And now, without further ado, ELENA ON A CAMEL!!
This is the stupidest picture ever taken, and yet it's my favorite picture of me OF ALL TIME. Thanks, Ivy, for making me promise to get on a camel. I mean, what can I say? If you don't love this photo you should reconsider why you're even friends with me and/or go into therapy. Or perhaps you've just gotten too old. Or your heart has shriveled and you're just a shell of a human being, not a real, flesh and blood, human being.
THE END.
No, I kid.
After our amazing cruise up and down the Nile, it was time at last for Cairo and the pyramids. I have said this before, but it's worth repeating: the pyramids are MUCH BIGGER in person than in photos. The massiveness of these structures, just plopped there in the middle of the desert, is difficult to fully appreciate unless you go there in person. They are not as refined artistically as the temples we saw, but they are breathtaking in a completely "it must have been an advanced alien civilization that built these because there is NO FUCKING WAY' way. Of course, the fact that I ask a friend to carry my 30lbs box of kitty litter from my car to my condo and that I generally don't lift things may contribute to how impressed I was by these massive structures, but even so, what a thing!
In Cairo we stayed at the Marriott, which has super comfy beds. Here's the view from my room, on the 16th floor:
That's the Nile, in case you were wondering. And that ship is a restaurant boat. It never moves because it's higher than the bridges. I withhold comment on that one.
The pyramids are the Pyramid of Khufu (or Cheops), which is the biggest; the Pyramid of Khafre, the second biggest, which still has some of the original alabaster slabs at the tip; and the Pyramid of Menkaure, the smallest. Behind Menkaure's pyramid are three smaller pyramids, the queens' tombs. I took a quick and claustrophobic trip inside Menkaure's pyramid, though the interior was not that fascinating. Here are some pics.
Menkaure's pyramid. I went inside. It was not exciting. But now I can say I went inside a pyramid of Giza.
Just to get a sense of the size, the little tiny person at the foot of Cheops' pyramid in the photo below is me. This is taken with a wide angle, but the lens gives you a good sense of how massive these structures are when you get up close and personal.
At the foot of Cheops' pyramid, a boat was found in a trench covered by massive stones.
Here are some of the stones. Do you know how heavy theses stones are? Well ... very very heavy, like, tons and tons heavy. The boat was found in pieces, but more or less intact. It looked almost disassembled. It was put back together, and it looks like this:
What's weird about this boat is that it is seaworthy, and by sea, I mean sea, not river. The tall prow is indicative of the boat being designed for sea voyages, to cut through waves. Cairo is not on the coast. So, either there's some weird sea-faring mystery afoot, or 4600 years ago (assuming the timing of the boat is the same as Cheops' pyramid) they didn't go much for representations of boats to take the pharaoh to the underworld but rather actual boats for the voyage. In light of the fact that the aliens pharaohs built somewhat excessive tombs, it is not far fetched to think they would also build lifesize boats to go with them. I mean, what's a few more veryveryheavy stones more?
To go into the boat museum show room, we had to wear these booties outside our shoes, which I think take redefining sexy to a whole new level:
On our way back in the direction of our hotel, we stopped off at the National Papyrus Institute where I bought some gifties and I again displayed a surprising flare for haggling. I kinda shocked even myself. I haggled the price of my cartouche down quite a bit in Aswan, and I haggled even more here, I think I'd gotten my haggling legs by then. My dad was like, wow, I didn't know you could do that. I was like, wow, I didn't know I could do that! All that training as an attorney has finally come to some good.
We then had lunch on the Nile, on one of those now-too-large-to-pass-under-the-bridges boats-turned-restaurants, a boat called Le Pacha, and then we headed off to the Cairo museum, where we were able to see the antiquities without having to line up or get in anybody's way. Unheard of. Here's the museum from the outside.
At the National Museum we got to see the treasure of Tutankhamun, which is stunning, including three of the four sarcophagi. One of the three sarcophagi is made of solid gold, and the face mask beneath it was also solid gold. Then the sarcophagi were encased in 4 outer casings, made of wood painted gold. We got to see the mummies of Hatshepsut, Seti I, Ramses II and Thutmose III (Hatshepsut's stepson, who later destroyed most of her temple and defaced her representations), among others. Hatshepsut's mummy was discovered recently and it was determined it was her because apparently it was the mummy of an obese woman. So, either they sucked the fat right out of ya when you go mummified, or the Egyptians' idea of obese is, well, about 30 lbs lighter than me. Seti was kind of a hottie. I know, creepy, but it's true.
We also saw some statues of people and nobles with very real looking eyes, made of glass, ivory, and a small raisin as pupil. Really amazing stuff. And of course, the gift shop, where I got a few gifties for people in my office.
And now, just because I know you want it, here's a picture of some camels:
And here's a picture I took while riding my camel (at one point, the dude made it trot -- I did surprisingly well, I'm part bedouin, I think).
And here's another picture of me on the camel. You might notice that my camel is very cute, and is in fact smiling. Because he's so psyched that I'm on him. Lucky bastard!!
I have a few more pics coming from my dad, if his computer doesn't erase them all before he can send them, stand by for those. Tomorrow: me and my dad on a horse buggy. Plus: Lawrence of Arabia makes an unexpected and manly return.
