There and Back Again 10: Pyramids! The Sphinx!
Nobody tells you how large the Pyramids are. They are mountainous, gargantuan. It would be
easy to mistake them for natural objects. Many of the hillocks in the desert are in fact failed pyramids — monuments erected on the cheap, with faulty materials or scamped construction techniques. Build it right, and the thing stands till the end of time.
There is a weird sense here of participating in an event. Napoleon has stood here, Julius Caesar, Alexander. You can find graffiti on ancient carvings that was written by 19th century adventurers. Yes, it is worth emulating them, would Alexander lie to you? Yes, you should go, although maybe not right now. Wait for the Grand Egyptian Museum to open.
Egypt has curated its history marvelously. They have tons of it, after all. You really need to spend months here, and we had only a couple weeks! But we crammed in as much as we could.
5 thoughts on “There and Back Again 10: Pyramids! The Sphinx!”
I have been longing to go — glad to see your photos!
Let me know if or when you want to discuss! We did it the easiest possible way, by taking a cruise. It’s not so easy to go to Egypt on your own bat, unless you can read Arabic.
Thanks, Brenda! Yes, we would need to do a cruise and learn from the guides. I do want to wait for the new museum to open — a good tip!
-SaraS
The big problem with the Grand Egyptian Museum is that it’s been ten years delayed so far. I don’t think they’re going to open it until the military stuff in the region dies down, and nobody knows when that will be. You might need to just go, and hope to catch the GEM some other day. Otherwise you may wait forever! We took the cruise with Viking, which was superb.
Thanks, I appreciate the advice!
-SaraS