Day 4 - Giza

Breakfast at the guesthouse

We did not have a good sleep last night. The beds were hard, the room was cold, and loud music could be heard from the street until 3:00 a.m. Fearing illness, we decide to move to a different hotel tonight however breakfast is fabulous experience on the terrace of the hotel with its fantastic view of the pyramids

I did not feel that we were able to absorb the beauty of the pyramids the previous day. So, we make the two minute walk to the ticket office where we're immediately accosted by a guy who says he's an official. He shows us his card and the badge on his shirt. We stop just short of telling him to "fuck off" before he leaves us alone. 

Sphinx looking toward town

We pass the sphinx and admire its beauty. No pictures are necessary as we took lots the previous day. We are confronted by a guy offering us a ride in his horse-driven carriage. He points to a ridge where he can take us with an excellent view of all the pyramids. We politely decline however are grateful for pointing out our destination. Nicola guesses it to be a 15 minute walk. I say five. It takes seven. What a terrific reward for such minimal effort! 

I want to see the inside of the pyramid even though the guidebook says it's only an empty room. The guards at the opening tells us we have to go back to the entrance of the pyramid complex to purchase tickets. So, I bribe him. The room is empty but it's still cool walking down all those steps into the pyramid's interior where many millennia ago, a king and his treasures were buried. 

Entrance to Red Pyramid Tomb - Almost no one there

After getting our fill of the pyramids, we return to the guesthouse and ask the owner if he can arrange a taxi to the Bent Pyramid and then back to Cairo where we'll be staying for the night. He wonders why to which we give a lame excuse. He wonders how he can improve his guesthouse which has a 9.6 rating on TripAdviser. How his hotel rated above a 5, I'll never know. We really don't want to get into the many, many problems the room suffers so we tell him only that he should fix the drain to the sink that has a hole in it. As well, he might fix the door to the bathroom that won't close, but we don't tell him that because, like I said, we don't want to get into it. 

Much to my relief, our driver arrives in a brand new Toyota with plastic still covering the seats and dashboard. Our driver's a young guy in hip rectangular glasses with a clear plastic frame. He wears skinny jeans, deck shoes and lots of hair product. He doesn't wear a seat belt but we do. 

Nicola inside Red Pyramid
where we chanted "ohmm"

The Bent Pyramid is located in Dahshur pass, about an hour drive from Giza. We've both noticed many windowless buildings in Cairo and along the route we see many, many more. For example, a four-story building may only have windows on the first and second floor and then next two stories are empty. Nicola hypothesizes that the windows aren't installed until someone's ready to move. She remembered that, in Peru, the government did not tax an unfinished building so you can imagine the result of that ruling. 

We follow an irrigation canal and are held up at an intersection without lights. Cars and trucks weave their way through which is very time consuming. We pass fruit vendors with their produce stacked neatly on display. Even potatoes are arranged in an elaborate pyramid. The land is incredibly lush and green and we're enjoying the ride when our driver stops the car to ask directions. He's pointed back the way we came. 

The Bent Pyramid was the failed experiment of the Pharaoh Sneferu. It's bent because the builders made it's walls to steep attempting to make it very high. Unfortunately, the walls couldn't hold the weight and bent. The angle of ascent was altered and the walls buttressed but to no avail. The Red Pyramid, smaller but more perfect in shape, was quickly erected as a final resting place for the king. 

Ribbed roof & entrance to
second tomb

Like the other pyramids, these are located just beyond the lush vegetation of the Nile Valley. We pay at a gate and pass an army installation to our left. Its existence has been the reason why the Red and Bent pyramids have been closed to tourists until fairly recently. Our driver stops in front of the Red Pyramids which is closest and just across the road from the army installation. We walk up the steps to an opening in the pyramid through which one gains access to the tomb. 

We pay the guard a few Egyptian pounds to take pictures and begin our descent. It seems more arduous and deeper than the Khufu's pyramid in Giza but that could also be that the passageway is narrower and steeper. Inside, we meet by three young people, a guy and two gals. The guy thinks that it would be cool if the group of us did a unified "ohmm." Nicola and I are up for it but the three Slavs who follow us in have no interest. Typical. So, we all do the "ohmm" and it's really cool, like the rooms full of monks in Tibet because the sound echos around small stone chamber. 

We wall are smooth and the roof tiered to a peak. Extraordinary. The precision with which the stones have been cut and the angles have been measure, the straightness of the walls are all incredible. On the way down, I noticed the plastic pipe that followed the edge of the walkway had a number of breaks in it. I assumed this was to pump fresh air into the depths of the pyramid had numerous holes and now, I noticed the air filled with dust, probably stirred up by us, its visitors. 

Armed forced installation

We walked further to another room that I'm sure held a mummy, a sarcophagus and treasures some centuries ago. I took some pictures but to capture its haunting beauty is impossible. 

The Bent Pyramid was a short ride just to the south of the Red. The guards indicated that the site was closing and so we needed to hurry. But, for a little backsheesh, those hours could be extended slightly. So, we joined the Slavs on the sand surrounding the pyramid and admired its strange dimensions that held a beauty just because of its imperfections.  

The hotel Nicola had booked back in Cairo was fantastic. It was huge with a king size bed, four arm chairs around a coffee table in one room and two queen size beds in another. Floor to ceiling lined one side of the rooms with a perfect view of the Nile and, in the morning, the pyramids of Giza in the distance. Breakfast was serviced on the coffee table in the room. Perfect. 

Bent Pyramid

That night, we ate at a restaurant down the block. Far from the tourist area, we were exposed to none of the harassment we'd been forced to endure earlier. Service was slow and there was no hurry to pick up our bill. Women, sitting at a table next to us, must have finished their meal before we arrived yet, left only minutes before we did. Significant to this meal, was my ordering of the stuffed pigeon. The amount of meat on this bird would compare favourably to that provided by a couple of lean chicken wings. That said, the stuffing was a spicy rice that tasted like it had been soaked in gravy. Very good.  

39th floor hotel room

Pyramid view from hotel