For Nanda: Pyramids Past

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I have heard that now, the city of Cairo has engulfed the Plateau of Giza, where the three great Pyramids and the Sphinx stood in splendid isolation until the last century. I’m lucky enough to have visited them twice.
The first time was with my family, as a callow teen. We stayed at the Shepheards’ Hotel, and we had a “dragoman”, at least that’s what the Thomas Cook Company called him: an Egyptian named Solomon. Always clad in the long caftan, and who was always at the door of our suite when we ventured out in the mornings. (No, really: sitting there in the hallway waiting.) We also had a car and driver. Of course we went to Giza our first day; somewhere in the house there’s the obligatory picture of us all in a row, mounted on camels.
Did we actually go anywhere on ‘em that day? I don’t think so; my father hadn’t had enough, and he and my brother and I went back very very early the next morning for a long ride out into the desert. Yeah, desert! The Pyramids were still in sight, but over a vast expanse of sand, when the camel handler stopped and demanded more money from my father, who masterfully made it clear that the camels were going to bear their white-man burden back to the stable for the original price. I got a sunburn although I think we were back by 8 AM.
We did climb up to the large burial chamber of Cheops. It’s a long interior ramp which you ascend bent double, you can’t straighten up. I remember the hot dark climb, and then emerging into the large, empty stone chamber. It smelled like a circus in there! I now think that must have been the tang of urine. From there, you can look up through a narrow shaft that extends to the point of the Pyramid, and, even in broad daylight, see the star Thuban, which was a pole star 5000 years ago. (But did I see it, or did I just read that later….?)

There wasn’t much at Giza near the pyramids then, just one hotel, Mena House. There was also a little cluster of dwellings, Nena Village. Solomon took us there to meet his family, it was a white plaster building, and inside, French Second Empire style furniture. Not what I was expecting! I remember a sensation of coolness and peace. Solomon introduceD us to his father, clad all in white. I don’t know why, maybe just the novelty of the situation, for us, but it was Avery emotional moment. Then we had dinner on the rooftop terrace at Mena House and saw the Sound and Light performance. Yeah, I know, I know, they were overdone in many places in the world, I suppose, and people came to think they were just hokey. But not at Giza, not then. To see the façades of the three Pyramids lit up in turn, then the Sphinx , while a Godlike voice boomed out “I AM THE PYRAMID OF CHEOPS!” , etc., It was truly shiver-inducing.

My second visit was in the company of my BMD and his friend who had been our best man. We had an awful time getting to Cairo; the guide whom was supposed to meet us when we changed planes at Heathrow, didn’t, and my BMD had to take over and get us and the others on the tour on a plane to Cairo. It arrived early, and once again we weren’t met, and we were told that there were no hotel rooms left in the city! Once again my Brooklyn born BND somehow found us transport to the New Shepheards’ Hotel, where we were at last met by the guide, at whom everybody was totally pissed by that time. So..about 1AM, the three of us were shown to our suite. I think our friend had to sleep on a sofa! We opened, and finished, the complimentary bottle of Omar Khayam wine. To this day, that was the driest red I have ever tasted.

And I said: I can’t wait. I want to go to Giza. Now.

Our guide (A blond Russian man who spoke Arabic and everything else) was still up, he entrusted us to a cabbie who drove us there at 90mph, took about 10 minutes.. He had been instructed and paid to wait.
There must have been some illumination, but the monuments were not floodlit. A man emerged Into the headlights from the darkness, wearing a long black robe, large white turban, and a rifle slung over his shoulder. “The Guardian of the Sphinx,” our cabdriver intoned. We indicated that we wanted to go inside the enclosure.
Now, in those days, there was NOTHING you could not do in Egypt for a few dollars or pounds Sterling. My BMD pulled a wad of bills from his pocket and the Guardian salaamed his way to the gate and admitted us to the august presence. We climbed on the Sphinx! (though not very far up; that mothah is huge! )

The next day, our tour was scheduled to visit Giza, of course, But with daytime traffic it took about 1.5 hrs to get there and we had to leave after like ten minutes to catch a plane for Luxor, so I’ve always been glad we acted on my whim to see the Pyramids and the Sphinx as soon as we arrived.
Good night dear Nanda, I hoe you enjoyed this!

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Published by Hypatia

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23 thoughts on “For Nanda: Pyramids Past”

  1. I truly did, dear friend: Eloise still comes to mind when you share early travel stories – so intrepid. The later adventure with your BMD is truly epic! What was your favorite meal (of either visit)? Are camels truly as disagreeable as I’ve heard? Did you get to visit your namesake’s hometown of Alexandria? Thanks so very much for the invitation to come-with’, once again! Salaam!

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    1. All I remember about the food was that we ate and drank EVERYTHING—and didn’t get sick, although the more fastidious in our group did.
      And yes camels are quite rebarbative. I read that the only reason the cooperate with people at all is because only humans can draw water from the wells. If it ever rains a lot so there are puddles lying around, camels won’t tolerate being ridden or harnessed. Plus they can, and do, spit! I can’t think of any other animal, except some snakes, that can do that. We did have a camel ride on that second trip, to some desert mosque, and the camel our friend was on not only spat on him but ran off into the desert with him, we thought he was a goner!
      And..I have longed to see Alexandria ever since I read Lawrence Durell! But no, didn’t get there on either trip. But I think it’s one of those cites like Warsaw, it has been completely destroyed so many times, you wouldn’t be seeing a place that resembled its fabled past.

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  2. Robin absolutely adored ancient Egypt, and he visited there 20 or so years before Mubarak fell from power. He had the same problem with tour guides that you experienced, only worse! He arrived at the airport in Cairo very late at night, expecting to meet up with a tour guide and a tour group who were nowhere to be found: the only other people there were soldiers guarding the place. He bribed a cab driver to bring him a hotel; the cab driver dropped him off at a very questionable hotel where there were people screaming at all hours of the day and night. This was years before he moved to America: he tried to contact the British Embassy, but it was a long holiday weekend, no one was there, and he was totally on his own. Through bribing people, he was able to see and do everything he wanted to see and do, and several days or a week later he somehow met up with his tour group: he said that he nearly strangled the tour guide when he finally found him.

    He ended up not having to pay a dime for that trip: when he returned to Scotland, he wrote a scathing letter to the tour company, and they fully refunded everything. He loved Egypt, though: he talked about that trip all the time, and he was always so glad that he went.

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  3. I am afraid the pyramids as well as the Great Wall of China are now and forever off of my to-do list.

    None other than the well gammed Hypatia could write this: “…the Guardian salaamed his way to the gate and admitted us to the august presence.” Brilliant!

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  4. Love your travel stories. As Nanda says, you have a way of transporting the reader to the scene of the crime.

    Why did you stay in the New Shepheards’ Hotel the second time? The first time as well but am mostly curious about the reason ya’ll stayed there during that second trip.

    Were you frightened when you saw the outline of the rifle slung of the ‘guardians’ shoulder?

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    1. Because, the first time we stayed at the old original Shepheards Hotel. Been there since at least the British occupation. The second time, it had been rebuilt, or at least renovated, and was called the “New Shepheards”. (I gotta look this up; not sure of the spelling nor about what happened to the old one)
      And was I frightened? I’m glad you asked!
      Short answer: no, thanks to sleep deprivation and the Omar Khayam wine. I was pretty…UNLEASHED, as you might say….
      Long answer, I will never forget the feeling of absolute impunity I had on that trip to the Middle East. It was like, wherever the 3 of us were, THAT was America. The idea that anyone would threaten us,in any way, except by their pathetic Obsequious begging or pickpocketing,was, simply laughable! It must’ve been how the British RaJ felt: we were the overlords of the world.
      No, I wouldn’t go to Egypt now. I wonder if my daughter will ever see it? Certainly she’ll never see what I saw, the Sphinx and Pyramids standing alone on Giza, dwarfing the tiny picturesque Mena Village..she’ll never wander alone, in the moonlight, among the ruins at Luxor.
      And even if she travels there some day, do I dare to hope that she’ll experience the feeling we took for granted: as an American, the world is at her feet?

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      1. Ok P.S?: I was right, it is spelt “Shepheards” and it was built mid nineteenth C by the Brits….Remember they took over Egypt after we bankrupted it by producing SOOO MUCH COTTON, due to the sharecropper system after the CivilWar. BUT, the original burned down in the Cairo fire of 1952! So actually I stayed at the “New Shepheards” on BOTH trips. Why the second time? That’s where the tour booked us. It is, or was, one of the premier hotels du monde.

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      2. “It is, or was, one of the premier hotels du monde.”

        Must be nice! I like to visit these hotels when I travel just to hangout for a bit in the lobby and/ or have a drink in the lounge. They are so elegant.

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      3. This comment made me nostalgic for the last such hotel I visited, the Hotel Zum Ritter in Heidelberg, November 2016. I found my ,journal entry about it and will Email it to Nanda if she asks, since she was nice enough to compliment my travel writing.I’d post it here if I could…

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  5. Thanks for the detailed response.

    “…as an American, the world is at her feet?”

    BHO (the worst US President*) did his best to end that hard-earned privilege. It will be hard to regain it, particularly if we continue to let China mock us. A reputation is a terrible thing to throw away so casually because it is difficult to gain and harder yet to recover once lost.

    *The worst president ever and his wife cannot decide at what point they have made enough money. Jimmy Carter rises to the next to last position on the back of Mr. & Mrs. ‘First Time Proud’ Omega’s money-grubbing now that they don’t have to pretend to give a crap about the little guy.

    Off-topic a bit but since when did our Ruling Class retain their titles of ‘nobility’ forever? I hate it when someone is called President, Senator, Mr. Speaker, Admiral, General, Private First Class, First Lady or whatever long after they are out of office/ military. It just ain’t right in my book.

    ‘BMD’ is a cool title though.

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    1. I know. I’m not sure about the title thing. If youre a retired doctor or minister, then you still have the degree you earned..but I don’t think judges get to be called Judge after they leave the bench. Seems to me former elected officials should be called , like, “President Emeritus Carter” .
      Y’know what’s weird? The Roman numeral thing for men’s names in our country. They don’t do that in England; if you don’t have a title, they don’t care how many of your grandsires had the same name!

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      1. I could live with your “emeritus” concept. Just because one gets elected to high office does not make them part of America’s nobility which we do not and should not have with the exception of clans:
        Bush, Clinton, Dingell, Dowd, Gore, Jackson, Kennedy, McCain, Obama, etc.

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  8. Sorry, I was talking code. Sure I have met cats like that. What I meant to say was I did not realize until reading your comment the Roman numeral thing is a phenomenon particular to the good ol’ US of A.

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      1. I believe you and now that you mention it, I cannot recall having gotten past ‘Junior’ outside the US and that usually in South America but rare.

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      2. From reading the novels of Màrquez and Borges ( I know, I know, you hate them!) I have the impression that men use their mothers’ maiden names , too, maybe as a middle name? Like Gabriel Garcia Màrquez…?

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  9. Yes, the last last name is usually the mother’s maiden name. That gets pushed to the right by her father’s and out of sight when girls get married.

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