Cairo – 16th January 2006

What a day! We awoke and broke our fast before a tour briefing at which we met some new members of our group. We now have two more Brazilians and a Canadian in our troupe. We also met our Egyptologist guide for the day’s proceedings, which included the pyramids on the Giza plateau and the Egyptian museum.

We stumbled onto the coach and the guide started describing 5000 years of Egyptian history. And geography. And agriculture. And hotels. And sports clubs. And recent wars. When we arrived at the Giza plateau, she finally paused to take a breath.

Seeing the Great Pyramid of Cheops rise out of a quite standard suburb of Cairo was a surreal experience. In my mind’s eye, I expected a sweeping desert vista. Instead there are hotels and fast food joints within a couple of hundred metres of the great, geometric monoliths. Nonetheless, the last surviving wonder of the ancient world is an impressive sight to behold.

We had only an hour to soak up what we could of the pyramids close up, so we started by diving into the burial chamber of the Chephren’s Pyramid. Only 150 people per day are allowed into the Great Pyramid of Cheops. Since we didn’t arrive at the plateau first thing in the morning, we had to settle with the Pyramid of Chephren. The Pyramid of Chephren appears higher than that of Cheops, but that is because it is built on higher ground. It is actually a couple of metres shorter. It is the only one of the three large pyramids on the plateau to have any of its capping stones remaining.

We descended into the tomb of King Chephren one at a time, since cameras were not allowed in the tomb. This puzzles me, as the only thing to take a photo of in the tomb is a basalt sarcophagus. Surely the flash isn’t going to ruin a lump of unpainted stone? The passage into the chamber was roughly four-foot high and descended quite steeply, but this didn’t stop plenty of elderly English persons waddling their way down the path. After about 50ft, the passage flattened out and all those people less than 6ft in height could stand up straight. I could smack my head into the roof. This is a sensation I am to become accustomed to, it seems.

After this relatively short reprieve, another four-foot tall corridor led upwards to the King’s burial chamber. This chamber was about 20ft tall, and about 30x10ft in area. There is nothing in there except a stone sarcophagus, and some 19th century French graffiti. Oh, and the requisite old Egyptian guy trying with desperation to extract money from you. Since I couldn’t work out what service he’d done me, I decided to insult him with a 50 piastre note (roughly ten cents Australian). I then smiled blankly and waddled away back down the corridor.

The thing that impressed me about the inside of the pyramid was the oppressive weight of all of that stone. You could almost feel it weighing down on you. Not normally a claustrophobic person, waddling like a duck in a 4ft passage under thousands of tonnes of stone did raise a certain primal level of panic. The other thing that impressed me was the warmth of the pyramid’s interior. Outside it was about 15 degrees Celsius. Inside must have been at least 10 degrees warmer.

After emerging from the pyramid and fighting with a few hawkers, (why do they keep sticking those head dresses on my head?), and refusing the very impressive offer of 2000 camels in exchange for Maria, we went to have a look at the boat housed within a specially built structure next to the great pyramid. The boat was found underneath stone slabs buried next to the great pyramid. The slabs were found using ultra-sound, but the well-preserved remains of a complete boat found underneath were a rare surprise. The boat has been totally restored using the ancient methods. This means that there are no nails or screws. The planks of the boats are fitted together ‘tongue in groove’ style and lashed with ropes. The boat is quite large and an impressive sight mounted on the second level of the museum structure in which it is housed.

This is all we managed to see in an hour, so we got on the bus and headed off to get the famous panoramic shot of the three pyramids together. Having satisfied this requirement, we drove to the lower temple of the Chephren Pyramid, next to which is the Sphinx. The Sphinx is quite a friendly looking human headed lion. The lack of nose and beard doesn’t greatly diminish the ancient look of wisdom as the Sphinx stares towards the rising sun. The lower temple, where the pharaoh was embalmed, contains the oldest columns in human history. At this stage the architects were too scared to build the columns unsupported, so these columns are built into the walls of the temple. The temple, which was originally on the banks of the Nile, is connected to an upper temple by a causeway. The remains of the upper temple are barely recognisable.

We said ma salama (goodbye) to the Sphinx and were deposited at the Papyrus Institute, where we were given a demonstration on the making of papyrus, and then subjected to the hard sell whilst we perused some really quite stunning artwork. We managed to escape with our lives and wallets intact, and clambered onto the bus to get some much-needed lunch.

After lunch we drove to the Egyptian Museum. Our guide gave us a chronological tour of the museum, starting with the pre-dynastic period and ending in the New Kingdom. The scale of the collection at the museum is staggering. One of the guidebooks we have read tells us that if you spent one minute at each exhibit, then you would take nine months to see everything in the museum. We had less than three hours. This was just enough to get a taste for it.

The highlight of the tour was certainly the contents of the tomb of Tutankhamun. So much treasure and gold for such a minor Pharaoh! His burial mask is eleven kilograms of pure, 24 carat gold. The sarcophagi in which his mummy was contained, layered around him like Russian dolls, were incredible in their beauty and sheer weight of gold and precious stones. All matter of paraphernalia was buried with him, including chariots, food, jewellery and his beds and chairs. Evidently he wasn’t a believer in the old axiom ‘you can’t take it with you’.

Another area of interest to us was the room of mummified animals. Two enormous crocodiles and a Nile perch at least 5ft long are displayed amongst a menagerie of cats, dogs, monkeys and horses.

We were on the verge of collapse from exhaustion by the end of our adventures and were very happy to get back on the bus for the return trip to our hotel. After a group meeting we did some repacking of our bags and ducked out for some dinner. In Cairo, there are a few KFC restaurants that exclusively hire deaf people. The service is very efficient and the whole restaurant is nearly silent. The gestures to indicate hot and spicy are something I will remember fondly for the rest of my days. It also goes to show that disabilities such as deafness need not stop people from working in service industries.

Tonight we catch the overnight train to Aswan. I doubt that our feeling of tiredness will be much aided by a night spent on-board a seated carriage. Nonetheless, we shall write again soon to let you know how we went.

Fletch’s tips for new travellers

Egyptian hawkers speak an incredible variety of different languages. My tactic (learnt from another member of the group) is to say ‘no thankyou’ in Arabic (la shukran) and then look puzzled when they try to speak English to me. Finally, in an enquiring voice, I say ‘Icelandic?’ – I have yet to meet an Egyptian who speaks Icelandic.