The Pyramids
Let's just get this pyramid talk out of the way so we can get on to more exciting stuff....
I respect the fact that it has probably been your lifelong dream to witness the Giza Pyramids firsthand.
But I say don't bother.
Instead, just type, "pyramids wikipedia" into Google and see what you can learn that way. It's less expensive, you won't get sunburned, and maybe you'll even continue to think of them as mystical or otherworldly.
It's not that pyramids aren't impressive feats of humankind. It's just that they're surrounded by the kind of humans who aren't nearly as impressive.
Not only were we continually harassed by men who wanted us to ride their donkeys, horses, and camels ("I give you good deeel. $500!), we were also forced to pay money to several tour guides--not to give us actual tours, but simply to have them leave us alone so we could contemplate the pyramids in relative peace.
Apparently, things haven't changed a bit since Mark Twain's visit in 1869....
"We suffered torture no pen can describe from the hungry appeals for bucksheesh [tips] that gleamed from Arab eyes and poured incessantly from Arab lips. Why try to call up the traditions of vanished Egyptian grandeur; why try to fancy Egypt following dead Rameses to his tomb in the Pyramid, or the long multitude of Israel departing over the desert yonder? Why try to think at all? The thing was impossible. One must bring his meditations cut and dried, or else cut and dry them afterward."
I hope you can appreciate the satirical nature of Twain’s work here. Neither he nor I intend to portray every Egyptian as a money-hungry scam artist. In fact, even on this day, our friendly and honest taxi driver Hasan chartered us around for 6 hours in the burning heat and only asked for $11, because he said that he liked us. *
I didn’t have terribly high expectations for the pyramids. I figured they would be there. Turns out they were there, just as I had assumed, only slightly smaller.
But the most shocking part was the strange sense of familiarity I felt upon seeing the pyramids for the first time. It was as if I had been there before. And I had—on YouTube, on Google Earth, and in a million PBS documentaries.
And honestly, it wouldn’t have been all that bad if that were the only way I had ever seen them.
2 comments:
Now that I read my own post, I am realizing that I was pretty rough on the pyramids.
I mean, especially for someone who has a picture of the freaking pyramids on his own blog.
They weren't that bad. They were exciting. I am glad I went.
There. I said it.
If I can see them, I will. Your poo-pooing of them has not turned me off! Sign me up for the pyramids. After all, you AND Mark Twain wanted to see them.
All the good places have people that want your money, eh?
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