The problem with going to bed early on Xmas Eve is you wake up very early. This time though there are no stockings or packages.
After getting back to sleep for a few more hours I’m done and dusted and in reception for 9.00.
Today I will be mostly spending Christmas at the Pyramids or in other words Christmas with the dead. Next Christmas I need to go away with someone, or end up on an organised tour.
Sherif the concierge has organised a very smart driver and a clean car so it’s off for our first stop in Giza.
Hamdi is probably the most gentle driver in Cairo that I have come across as he patiently sits in the queues and manoeuvres where there is a space. In fact he gets further than those tooting, honking and rushing in and out of the others.
We seem to have gone past the antiquities entrance to the pyramids and now we are outside a number of small stores. He explains that he cannot get the car into the pyramids area as he has no permit, so I have a choice of camel, horse or pony and trap. Refusing to take the camel we opt for the cart and horse. A truly bony old nag, which I think will drop dead or run. The trap cants through the old streets of Giza. Kids are on their way to school, messing around as they do some shouting or hollering hello as we pass by. Farmers with their small carts pulled by donkeys are moving around the small streets with either huge piles of carrots, cauliflower or Alfa alfa?
It’s much colder today and I am thankful to be wearing long trousers and a sweatshirt. Most of the Egyptians are in sweaters and coats. The sky is heavy with dark clouds, which is so different from early this morning when we had clear blue skies. And just to rub salt in the wound we get Egyptian Snow as the trap driver puts it. A few drops of rain but he assures me it will stop.
After the small back streets we need to navigate the main road up to the entrance. The buses, coaches, taxis, cars etc give no let up and although he has got the horse cantering they still create chaos and are all unforgiving.
The trap eventually breaks free of the traffic and hurtles up the hill towards the entrance to the pyramid area.
I have been warned not to stop and talk to any of the touts or those on camels and horses. These people are like a plague as they swarm the moment anyone is off their coach. It’s pretty impressive seeing the police on their camels, which look so much better in condition than the other nags.
The best way to see the pyramids is in fact view this pony and trap, as he can get you up to the top of the hill in a great position for the “snow capped”…..pyramid. The trap takes us off the road on to the compacted sand, just like that in Libya.
Each of the blocks are over a metre high and apparently weigh over a ton and a half. These 3 pyramids were originally covered with lime stone but Sultan Ali removed the stones to build the Citadel. Ancient day vandalism. Some parts of the pyramids have huge blocks missing as they too have been used for building. This gives the effect of very untidy workmanship, but we know these to be smoothed.
The trap waits whilst I walk round the pyramids with all manner of approaches to buy and sell anything. Eventually we head down the hill towards the Sphinx.
The remains around the Sphinx are all protected by a high wire fence. This is to keep the marauding pestering touts out of the way, although I did see a policeman chase away a whole load trying to sell through the wire.
After the third time of stopping to let people take photos and receiving no thanks I’m not stopping anymore. Especially the English as they should know better.
At this rate I will have eaten in all of the hotel restaurants.
Once I get back to the trap it’s not far until we are back at the rendezvous point, even though I have to be civil with them. I still go through the obligatory hospitality drive in the “carriage offer”, which really is no more than a perfumery parlour. I reckon he knew by my body language that I wasn’t going to partake.
The road out of the Giza area turns out to be split carriageway with a deep filled irrigation canal. In this canal people are fishing and collecting weeds/reeds from the deep embankment. As there are few bridges across the canal there is a …… ferry for foot paying pedestrians only. The bolted seats to the small floating pontoon look quite amusing.
These two roads on either side of the canal are interspersed with a few shops and houses between the miles of fields of cauliflowers and cabbages.
The Sarquarrah pyramids come into view once we turn off the canal road and once again the fertile fields cease and we are in desert again.
This time I get to pay the entrance fee for me and the car, so I won’t need one of the horse and carts.
These pyramids, tombs and temples are older than Giza and all three are of the step variety and not smoothed like the ones at Giza were.
Amongst the pyramids on the west of the site are huge pits cut squarely into the ground. Few of them have any barrier protection.
These pits go down 100 feet and some are deeper/shallower. One has rooms, subsequently cut into it with steps cut into the rocks. These may be tombs but there is no indication.
One of the deepest pits that has pedestrian barriers around it has heavy rock at the edges. You can trace where the ropes cut into this rock pulling the stones up. I still cannot work out how they did this though.
From the high point you can see across to Giza and Nemphis, where there are other pyramids. What a sight this is with these triangular ‘chocolates’ – Toblerones just sitting on the horizon.
You never hear that toblerone advert now-a-days, seems they have replaced it.
There is nothing noticeable about Sakhara, maybe in the future there will be as they are building a proper tourist reception centre.
Hamdi brings the car round and we head out of the site, slowing for a carpet factory for which I firmly stated to him ‘not this time’. I think he realised that I was serious and drove on in silence. I eventually broke the uncomfortable silence by asking him to tune the radio to Arab music channel.
The rest of the afternoon was spent freezing round the pool. Just so I could maintain that I spent the day by the pool fully clothed with long trousers and sweat shirt but we will keep that a secret.
Sitting quietly in Al Kasbah, the Lebanese Restaurant in the hotel, the silence is shattered by quite a high shrill trumpet. This is supported by drums and on looking out I discover an Egyptian Wedding with officials recording with state of the art video cameras and powerful lights.
There are about two hundred people with the bride and groom, who look so nervous with all these friends and families.
The rhythmic drumming is also supported by the strangest of middle eastern yodelling that the women do. It’s a high-pitched note broken by rapid movements of the tongue, like a wail. In the past I thought it was synomonous with grief after seeing many Palestinian funerals on TV.
All the photographs and recording of this wedding will have red, gold and green from the rather cheesy Christmas decorations.
Andy Williams should be on a hit list as he is really doing my head in.