For as long as I can remember, I was fascinated by ancient Egypt. I always wanted to read more about it and knew that the answers to a great many questions about the earliest civilisation were to be found there. I also secretly believed that I would be able to find those answers or at least a few of them if I had a chance to look up the amazing pyramids up close but that obviously was wishful thinking and the enigma only grew even more.
A few weeks ago, I got a chance to visit Egypt with my son for a whole week. It was a dream come true.
The allure of Egypt was strong but one has to go to modern-day Cairo to get to them. Present-day Cairo has little to no connection with its ancient past. Cairo is hot, stressful and overcrowded with absolutely maddening traffic. The city is bursting at the seams with a population of almost 20 million. It is packed with tall apartment buildings and in the absence of an effective public transport system, everybody drives cars and the roads are choked most of the day and late into the night.
When we reached, the day was hot and the traffic was terrible. As we left the city behind and entered Giza, I was finally able to see the first pyramid belonging of Pharaoh Khufu right in front of me and it was almost a spiritual experience. Nothing can amaze you as much as the sight of the pyramids and the Sphinx’s standing in front of you; a glaring reminder of the absolute genius of the Egyptian pharaohs who made these magnificent structures almost 5000 years ago.
The pyramids continue to baffle the researchers, archaeologists and engineers from around the world who have failed to come up with any definitive explanation as to how they were built, what was their purpose and why the pharaohs discontinued building them. As I reached the Great Pyramid of Khufu (Cheops) which was built around 2550 BC I was left astounded at the sheer size of the monument and the building blocks, which are rocks of limestone each weighing more than 2.5 tons in weight.
The engineering skills of the builders of pyramids are mind-boggling. The first layer of limestone rocks of the pyramid was laid at an exact angle from the ground, perfected to a fraction of a degree because even the smallest disparity in the angle of the first layer would have caused the final pinnacle of the summit to be off by yards. The perfectly executed and constructed angles form the pyramid in the shape of the famous equilateral triangle.
There is a narrow passage inside the pyramids and you have to bend down double to walk through them it into chambers which contain the empty granite sarcophagus but nothing else. Were these temples or tombs of the great pharaohs we might never know for certain but one thing is certain that they were made with precision, knowledge and great passion reserved for spiritual places.
The Sphinx is the sixty-foot tall and two hundred and forty feet long statue carved in a single rock which makes it the biggest statue of its kind in the world. It is the most enigmatic structure from the ancient world as nobody knows who built it, when and why and whose face does it carry?
The pyramids and the Great Sphinx attract tens of thousands of tourists from all over the world but due attention is not being paid to the upkeep and maintenance of the Giza Pyramids as well as the surrounding smaller tombs. There was no arrangement for any shade or water coolers for the tourists and the scorching heat made it really difficult to stand outside for even a short time.
You have to buy pricey tickets for every entrance and tonga ride, which is fine but then there are also many camel and horse owners or ‘guides’ roaming in the pyramid compound hounding the tourist by asking them ten times the actual price for a camel or horseback ride. If the visitor has not checked the rate beforehand he would really end up paying a lot of money.
These guides are constantly calling after you and chasing you which is a bother and also spoils the experience. They are persistent and keep asking questions like where are you from? where are you staying? how long will you be here? and if you tell them where you are staying they will be outside your hotel first thing in the morning and try to sell you all sorts of stuff, souvenirs and trips at unreasonable prices.
We experienced the same thing in the famous Khahlili Bazar in downtown Cairo also, where the shopkeepers call after you and then would ask you for ten times the actual price for every item. So if you want to buy a straw hat, the shopkeeper would ask for 200 EGP without batting an eye. As we learned the right way to go about it was to offer 20 EGP in return and you will easily get it for 50 EGP after a bit of haggling.
Most people we met in Cairo could not manage to speak a word of English or French which makes communication very difficult. Even the staff at our five-star hotel barely managed to speak a few sentences. The registration plates of cars are also in Arabic alphabets and numerical which is not very accommodating for the non-Arabic speaking visitor trying to find his Uber.
The visit to the Cairo Museum was an incredible experience. Although the museum is not curated well and needs maintenance it houses some of the greatest archaeological treasures of the world. The most remarkable being the items found from the tomb of King Tutankhamun by Howard Carter in 1922. Nowhere in the world can you see so many gold items of all shapes and sizes in a museum including the pure gold face mask of King Tut weighing eleven kilograms.
The ancient Egyptian civilization is no doubt the wonder of the world but it is the most gorgeous and magnificent River Nile that gives life to Egypt. It is the Nile that is the source of all fertility, food, culture, colour and song in this land. But in order to see the real beauty of Nile one has to leave Cairo and travel to Aswan and Luxor.
So after three days in Cairo, I left for Luxor, Valley of the Kings and the amazingly beautiful Nile and what an adventure that was.