One of Those Places Words Cannot Describe

Egypt was a place that fascinated me from a very young age and it was as far back as March 1992 when I ticked visiting the Pyramids of Giza off my bucket list. Upon approaching the Pyramids, they didn’t seem as big as I had imagined, but as we got closer, I was amazed at their size. Walking around these impressive structures had me marvelling at the size of just one brick and how many of those massive bricks made up the entire Pyramid. My immediate thought went to the labour and manpower required to build these enormous structures. I tried to imagine the Egyptians erecting them by hand without the aid of modern-day machinery. Our guide explained a mountain of dirt continued to grow alongside the pyramid as it got taller to transport the stone bricks, and once completed the dirt was removed.

Whilst visiting the Pyramids a guy on a camel came passed and prompted me to take a photo of him, so I did. He then proceeded to persistently hassle me for miles demanding money for giving me the privilege of taking a photo of his camel. In the end I slipped him some money to get rid of him. The Egyptians would go to different extremes to rip you off but that generally occurred around the common tourist attractions. I heard of stories from other travellers who were approached and asked if they wanted to smile at their camel, naturally you smile, but then they would follow you until you paid up. You couldn’t help but laugh, it was entertaining to watch and harmless.

We had the opportunity to explore inside one of the pyramids and were warned how small and narrow the corridors were. I never expected to be walking hunched over for 3 or 4 minutes and there was only half an arm’s length either side. The ventilation was poor but the experience of standing inside one of these famous pyramids was not going to be missed.

To complete the experience, we rode a camel leaving the Pyramids in the distance as we crossed the desert and made our way to the Sphinx. This was an experience that has remained vivid in my memory for many years. To read more about this trip go to my story labelled Egypt through the eyes of 20 something year old me.

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