesture of affection that we all can understand, King and commoner, no matter how much millennia separate us.

I check my cell phone time and I have about 15 minutes left. Museums with their miles of corridors and marble floors are tiring places at best and I’m truly on sensory overload. Not to mention I ache from my shoulders down. I must find a place to sit, away from the crush of tourists where I can regain a modicum of mental, physical and spiritual equilibrium, so I slide between two massive columns, perch on one of the marble steps and gaze down the main gallery of the museum, past the mosaic floor that came from Akenaton’s palace to the great statue of Amenhotis III and his wife Ti. The museum is not especially well lit and this gallery is particularly dim, which is somehow quite fitting. It lends a mysterious, almost eerie air to the exhibits, an atmosphere of the ancient which no modern museum, no matter how well built, can ever completely convey.

It’s time to meet up with the group for the next part of the day’s activities and I have an agenda. I don’t always mean to take the road less traveled, but this time I feel compelled. I am going to remain here at the museum while the rest of them see Islamic Cairo, have lunch and go shopping. I have come this far and two hours with these treasures is not long enough. Perhaps there will be another time for mosques and another day for shopping. If not, I am making the choice that is right for me.
Having informed the guard that I was going to return and praying he understood, I leave the sanctuary of artifacts and emerge into the almost blinding sunlight. We are to meet at the garden pond which is planted with blue lotus and papyrus, probably the only place we will actually see these plants that were so important in ancient times. The lotus looks just like the paintings or perhaps one should say that the artists of old exactly capture the image of the lotus. A bit like a water lily, its vivid blue flowers, which apparently have some kind of opiate like property, rise on the end of long floating stalks to dot the surface with splashes of color. The papyrus is a reed with a very feathery top that looks a little bit like the crown of a miniature palm tree. It quivers in the slight breeze, make the whole grove look like it is dancing.

I tell Fadel that I am not going with them and return to the museum. I have a twinge of regret that I’m missing out—I think we all want to do everything and hate to think someone has had a better time than we have had—but life consists of choices. We have to choose and not look back because each of us, even if we are together on the same trip, has a different journey. And mine is at the museum.
The first thing I want to see is the mummy room, which costs an extra $20. When I think I’m looking at the faces of the some of the greatest personages of history, $20 seems a bargain. When I think I’m paying $20 to look at dead bodies, it seems a little macabre. No benches are in this room and it’s not permitted to lean on the cases, even to hold your place in line, so I sit on the floor. I’ve sat on many a floor in many a museum over my lifetime so now I can add the Cairo museum to the collection. I’ve got my back against the wall, staring at the profile of Tutmosis III and butts of tourist. The tourist butts come and go, but Tutmosis is still. He is very small, as are most mummies, partially because the body is completely desiccated and partly because the ancient Egyptians were smaller than we are today. His skin is polished black leather and his face looks almost like it has been shrink-wrapped with his flesh. I consider how mummies were created to preserve the dead for eternity and sitting here on the floor of the Cairo museum, I say part of the ancient prayer of the Dead, asking that his Ka and the Ka of all those in this room live forever and reminding him that he is, even now, remembered by the living. If being remembered and prayed for is immortality, then those in this room have achieved it.

Moving along the rest of the cases, I’m suddenly dumbstruck. My god, I've just looked into the faces of Hatshepsut, Ramses the Great and Seti I. I’ve seen portraits of these Pharaohs, seen wall-carvings and drawings, but now I have seen them, their mortal remains, the visages of men and women who left their indelible mark on history. It is almost incomprehensible.

Hatshepsut was my age and fat. Good heavens, I have something in common with her! Apparently she also had bad teeth, but fortunately I don’t share that attribute. Seti I was a very handsome man, even in death, his strong smooth forehead and almost kindly or at least placid appearance is striking. He looks like a man you could enjoy a beer with. Ramses was old…and he looks it. His once-white hair, now stained a yellow-red by the mummification process—was wispy and thinning. He looks like he was a crabby old man. Since we get the face we deserve, he probably was. Of course, like Hatshepsut, he had very bad teeth and I can personally attest that when you are in a lot of pain, you look and act rather crabby, so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

The crush of the tour tourists has dissipated and I return to Tut’s gallery where only a handful of people remain. I stand before his throne, his baby head that Carter wanted to take out of the country, his gloves, his underwear, his sandals, his pillows with no one else around. I can look for as long as my over-stimulated brain can take it is. I do wonder how he wore the underwear, however. In two pieces, it looks a bit like an oversized diaper with a sash. I think the museum should put up a picture of how it was worn. His shoes look exactly…and I mean exactly…like today’s flip flops. Same identical design. If you worn them on the streets today no one would give you a second glance.

I simply meander through the chambers, finally finding a bench behind his folding throne with its black and white paw design in, portable folding stools on my left and another smaller stool with lion paws on my right. As I write in my journal, a young girl with a bright pink head scarf smiles shyly at me. Suddenly a woman in her late 20’s wearing a gorgeous brunt orange veil, says “Excuse me.” I look up, thinking perhaps I’ve taken someone’s place, but the woman says that her niece wants to talk to me, but is too shy. So with her auntie translating, we have a long conversation. She tells me I have beautiful eyes and wants to know if I have a handsome son. Apparently young girls all over the world are the same!

I’m glad I didn’t opt for the walking/shopping tour. I’m tired and the fibro makes my legs ache horribly. I sort of wander from bench to bench which is fine because everywhere I perch I see something incredible, something I could stare at for hours. Part of me wishes I had taken this trip a few years earlier, when I wasn’t in quite so much pain from the fibro, but then I realize that everything happens in its own good time. I worry that I am holding up people on the tour and I probably am overcompensating by walking faster than I need to, but I don’t want to be that “fat old lady on the trip who always worn green and made everyone wait.” Now that that little rant/confession is out of my system…the next thing I stumbled on were the sarcophaguses of Tut’s fetuses, tiny little coffins that spoke of parents’ grief. I felt a wave of compassion for Tut’s wife, losing her babies and her husband at such a young age. Then at the next corner I encounter three wigs from the 22nd dynasty. They look like giant tightly curled Afros with long braided plaits down the back. They also looked very hot and very itchy.

As I keep wandering, more and more artifacts sweep in and out my vision. Tools, cosmetic cases, vases, lamps, bows, weapons, statues…it’s beginning to be a mental blurr. One of the things I’ve noticed is the windows in this place. They are extremely high on the walls and most of them are open. Clearly rain damage isn’t an issue, but I wonder if they are ever closed and how they would ever reach them to close them. I’ve been approached a few times by men wanting to give me a tour—“Best guide in museum” and I’ve had opportunity to practice my “La!” but I’ve learned that I am unapproachable when writing in my journal. Aha!

The next room brings me Tut’s royal chariots. They are gorgeous, the Lamborghinis of their day, I’m sure, inlaid with ebony and gold, but they also are rather frail looking and I think they must have been dangerous to drive at high speed with their spindly wheels and delicate bodies. Maybe, like other tomb goods, these were never meant to be used in this world, but merely in the next. However, the chariots, like all the other objects are astonishingly beautiful. Mundane objects, perhaps, but infused with an incredibly artistry and craftsmanship. What is our culture going to leave behind? Flip phones and plastic bottles?

One small dim room contains jewelry from various dynasties. The pieces are very modern in appearance, perhaps because there are only so many ways to make earrings and necklaces, string beads and assemble pendants. Many of the pieces appear too heavy to wear. The earrings in particular would require ear piercings at least the dimension of a pencil, perhaps larger and they look as if they would weigh the lobe almost to tearing. I would like a pair of earrings from Egypt, but not a replica of these.

I circle back to Tut’s nesting chapels, looking for the front and back signs Fadel pointed out. Apparently on the front of each is a lion’s head and on the rear the lion’s tail, a rather ingenious way of keeping front and back clear when they packed the chapels one in the next. I start to sit on a bench to write, when a woman security guard moves it and I back away, but she gestures that I should sit. So I do and she begins to talk to me, asking questions and telling me that her job is to keep people from talking pictures. I ask her about her headscarf and she takes the one peeking out of my bag and arranges it on my head so that I look like a proper Egyptian woman. Then she uses my cell phone to take my picture and I chuckle at the incongruity of a no picture guard taking my picture. I am almost unrecognizable hidden like a Muslim woman. (When I can get the picture off the phone, I’ll put it up here.) She summons another guard and insists that I take a picture with her. I’ve been paying and paying to take pictures of people here and now someone wants my picture. She is sad to learn I am not married and don’t have a financee, but says, “Someday!” with enthusiasm. She talks and talks to me, telling me how to get a taxi and not to pay one pound over 20 pounds to get from the museum to the Sofitel El Gaziah, our hotel. She then walks me to the way out, saying over and over she wished that I would stay longer in Cairo and she would show me her city. That would be nice, but alas, I’m on a tour that resembles the Bataan death march and I must not linger.

Getting the taxi was truly one of the most frightening adventures of my life. The guards at the gate summoned someone for me and after a bit of negotiating he agreed to take me for 20 pounds, always wheedling for at least 25. We approach a street with 8 lanes of traffic and he says, “Take my hand.” I do and we dive head-long in the squealing, swirling, honking maelstrom. A bus comes within inches of my knees and the taxi driver slaps it on the front to make it stop. We weave in and out of cars in a way that would give every American mother heart failure if their children did it and finally come to the medium. I wonder if he is going to ask for the additional 5 pounds. If he says 25 pounds or I leave you here, I’d gladly give him 50 because there is no way in hell that I could ever get across the next four lanes. I’d either be hit or have a heart attack or both. But he doesn’t hesitate and we plunge back into the fray, dodging and darting buses, carts, cabs, cars in a blinding dash. His cab is surrounded by other cabs and I wonder how he will get it out, but squeezing through holes with a good quarter inch on either side, we are swept into the stream of traffic. I’m not sure I’ve made it clear where I wanted to go, but after crossing several streets where I was utterly convinced we were going to die, we arrive at the back gate of the hotel. I pay him his 20 pounds and stumble out of the cab, mentally and physically whipped.

I go out on the balcony of my room, pretending that I don’t have any acrophobia or vertigo. The din of the city below is almost deafening…honking horns, police sirens, the rumble of motors and yet, somehow, serene at the same time. Above the surges of sound, comes the call to prayer, a high haunting cry that soars above the clamor, reminding me that no matter by what name we call the Divine, we are here, on this earth, as his (or her) children and all we experience, including our very lives, is a result of that Divine Creative force and love. The lights of the city begin to twinkle and I can see the faint wake of a small motorboat making its way up the Nile. Tomorrow we will be following him.

Just as an update: I don't know if there will be internet access the next few days, but as soon as I can I'll be logging on.

Day Three--Part Two

2009-11-06T10:28:00.000-08:00

The days are very long and very full and very tiring, so by the time we get to the hotel, clean up, eat dinner and return to the room, I'm one tired girl. So here's part two of Day three, even though the tour is now on day five. I am keeping notes, however. Just not able to write everything that happens during the day before I fall asleep. As always, I don't know from hotel to hotel if I'll have internet access, but I'll post as often as we do. And whenever I can, I'll have pictures to fill in as well.

With that: Driving to Dashure, Part Two.

We are at a small, modern museum in honor of Imhotep, the great architect. Fadel tells us that Zawi (he uses the familiar so shall I) has been establishing museums at the sites, rather than bringing all the artifacts to the main museum in downtown Cairo. The centerpiece of the museum as two life-sized statues with portrait features who appear as if they could almost speak. The details are incredible, even if they are a bit idolized. Not that I doubt all ancient Egyptians sported six-packs to die for, mind you. The personalities of the owners are clear. One, with a thin black moustache, must have been a bit of a dandy. I can imagine him making sure his robes were just so in the morning before he left the house and I can see him thoughtfully stroking his moustache whenever he had to make an important decision.

In one of the galleries, I see my first alabaster cups. I didn’t realize just how translucent alabaster really is until I see these. They almost glow from the inside and to think they are made of stone! The stone carving processes is shown in a relief and I notice that one of the workers has two “buffers” that he uses to smooth the surface. It’s hard to imagine how much work it would take to carve even the most simple of stone vessels, much less produce them in sufficient quantity for regular use. If it were up to me, I might get one made in the course of a lifetime and if anyone tried to use it, well, that just wouldn’t happen. The most beautiful piece, in my mind, is a cosmetic palette in the shape of chubby fish. I wouldn’t mind having my mascara in one like it, but I’m not sure it would be the same made out of plastic anyway.

On the way out, we stop to watch a film (in English) about the Step Pyramid, how it was built and excavations in the area. I have to admit I was more excited about the theater style chairs and a/c than I was the film, although I’m sure it was a fine film. I don’t know what it is about museums that are so exhausting and so hard on the legs and feet. By the time I’ve spent an hour in a museum, I feel like I need a good massage or a stiff drink. Or both.

Our next stop is the mastaba tomb of Tiy, another out of the way, not your usual tourist place, although as soon as we arrive, camels almost magically appear with their owners ready to take us down from the parking area to the tomb for a nice fee.
I’m really torn. It’s a fair walk and I’m getting very stiff and very achy, not so much from the exercise, as the fibro (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!) so a camel is very appealing. But I also want to know what it’s like to walk in the Sahara so I decide on the trek instead of the ride. Walking in the Sahara is just about what you’d expect it to be like. Hard slogging. The sand is relatively fine, even though it is hard packed in most places and so you have to work hard to move at any pace.

The tomb of Tiy is a gem in the middle of windblown sand, best known for its intriguing depictions of everyday Egyptian life. The reliefs in the courtyard have been worn down and only the slightest traces of color remain, mostly red with a little yellow. Inside, however, the colors are brighter. The scenes themselves are incredibly life-like and detailed. I was particularly taken with an image of three cattle being herded across a stream. The herdsman has a calf on his back and you can tell which is Mama Cow by the wild-eyed look and open mouth. In fact, you can almost hear the mooing!

As in most places, the attendant is all too excited to have you take a picture, followed by rubbing thumb and forefinger together, the sign for hand over the money. A one dollar American bill, which is about 5 Egyptian pounds, is universally welcomed. American money might not be valued much in the states, but the dollar bills remain a virtually universal currency. I do have a couple of Euros in my bag, just in case there was a massive crash of the dollar. (Not really. They were left over from the last trip abroad and just happened to be in my money belt.)

Outside the tomb, the ever resourceful camel drivers have come down and now offer ride back up the hill. This time, I take them up on the offer. Camels are broad and tall and my foot managed to get stuck on the back knob of the saddle. I felt…and looked…like a fool with one foot in a stirrup and the other stuck half-way across the camel’s back, but the driver simply lifted my shoe up and over and voila! I was abroad.

I just want to say that riding a camel, despite the rocking motion, the extreme height, the butt-bone numbing saddle is much better than walking in the desert. If you are given the option of walking or riding a camel, take the camel. I had heard Fadel say the going rate was about 20 Egyptian pounds or $5 so I offered the guy $3, expecting to go up to $5, but one of the other women in the group had paid $20 American and so I was expected to as well. I didn’t. Despite a pounding heart that I could hear in my ears, I only gave $5 American. I think the head of the drivers’ was not a bit happy, but I figured I was paying the going rate and they had already gotten much more than they expected from the other woman.

The Step Pyramid itself is located way off the main tourist track, or at least it feels that way to me. Perhaps when I get back, I’ll add some of the history to the account, but for now, just remembering what we saw is taxing enough! But stepping back to the Step. The entrance to the Pyramid Complex (pyramids all seem to be placed in complexes. Or perhaps they get a complex if they don’t have a complex?) is through a small, but very lovely corridor of columns, the first true columns in the world, Fadel tells us. The tops are representations of bundled reeds and the whole entrance is designed to create the sense of entering into the abyss of eternity, just as a sailor would send his craft into the marshes and, to prevent the return path from being obliterated, would tie the actual reeds together to mark the road, so, too, this path symbolically does the same thing.

The Step Pyramid is aptly named. It really does look like steps, and the creator is said to have told his Pharaoh that he was building a stairway to heaven. Fadel explains that while it now looks like the levels are rough, in the original, they would have been faced with smooth limestone and it probably would have resembled a giant white staircase. Off to one side is what looks like a tollbooth containing some of the most ancient graffiti in the world, carefully protected behind glass.
One of the more interesting parts of the site is the ruins of the markers for the Heb-sed festival, an event held every 30 years during a King’s reign. As part of the ceremony, he ran between two markers which symbolized Upper and Lower Egypt, thus proving his health and ability to rule for another 30 years. I noticed that the markers were close enough together that even I could probably run between them. A bit of a security measure to be sure that even an old King could make the run without too much difficulty, I would guess. The courtyard is partially restored, enough so that with a little squinting and a little imagination, you can almost hear the crowd, see the flags of the Provinces waving in the breeze, smell the food vendors (you know there were food vendors) and thrust yourself back in the stream of time to welcome the Pharaoh himself.

From the Step we travel to the Red and Bent pyramids. They are located on a military base, or what once was a military base. It must have connections to the Dept. of Tourism because we must purchase tickets to enter. Incidentally, the admission tickets to the archeological sites are quite lovely. They look a bit like money with holographic images and fine illustrations of the site one is visiting. People on the tour are keeping them for souvenirs. I’m trying, but I keep sticking them in odd places and then not being able to remember where I put them.

The Red Pyramid really is red. Not carmillion or blood red and not even quite as red as the rocks around Sedona, but it definitely has a pink/red hue, especially when it catches the light just right. We drive past it to visit the Bent Pyramid, which gets its name because the angle changes mid-way up. Fadel explains that various theories have been offered as to why the angle was altered, but the one I favor is that the original grade was too steep and they course-corrected part way up.
This is definitely not your usual tourist site. The only people besides our group are some military guards on white camels. Clearly this is a boring duty station since the debris of a campfire. Tin cans with twisted wire handles have obviously been used to make coffee or tea.

In the weathered crevices of the Bent Pyramid, hawks circle and come to rest. Horus is alive and well in this part of Egypt. In the distance is a tower of sorts, the remains of another pyramid called the Black Pyramid. It was called that because the core, which is all that remains, was made of black mud. Some people want to walk to it, but Fadel says it is much further than it appears, but takes the group on a walk in that general direction, around the Bent Pyramid.

The fibro is getting to me and I know that tomorrow we will be visiting the Cairo Museum with its incomparable treasures, so I reluctantly decide I need to pace myself. So I perch on a rock, watched over by the guards and camels.
What an amazing experience. To sit (virtually) alone in the Sahara Desert, in the shadow of the one of the earliest pyramids ever built. The temperature is dropping and even I, who am always hot, catch a bit of a frisson down my back. Overhead Horus languidly circles and then disappears into the distance. It is so quiet I can hear my own breathing. Then, without warning, I sense a presence and look up into the belly of one of the guard camels. I had always heard their padded feet allowed them to silently walk on the sand and I can now attest to that fact. I jumped a bit and the rider laughed. In sign language, he indicated that I could have my picture taken next to the camel for a dollar. Apparently the camel was downgraded to tourist camel when the possibility of money entered into the picture. “La la (no, no),” I said with a smile and the guard, with a bemused shrug, headed off to find the rest of the group which has disappeared behind the pyramid. Eventually they return, we get on the bus and start to leave when more military types appear. The bus driver is clearly uncomfortable and we drive more rapidly than I think we should on the dirt road, stopping only long enough for people to take a quick picture or two.

As we drive back to Cairo, we go through Dashure, the village Fadel grew up in. Fragments of scenes, like pages flipping in a book, go by the window. A man fishing in the irrigation canal, crouching on the bank, his robes covering his feet. A boy leading two cows and water buffalo. Another boy spurring on a donkey to cross the RR track that crosses the canal. A make-shift bridge of logs and board spanning the canal. White herons dotting the unplanted black fields like so many paper cranes on a black velvet cloth. Goats scampering in and out of doorways. A group of sheep passing an “On line café.” A donkey cart piled high with pears, grapes and pomegranates.

Night comes quickly in the desert. There is a slight twilight, but it’s more like a gentle darkening that lasts just a few minutes. Then blackness descends, the temperature drops and night literally falls. It is almost dark by the time we reach the hotel—the Sofitel E Gezira. It’s a circular building, many stories high, directly on the Nile. My room is on the 12th floor. I creep out on the balcony, a bit apprehensive about looking down so far, but the view of the Nile is worth it. As I watch, darkness descends and a fairyland of lights begins to twinkle as far as I can see.

Day Three-Part One

2009-11-05T10:13:00.000-08:00

I'm not a morning person as all my friends and family will atest, but 6 am here is a gorgeous hour of the day. The Aten, to use Akenaten's term, pouring in the window fills the room with a radiant yellow glow. I step onto the balcony and the clear air, the slight breeze, the hint of warmth to come...I can see why Aktenaten decided to worship the Aten and why Re was the supreme God here for so many years.

Along the side of the walk are various kinds of flowers, red geraniums, little blue cornflower like flowers, pink ones with leaves like mint...I stop for a moment to admire the pink ones and I notice that hidden amidst the blossoms are dozens of orange butterflies. I move and they flutter around my ankles like dancing girls clad in their festive finery doing a wild dance in honor of the sun god. Then, at some silent signal, they rise to the sky like a offering of live flowers and swirl off in the the distant blue.

We are going to Saqqarah today to see the famous Step Pyramid, so we are driving beyond Giza into the country. As we stop at a little village market to pick up bottled water, I notice a plastic bag floating like a deflated balloon along a street covered with empty cigarette cartons, tin cans of what looks like cat food and skips and scraps of paper. In a land of such incredible beauty, there is also incredible debris. You skip from one to the other without so much as a pause for breath.

Everywhere I see half-built buildings; I can't tell if they never were completed or if they are abandoned. And in the midst of what I assume must be ruins, I see a line of clothes handing from a balcony like a string of multi-national flags and a satellite dish---someone is living there afterall.

The farther we get into the country, the more donkeys we see. I think there must be more donkeys than cars, all of them heavily laden with goods or riders, trotting along the side of the road, weaving in and out of traffic. I spot a donkey and a motorcycle going nearly the same pace, but with the condition of the road and the traffic, my bet would be on the donkey.

We are traveling the Royal road from Mena House to the Royal lake where Egyptian kings (and perhaps queens) would take their guests to hunt. Fadel says that when he was a boy, it was a narrow dirt road. I don't think it's changed much, although I suppose if you looked close enough you could tell it was asphalt. It nestles its shoulder against a drainage canal that leads all the way to the Mediterranean.

However, because of construction, it's not working properly and the land on either side is reverting to the marshy conditions that existed when the Nile flooded and brought the soil-enriching silt to the farms. Pools of standing water can be seen between houses, in yards and seeping into the fields. As I peer into some of the larger homes, I can see lush gardens, filled with date palms and flowering bushes. Walking in the garden of the Pharoah or a Nobleman must have been a sublime experience, especially with the desert so very nearby.

As the bus rushes through the countryside, so do the images:
A little girl, maybe 8 or 9, sweeping the dirt outside the front step of her house with a broom of twigs shaped like a half-smile
Date palms with their fronds cut and small birds nesting near the bound stalks darting back and forth.
A man and a young boy fishing on the banks of the canal, their lines a delicate arc to the water below.
A teenage boy picking his way down a slope of garbage, stepping carefully, but searching for something, his head bent low, looking intently at the debris.
Two goats poking their heads out of a doorway, alongside a child who peeks over their heads at our bus rushing by.
A girl, about 8, waving and smiling as we pass.
Mechanics in tiny shops, welding metal amid stacks of old tires.
Women bearing baskets on thier heads looking as if they had stepped off the walls of an ancient painting as they walk along the side of the road.

Suddenly the fields and village change to a veritable forest of palm trees. It is as dense as any pine forest I’ve ever been in, although these trees are clearly cultivated. Fadel tells us that the palm is used for its fruit, its fronds are made into a type of fiber fabric, the stalks into furniture and then, when the tree is old, its trunk is used for lumber. Perhaps the Giving Tree shouldn’t have been an apple, but a palm tree instead.

We come around a corner and all of sudden I understand, not intellectually, but viserally why the ancient Egyptians called this the Red and Black land. You can literally draw a line with your finger and separate the lush from the barren, the green from the yellow, the growing from the desolate. We get off the bus and I take a picture—my left side is a tangle of trees, brush, grass. My right side is sand and rock. Life and death, separated by a line in eternity. Little wonder the ancients ones saw now and then as a continuum, marked only by the cessation of the heart beat, but the soul, the life force merely crossed the thread that divides this world from the next.

I'm ending this part of Day three because we have a very early wake-up. We have to be on the bus by 7:30 so I must pack my bags, shower and get ready to leave tonight. If I don't collapse, I'll try to finish tonight...otherwise it will be the next time I have internet access. We are going to an area with spotty access for the next several days so I don't know when I'll next be able to post.

Day Two--Pyramids

2009-11-04T12:34:00.000-08:00

Day 2
Today is a retrospective, not a moment by reality moment account because there simply wasn’t time to write. It was an exhausting, exhilarating day spent at the Pyramids of Giza. But that doesn’t mean I won’t switch tenses since, in my own mind, I go from remembering to actually being back in the moment.
Re Rising.

We enter the bus and drive a very short distance up a fairly steep incline to join dozens of other tour buses at the base of the Pyramid complex. I was particularly struck by the rubble that surrounds the site—rocky scrabble with a fine layer of dust, not really the sand one thinks of in the Egyptian desert. The complex itself is fenced off to bar unauthorized access and military guards in their white uniforms, are everything. As are about a million tourists. Just as aside, I wonder why some women go to archaeological sites wearing ankle turning high heels? I saw one woman in a pair of platform heels that would have been right at home on the catwalk trying to negotiate the rocks.

The surface of the pyramid plateau is an uneven mélange of what must have been paving stones broken and worn by excavations and time. Like a gaggle of baby geese just venturing into the world, we straggle behind Fadel, listing to his lecture on the building of the pyramids, the theories that have been rejected and the precision with which it was all built.

Everywhere children hawk items—gifty souvenirs—I avoid the word tacky, but it would fit here—cheap statues of Bastet, plastic pyramids, and envelopes full of postcards. They start out asking $5. American for 10 cards, but the real going rate seems to be about a dollar.

It is almost impossible to find words to describe the Great Pyramid. Which is why I’ve been skirting around starting. The Pyramid of Khufu is 137 meters high—which is, if my faulty metric to feet conversion is about 450 feet. As you stand under it, it is impossible to see the top because of the angle. But that’s not what makes it so incredible. Standing there, I realize that I am at the foot of the last remaining wonder of the ancient world. One of the great wonders of civilization. The only one that sill looks the way it did (or close to it) when it was built. Others have completely disappeared, like the Colossus of Rhodes or are mere shadows of their original selves. But the Pyramid, with its precise angles and looming presence on the skyline is still as impressive as it must have been to those who visited it two thousand years ago. Its sheer size is difficult to comprehend and pictures do not do it justice. It is particularly awe-inspiring when you realize that it was built without any of the things we require for modern construction, like lasers, computers and, oh yes, the wheel. The ancient Egyptians apparently didn’t use the wheel to move the blocks in place, but relied on a system of rollers instead. As we gaped at the immense stone blocks, Fadel talked about the various theories of how the Pyramid was built, but I was so awe-struck by its precision and beauty, the latest, involving some sort of lever device has escaped my journal and my memory.

The thousands of tourists snapping pictures, many of which seem to consist of being positioned so that it appears you are holding the pyramid by your fingertip, and I include myself in the category of tourist, but not in the finger holding the pyramid division, stand in a line nearly 4000 years old. It boggles the mind to realize that during Cleopatra’s time, these ancient giants were nearly 2000 years old. They were as old to Cleopatra and Marc Antony as they partied on the Nile as Cleo and Tony are to us today.

We walk, stroll almost, about the complex listening to Fadel lecture on the history, One of the novel and very practical aspects of this tour is that we all have radios and Fadel broadcasts his talks on channel 108. We can wander quite a distance and look at whatever we want, while still hearing him. And he can summon his goslings back with just a few words. It’s a very efficient, very practical way of keeping a group together while still allowing maximum wandering freedom. Walking into history via modern technology.

Periodically Fadel leaves us, shutting off his broadcast, to take a cell call or a text because we are supposed to meet with Dr. Zawi Hawass who was Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities until this last week when he was made a Deputy Minister of Culture. As Secretary General, he had to retire this year, but as Deputy Minister he can work as long as the President of Egypt wants him to. And since Dr. Hawass is arguably the most famous Egyptologist of the day and perhaps one of the best known archaeologists in the world because of his many television programs and specials, it’s a pretty good bet that he will continue working with Egyptian antiquities for a good many more years.

We are getting to have a private meeting with him because he and Fadel went to school together and are both colleagues and personal friends. At one point, Fadel informs us that Dr. Hawass was at the dedication of the new Howard Carter museum and we are at the mercy of his “murky schedule.” Dr. Hawass’s assistant, a cheerful young American named April keeps updating Fadel on Dr. Hawass’s current location. At least that’s what I think she is doing.

After walking along one side of the Great Pyramid, which was sufficient long enough to satisfy any latent urge to circumnavigate it, Fadel leads his little gaggle away from the hoards to a small tomb of the overseer of pyramid construction and a head scribe…whose name I have forgotten and who isn’t listed in my guidebook. His tomb is in a group of tombs, mastabas actually, that cluster in the shadow of the pyramids, so as to allow their owners to share in the glory of the Pharaoh.

This tomb is hewn from solid rock.

Down a short flight of fairly steep steps, it remains a silent sentry to the fascination the ancient Egyptians had, not with death, but with eternal life. The tomb, or more correctly, the chapel, consists of an outer room, an inner chamber with five statues of the tomb’s owner and one of him as a child, representing different aspects of his life, a small center chamber and a room with a false door and offering table. Fadel points out the chiseled inscription which look as if they were museum replicas and not the real things, they are so clear and fresh appearing. It is the blessing of the desert that preserves these artifacts of the ancient culture. The dry air, lack of rain and general desert conditions are ideal for preserving everything from pottery to human flesh.
Next stop is the solar Boat Museum, so we need to go around to another side of the Great Pyramid. The second largest pyramid on the site, the Pyramid of Khafre peeks around the corner. It is unusual in that its tip is still covered with the polished white limestone blocks that originally covered all the pyramids. It must have been quite a sight to see these enormous white building rising like massive sailing ships on the sea of the desert. Even today, with city buildings virtually at their feet, they are still awe-inspiring.

It’s essential to pay close attention to where you step and not just because the ground is so uneven. The stony platform is littered with camel dung (smallish pellets) and what must be horse or donkey feces, although I am not sure since I am not now nor do I ever want to become a dung specialist. It is also important to watch for puddles as well, where the camels (and perhaps the donkeys…I’m not a urine specialist either) have relieved themselves. The camels are here for the tourists—take a camel ride and get your picture taken by the Great Pyramid. Some of the camels look in fair condition, but others have open wounds and they all are covered with flies.

Suddenly a fight breaks out between two trinket vendors. One puts the other in a choke hold and much cursing in Arabic ensues. The fight breaks up with the arrival of the Tourism Police, but after the officer departs, the injured party throws a few stones at his opponent…just for show.

The Museum of the Solar Boat is blissfully air conditioned and since I am dripping swelteringly hot, I could stay inside for a very long time. The a/c isn’t for people, however, but for the boat which was found intact in a pit at the side of the Pyramid. It was used, not in this world, but to transport the King to other mystical realms in the afterlife. We are obliged to put on thick canvas shoe covers, shove our bags thought an X-ray machine, pass through the gift shop and enter the exhibit hall.

Suddenly, we get word through our radios that we must leave immediately. Dr. Hawass has arrived. Fadel urges us to hurry and “get a move on” as we begin a very brisk march down the steep causeway leading from the Pyramid of Khafre to the Sphinx. It’s steep enough that my thighs feel the pressure, but we continue at a near jog until we reach a guarded barrier. The guard opens it for our group and we walk down a wooden staircase until we reach the very base of the Sphinx.
Above us, the throngs look over a railing down into the excavation, but we are standing at the very paws of the Great Beast.

We are here only because this is where we are to meet Dr. Hawass, at the Dream Stele at the base of the Sphinx. We wait for a few minutes and then suddenly, he appears in his uniform of blue jeans, blue shirt and infamous hat looking exactly like he does on every National Geographic special.

This has to be one of the most surreal moments of my life. Standing at the paws of the Sphinx with hundreds of tourists looking down at us, as we listen to the leading Egyptologist in Egypt today talk about his work, his explorations and his newest discoveries. Among the most intriguing, is the revelation that sometime in the next few weeks, as a result of DNA testing in new labs that specialize in DNA from mummies, he and his ream will reveal the parents of King Tut. Later I asked his assistant, April, if the world would be surprised at the names and she smiled nearly as enigmatically as the Sphinx itself before saying that it was Zawi’s to report, adding that the details had been checked and rechecked three times so that when the announcement comes, it will be definite. To think that within a month one of the great mysteries of the 18th Dynasty will be solved!

At the end of his talk about the preservation, and a Q and A session, Dr. Hawass allowed each of us to have our picture taken with him and while I never really want my picture taken with a celebrity, I made an exception of the man who will go down in history with the greats like Howard Carter and Flanders Petri. It seemed like a good thing.

As Dr. Hawass and his guards left, our group moved to the shady side of the Great Beast. Since no one is allowed to be this close, the fine sand was footprint free. I stepped into the powder and then took a picture of my sole print, feeling a bit like I was photographing a print on the surface of the moon.
We were free to look about, so I decided to circumnavigate the Sphinx. As I stopped to stare up at the gigantic face, I caught sight of a small dark scorpion, which I assiduously avoided, crawling over the casing as well as several very intent long-legged black ants. As I came around the far side, viewing the profile was a heart-stopping moment.

Against the blue sky, dotted with angelically photoshopped clouds was that profile. The most famous stone profile in the world. It took my breath away.
Coming back to the front, I was alone, so I rested my palms on the sacrificial altar directly between the paws and stared through time at the Dream Stele. The antiquity of the place suddenly overwhelmed me and the thought that I was standing where virtually no one gets to go hit me. I began to cry. This was my pilgrimage, my Mecca, my Rome. And it was every bit as astonishing as I had ever hoped.

Leaving the Sphinx, the modern world intruded in the reality of a one-way road. We couldn’t be driven back up the hill. We had to climb the causeway in an aerobic exercise and diagnostic knee strength testing. At the top, we started again on our aborted tour of the Solar Boat museum.

Long ago I read that the Queen Mother told Prince Charles that he should always sit instead of stand, ride instead of walk and never pass up a chance to go to the bathroom. I passed up the bathroom but when I saw a wooden chair standing lonely sentinel at the edge of the boat pit, I immediately snagged it. Right under the air conditioning, with a view down into the pit, I sat and blissfully allowed the possibility of heat stroke to be blown away.

Eventually the group reassembled. Bathroom breaks take awhile. And we climbed up three stories to see the reconstructed Solar Boat. It is astonishing to think that the Cedar of Lebanon still gave off a sweet aroma when the pit was first opened in the 1950s. The boat itself is much much larger than I expected, although why I expected it to be small, I don’t know. It is beautifully preserved from the originally matting that lay over the top of the cabin to the huge oars in the shape of spearheads to defend against an evil god who causes sand bars to move. The only thing that is modern is the rope used to lash it together. The original rope still exists, but for safety purposes, modern rope was used.

Leaving the Solar Boat, Fadel informs us that it is now time to enter the Pyramid of Khufu, to climb to the King’s Chamber if we are so inclined. In order to preserve the interior, only 300 tickets are issued each day and it is necessary to be in line at 6 am. Unless, of course, you are Fadel and a personal friend of the Deputy Minister of Antiquities. (Just as an aside, April said to me that no one in all of Egypt has better connections than Fadel. I believe her. He is amazing.)

I am a little scared of the climb. I’ve seen pictures of the low ceiling where you must crouch to climb and then the Grand Gallery with its very steep ramp staircase. I also know you climb about 2/3 of the height of the Pyramid and I know that I’m not in great shape and I already ache from the fibro, but fear be damned and fibro be banished. I decide I’m going to do this no matter what. It is my only chance and I’m not giving it up.

The climb is as arduous as I dreaded. It’s very steep, very narrow and very hot. Definitely not for the claustrophobic or the faint of heart for once you are committed to the climb, there is no turning back. It’s up and up and up in the heat, the dark and unknown. And then there is the descent. It is so steep one could probably slide down and if one lost one’s footing, you would probably take out at least 20 other climbers in your fall.

After a breath-robbing, heart pounding, knee aching climb we arrive at the King’s Chamber. It was everything I expected and nothing at all what I expected. It was totally black, as much from the color of the walls as from the complete and utter darkness pierced only by a few rather dim lights. But what gave the experience an eerie hue as that a woman, arms open to the ceiling, was chanting over the sarcophagus. The resonance vibrated deep into my chest and I could feel the notes echoing in the very cells of my being. After she quit singing, I moved in the sweltering oppressive heat to her place and laying my hands on the cool stone, I said a silent prayer for all who had stood here before me, inside the Great Pyramid of Khufu.

The climb down was as bad as I had anticipated. Hard on the knees, hard on the shoulders as I braced on the rails, hard on the back as I crouched in a near crawl though the winding corridors. Besides the fact I was extremely proud of myself for having actually accomplished this feat, I learned I’m not especially claustrophobic since the dark and closeness didn’t’ really bother me. Of course, the pounding of my heart, the gasping for breath, the aching in my calves and thighs might have mitigated any minor claustrophobia. When you think you might have a heart attack, a little darkness is immaterial.

I knew I was hot…sweltering actually…in the interior, but I didn’t realize just how hot until I got out and the afternoon breeze, which had been quite warm, was down-right chilly. How interesting it is that your perception can change so rapidly.
We geese returned to the bus behind our leader and we headed for a late lunch. After winding through narrow streets shared equally by pedestrians, cars, donkeys, goats, carts and the occasional cat, we parked and…walked some more, passing a stable with bony horses and bored camels for hire. Turning a corner, we came to the restaurant and as we waited for the door to be opened, we shared the street with various Arabian horse, a foal and one donkey who was hot-footing it as fast as he could clip-clop around the corner. Oh the delightful incongruity of a Mercedes bus, a Peugeot cab, a Japanese car, a grey donkey, a sandy camel, black and white goats, a dun mare and foal and a calico cat---all just outside the restaurant where we were having lunch. If the sights weren’t enough to convince me I was in Kansas anymore (although I’ve only been in Kansas once and really don’t want to return), the noises would be a sure sigh. The guttural grown of the camels, the braying of the donkeys, the yelling of the men all punctuated with the rap of hooves from a quick-stepping horse.

Following lunch which was a fabulous assortment of vegetables, of which we tender stomached Americans were told to eat only those that were cooked, we got up close and personal with the camels on the stoop by taking a camel ride through backs streets with tiny shops, children playing the games children play everywhere, camel dung, donkey piles, dirty puddles and a crush of horse-drawn carriage, camels, goats and people. Eventually we came to a gate with Tourism Police who let us go out into the desert for a photo op of riding a camel with the Pyramids in the background. It was a completely kitschy, completely romantic and absolutely wonderful moment.
One word of warning, when the drivers tell you to “lean back and hold on,” that’s just what they mean: “lean back as far as you can and hold on for dear life” because the camel rocks up and in case you haven’t been next to a camel recently, they are very very tall. If you don’t lean back and hold on, you will most definitely fall off. Even though I had been on a camel before, the one I rode was very tall and it was a very long way to the ground.

On the way back to the hotel, we had a shopping opportunity at a jewelry store which specializes in gold cartouches with your name. I wasn’t even going to go in, but I was talked into leaving the bus to just “look around.” I didn’t think I would find anything since I have more than enough jewelry I don’t wear, but lo and behold, in the back I found small statues of Egyptian gods. I added Hathor and Sekmet to my collection.

Several of our group were going to an Indian restaurant and others were following the one we call Maid Marion to a grill. But I was way too tired for another excursion and besides, I had promised myself that I would keep my journal and notes up, so I opted out. Good thing because I ate at the coffee shop at Mena House and fell asleep twice over my fried egg, turkey and veal sandwich.

Tomorrow we go to Saqquarah and Dahshur.

Day One

2009-11-03T09:43:00.000-08:00

If this were a book, this would be the foreword, that stuff no one reads. But I am hoping you might read this because, like many forewords, it does contain some things I want you to know.
This blog is a record of my trip to Egypt, the number one item on my "bucket list." The story of how I came to take this trip at this time will have to wait, but for now, this is the record of my adventure.
A couple of things:
1. The tense changes throughout from present to past and I've made no attempt to alter that. I know it changes because I keep notes in a hand-written journal, a Moleskine to be precise, with its black cover and unlined pages, the same sort of journal that traveled with Hemingway and Picasso.(Incidentally, I write in it because it makes me feel like I am joining in a great stream of visitors to this land who, journals in hand, have seen these same magnificent buildings and temples and stood in awe before their history and heritage.) The tense changes in my journal, depending on when I am able to scribble in it and as I essentially transcribe my journal to share with you, I haven't bothered to edit. Partly because I think there is a certain interesting flavor to the immediacy of the words and partly because I'm just too damn tired at night when we get back to do the kind of rewrite and editing that would require.
2. This really is a blog, a journal account. If and when I can, I'll provide links and possible pictures, but internet access isn't always the easiest and so I'm not approaching this with the same degree of detail that I would if I were truly writing a book, for instance.
And because of the internet issues, I'm not sure how often I will be updating this. I'm going to try for daily, but I'm also going to go with the flow.
3. I'm writing this on a netbook with a small keyboard and no spell check...so ignore the typing errors that are sure to appear
Finally, .I'm doing this because I hope to let you in on a bit of my dream and the fulfilment of that dream in the hopes that you will go out and find your own dream. It is only in the sharing that we make our experiences come to life.

And so it begins.
The fulfilment of a dream.
I'm on my way to Egypt. Technically I'm on my way to New York where I'll catch an Egypt Air flight to Cairo. According to othe moving map at the back of the seat in front of me on this Delta flight, I'm somewhere over Forest City, Iowa. The heartland of America. Somehow that seems like poetic justice to begin a journal of an adventure to the mysterious land of the Pharaoahs and the Sphinx, the vast desert and the throbbing lifeline of the Nile. Over Iowa, the middle of the middle of the country of my birth.
The flight from Portland to JFK was supposed to leave at 6:25 am but the number two engine was three quarts low on oil and, for some reason, no mechanic at the airport was authorized to put oil in. So someone else, from some place elesd had to be summoned. This, of course, took a very long time, more than a hour. Clearly putting in a couple of quarts in an Airbus is not like going to the nearby JiffyLube.
Fortunately I have a couple of hours in JFK before I catch the next flight to Cairo (Oh My God, I'm going to Egypt!) so it doesn't much concern me. A few people are panicking, but there always seems to be at least one person who gets freaked out, as if that will somehow make the place fly faster.
Incidentally, if you want to attact attention, just carry an Egypt tour book. Everyone stops and asks if you are going there. Then, when you say "yes," they act quite surprised as if it were usual for people to carry around Egypt tour books. After about the third person said the same thing, I was very tempted to reply, "If you didn't think I would be going there, why do you think I would be reading 'The Rough Guide to Egypt'?" But I refrained. At least so far.
Last night in the restaurant where I had dinner before going to the hotel which offered a Park and Fly option that was ultimately cheaper than paying for parking in the budget lot, the manager was so intrigued, he brought over one of his servers who was from Jordan and they both sat down and talked with me for about 20 minutes. At the end he said that if I would come back on the way home and show them the pictures, he'd give me dinner on the house.
I might just take him up on the offer.
*****************
The afternooon air in NY was brisk, but since the airplane had been stiffling, it felt wonderful. I caught the Air Train to the International terminal where, once inside, the presence of veils and rapid-fire world languages made it clear I was leaving the US.
As I was checking in, the man at my Egypt Air station was clearly a supervisor, as he was dressed in a suit and tie, not a uniform. As he took my ticket, he asked if I knew the president of Germany. I said I didn't and then he added, "You look 90% like her. The next time you look in the mirror, you are looking at the President of Germany." I googled her on my iPhone while I was waiting and I'm not sure if we look that much alike. We are both blonde, and sort of round-faced. Perhaps I'll be mistaken for a German in Egypt. Not sure if that is good or bad. German or American? Which would I choose.
************
In the Egypt Air plane waiting for take-off, I find myself surprisingly delighted to learn that one of the people on the trip is a doctor. Now granted, he is a radiologist, but still. A doctor is a doctor and I'm pretty sure he still remembers how to treat heat stroke or snake bite. In any event, it is nice to be traveling with your own physician of sorts.
He and his wife are traveling with his cousin and her husband. And in the small world category, the cousin's husband graduated from Stanford where my son Matt went. Even though I'm not a Stanford grad, there is a sort of comradery that goes with the Cardinal connection and I was adopted into the "club." So I have some companions for the journey, although I am happy to have my own room.
Egypt Air feels like almost every other plane I've been on except for the foot rests that resemble those on Amtrack. And the fact that everything is in Arabic and English. The announcements take a very long time in Arabic and end with Shukran, thank you, one of the few Arabic words I know. The same announcement in English takes less than half the time. I wonder what we non-Arabic speakers are missing out on?
One interesting point is that instead of a movie or pre-flight announcement, the overhead screens show the pilots' view of the runway. We are slowly taxiing, since we are 20th in line fo take-off. No turning back now.
About an hour into the flight, the attendants brought little zippered pouches with sox, sleepshades, toothbrush, ear bud and a carrying strap. I can only imagine what they must get in first or business class.
*************
We are about 40 minutes for landing. I slept som, rather fitfully and uncomfortably, but I dozed a bit. It's now 2 am my time and I've been up for nearly 24 hours, so no wonder I feel a bit off. I'm not exactly excited or nervous anymore. Just a little spacy. As I look out the window all I can see is a sliver of blue sky beyond the slanting slope of an immense silver wing. We are suspended in space, not part of the earth, but not part of the sky and we hurl through the frigid air, eating, drinking, talking as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world. Which, I guess, it is now.
***************
Kemet. The Red and Black Lands. Egypt.

My first glimmer is a flash of red-yellow sand between fluffy white clouds and the azure sky. As the wing dips, I see a bit more and I have an "aha" moment. I now understand why the ancient Egyptians called the desert the "Red Land." Under the yellow of the desert is a pale salmon color and where a road or a building brushes away the surface, deep red lines remain.
The desert is truly endless, broken by patches of buildings, the same color as the sand. It suddenly strikes me as I watch that there is no water. No streams, no lakes, no ponds. Little patches of dusty green pop up now and then, but there is no open water. I understand now why the Nile was so important. It was and still is the only source of water in what is truly an endless desert.
*******************
Our group gathered to get our Visas together and as I waited, someone called my name. Hearing one's name in Cairo is a bit of a jarring experience. It turns out someone on the flight (not on my tour) was a member of the Board of Directors of the Catholic Press at the same time I was and he recognized me. Indeed it is a very small world.
I have to admit there is a certain advantage to being in a tour. They take care of details like Visas, customs, luggage etc. All I have to do is find a bathroom. Which grows more urgent by the moment.
The terminal of the Cairo airport we landed at is brand new, as in less than a month old. It gleams in every corner and the bathrooms are utterly spotless. I was a little startled when, in this ultra-modern bath with automatic flush, a hand suddenly came under the door with a wad of toilet tissue. Since there was a roll in the stall, I tried to remember the Arabic for "No thanks," but being a bit tired, trying to balance my purse and carry-on and pee at the same time meant I had no brain. The hand finally pulled back out.
We were accompanied through the city by a police escort which I didn't see, but I did see cars swerve quickly to let us pass so I assume he was in front. I really don't know why we had a police escort. Perhaps all buses filled with American tourists do.
***************
Cairo is greener than I expected although I knew that gardens had been a part of Egyptian culture since the beginning. Nevertheless, I saw many more trees and evergreens than I had anticipated. Most are a dusty green, from the pollution, the cars, and the dust itself. Every now and then, a bank of bougainvillea appears, the red flashes of the blossoms revealing pocket gardens between buildings, in old villas and even, sometime, just along the side of the road.
I had been waiting for my first sight of the Nile and suddenly, we turned a corner and there it was. The Nile. The most famous river in history, perhaps the most famous river in the world. The river of the Pharaohs and Cleopatra and Alexander and the British. It was, well, the Nile. Broad, silvery blue and flowing steadily toward the Mediterranean. I barely got a glimpse before high rises cut off the view, but then we crossed a bridge and below us was the most amazing sight. A couple of small islands of the most incredibly lush green fields. It struck me that they looked exactly like the fields in a computer game about Egypt that my son and I used to play. The islands, in the center of the river between Gezi and Cairo are not filled with masses of tumbling houses, half-built high rises or a jumble of dwellings which appear to have sprung up without regard for direction or safety. Apparently they are considered "the lungs" of the city and are therefore left verdent, to be cultivated as the land of the Nile has been cultivated for centuries.
************
Our tour guide Fadel Gad has been giving us rolling history lessons as we pass through Heliopolis, the President's Palace, Military Academies and what seems like endless highrises. Much looks as I had imagined or extrapolated from my visit to Jordan, but nothing prepared me for the Cities of the Dead.
The Cities of the Dead, which is now a sort of squatters' area inhabited by the living as well, is enormous. Literally miles and miles of what look like small houses, shrines and temples surrounded by walls. It truly is a City....of the deceased. If ever one were to realize that the necropolises of Pharonic times are not yet gone, one has only to look at the City of the Dead. It is estimated that as many as 500,000 Cairenes live in these cemetaries and, as we passed by some of the alleys with evidence of live habitation, it was a very odd thing to think about children playing literally on the bones of their ancestors. Life and death. Birth and rebirth. It is a very Egyptian concept, the living and dead together. But a bit eerie from my Western perspective.
The Citadel of Salah-al-din is located near the end of the Cities of the Dead, at least via the route we took. An enormous fortified Crusader-era complex, it stretches like a Medieval spider across the landscape. Our tour guide said that we would not be visiting it because it "wasn't that old." In a land where time is measured in thousands of years, the 13th century truly isn't all that old. In fact, it's practically modern by comparison.
**************
The landscape almost immediately changes from city to rural and just as we turned off to go to our hotel near the Pyramids, there began to appear little stands with a vegetable seller and always a donkey. Carrots must be in season for everyone had bunches for sale. They are beautifully arranged, their bright orange ends bundled and fanned out like some oddly pointy flower arrangement that has fallen onto its side. At one of the stands, a grey donkey contently munched his own bag of carrots. As we passed, the vendor began tossed water from a bucket onto the vegetables and being the quesy-stomached American, I no longer considered how lovely and picturesque the carrots and vegetables were, but began to think Immodium thoughts and recalled how a friend of mine nearly died from eating raw carrots in Egypt. I can see why she was tempted, but I will resist the temptation.
Our hotel is magnificent. The Mena House was once a khedival hunting lodge and was the placw where Roosevelt and Churchill initiated D-Day as well as the signing of the peace treaty between Isael and Egypt. Upon our arrival we were given glasses of karkaday, a scarlet beverage made from hibiscus flowers. It is slightly reminiscient of cranberries, with the same sweet-tangy flavor.
**************
My room is modern and comfortable, but the most amazing thing is that outside on my balcony I can see Cheops' Pyramid, soaring high above what appears to be the minuet of a mosque. (But it might be something else pointy.) I am sitting in a comfortable chair, with a slight breeze blowing, looking at the Great Pyramid. I can bearly believe it. After a lifetime of dreaming, it appears before me as if it were itself a dream.
A flock of bird soars to the heavens, temporarily creating a cloud of living smoke in front of this, the last remaining wonder of the ancient world, old at the time of Christ, ancient even to Cleopatra, this symbol of eternity seems almost itself to be eternal. As the birds circle and then dive, I can see why the ancient Egyptians chose the bird to be the sign of the Ka, the soul. I feel like for a moment I've been given a glimpse into the soul of the Pyramid.
Directly in front of me, a lush green manicured lawn glides up a gently slope. Palm trees sway in the breeze, their fronds waving gently. The temperature is ideal and I now understand why, in the 19th century, people came to Egypt in the winter for their health.
Turning my attention back to the Pyramid that fills the skyline, I sense I'm holding my breath.
I am here.
I am really here.
It has begun.