It was a bright day of June, my third day when finally I
was ready to pay a visit to the only World Wonder of the ancient times still
"alive": The Great Pyramids of Gizeh. The night before I was at my room in the
President Hotel, Zamalek area, studying very carefully my "survival kit", this
is, my "Lonely Planet Guide to Egypt". This is really an amazing book,
miraculously I found it the very same day of my depart to Egypt in Caracas, the miracle
consist in the fact that I have just two hours before my leaving to the airport, I had
just one chance to go to a library, I did my choose, and there was the book, I knew that
Lonely Planet was a very good series of traveler's guide, I supposed that the had a guide
on Egypt… and it was there!
The trip took about 20 minutes, the taxi driver was a nice
man, but no English, only Arabic, he tried to please me tuning in the car radio an English
speaking station, that seems to be a BBC or Deutsche Welle program, in Cairo there are
almost no radio stations, in FM I found just two or three, one of them was
Arabic-French-German-English station, with classic music, folk, etc. Well, finally I gave
him 20 LE's, the 15 promised and 5 as backsis (tip).
You can feel the proximity of the Pyramids, they are in the town of Gizeh, but now this ad
Cairo are as one city. After small buildings suddenly appear the big monuments, I first
thought something like "I did it!", I was looking a dream place for a lot of
people through-out the world, since centuries ago.
I paid the 20 LE's that allow you enter to the Pyramids complex, I was alone, my only
companion was the LP guide, the three big pyramids were about 500 meters from the main
south entrance, I followed a paved road, but just at my first steps I saw a huge cloud of
something, "Sand is coming..!" and all the people ahead of me swiftly turn their
heads on the direction of the wind, and the cloud, covering us passed like a monster who
run following something.
There were tens of people with camels, horses and mules looking for tourist, "excuse
me sir, do you want a ride on camel?", was the most frequent question, in many
languages. This people for some reason get angry very easy each other and with the tourist
policemen, I saw several quarrels.
First I saw the Sphinx, it disappointed me a little because I expected a bigger one, how
ever, I leave the Sphinx for a visit after the Pyramids.
The first impulse is to go to the biggest pyramid, the pyramid
of Keops, also known as Khufu. I don't write about the history or the technical facts of
this monument, this can be found in any book on Ancient Egypt, but what I tell is that the
word pyramid is greek, and one legend said that this name comes from pyramis
"perfect cake".
When finally I reached the pyramid I was so tired and thirsted that I only wanted to be
seated drinking water, and I did it, I always had with me a one liter bottle of water, in
all my sojourn in Egypt I drunk so much water that I almost became an
"waterholic".
In that moment there were about 100 tourist from everywhere, mainly from West Europe and
Japan, they came in tours by buses, who wait for them near by. But suddenly almost
everybody disappeared and only remained a few. Since then I suffer the relentless pursuit
of the local vendors. They never accept a "NO" for answer, in any language, even
if you don't pay attention they insist in sell you postcards, stone beetles and all kind
of souvenirs. One of them follow me everywhere selling me postcards, I say no and all the
arguments possible to try to convince him that I don't need nor want postcards, I walked
silently… didn't work, the only solution that I found was suddenly begun a fast
escape running 100 meters in 10 seconds and never see backwards. What happened with him?,
I don't know, but I was free, FREE!.
I walked around the Khufu's pyramid, the lower stone was restored, and now it have the
aspect that it had in ancient times. The rest are big blocks of stone. At the north face,
I saw some people over the blocks, this is allowed?, I read my LP guide, of course, the
entry!. I hurried to the "hole", but when I was close enough I realized that it
was no free entrance, I asked to a tourist german lady, "where can I buy a
ticket?", "There", she said, pointing out a small ticket office near by.
"It's worth?", "I guess it's worth", "but you don't go
inside", "Well, no, I'm claustrophobic!". She said the magical word
"claustrophobia", I'm claustrophobic, too!, but I had to get into the pyramid, I
will think in an very wide tropical beach or somthing like that.
Twenty others LE's I paid (about 6 USD), the entrance have a high door (or hole), about
20 meters from this point, there is an ascending passage of 1.3 meters high and one meter
wide. I begun to follow this tunnel, but just after 2 or 3 steps, I saw upwards ad there
were some people going down, no room for more than one person in opposite direction, I
went back, and wait. "Nobody there, I'm going up…", at the middle of the 40
meters tunnel, the claustrophobia begun to work, but I though, "this walls have 46
centuries, it will be an extremely bad luck that they fall exactly the day that I decided
to be in." Then I reach an intersection of two ways, one leads to the Queen's Chamber
and other to the "Great Gallery" and then to the Pharaoh's Chamber. I went to
the Queen's Chamber, it is a "chamber", nothing there, but is interesting to
know that you are in the middle of a big structure. There I meet Slajan Todosijevic, a
26-old man from England, who ask me for a photo of him, and I ask the same favor for me.
We talked about or trips and when we were interchanging e-mail addresses, suddenly we
heard shouts from a german girl who was blooding from her head, and this was a strange
experience for me because with this girl at my side crying, I did nothing, I still was
writing on a paper my e-mail address to Slajan. But wait, she wasn't alone, she had her 3
or 4 companions with her. Nothing we can do, but what suprised me was my cold blood!. She
hit her head with the border of the tunnel, but soon she was fine, or at leas calm.
The Pharoh's Chamber is almost the same thing but bigger. My only feeling was, now I can
say "I was there!", but nothing else, no energy, no cosmic bath, no multicolor
lights… Nothing remarkable on going back, and outside again.
Next stop: Chephren pyramimd.
Herman
at the Great Pyramid (Keops)
Chephren Pyramid.
The secong tallest and largest is the Chephren (Khafre) pyramid. This time I was
with Slajan, is better to have somebody with you can talk and comment the things. We pay
another 10 LE's for the "Second Pyramid". There were a very few people there, at
the entrance, a young lady of about 20 years-old said "I'm Sali, I'll be your
guide", "Nice", I said. She explained us everything about the pyramid, and
the Pharaoh's Chamber was almost the same of Khufu, but this have an empty sarcophagus. At
the end of our mini-tour, when we said good bye to Sali, she said "backsis"
(tip), this is really a sad thing, I was convinced that she did it for kindness, or at
least it was her job, but no: backsis.
The Sphinx.
Still with Slajan, we went though the paved road to the Sphinx, at the main gate it have a
temple or something like that. In Arabic is called Abu al-Hol, "Father of
Terror". It was restored in recently years, but only the low level, thanks God,
because I think that it loose its magical touch if somebody change its no-nose face. We
took the classical picture with the Sphinx as background, and say good bye to the Pyramids
ad went back to Cairo.
Before that, outside the Complex, we have our "lunch" in a KFC just in front of
the main gate. I imagined the Pharaoh eating his chicken watching the workers carrying the
big blocks…
Herman at the Gizeh
Sphinx