A once in a lifetime experience. And that’s plenty.

We have been back on our ship for about three hours, cleaned our shoes, taken showers, had dinner, and enjoyed some celebratory wine. So it is official: we have been to Egypt, seen the pyramids, and survived both the souvenir vendors and the Cairo-Alexandria commuter traffic. Hallelujah!

I will write later about Egypt in general. Quite a culture and country they have here. We are very glad it is in our rear view mirror now. And judging from conversations with other passengers on both the bus and at dinner, we are in the majority if not a united front. But more about that later.

We started today with an alarming 4:45am buzzer. By 5:45am, we were dressed, medicated, and seated in our air conditioned and WC-equipped (bathroom on board) tour bus. Thanks to some highly entertaining traffic and a head-shaking detour, we finally arrived back on our floating haven at about 7:15pm, a mere 45 minutes past our expected departure time from Egypt. Oops.

Our itinerary today was a three hour drive south from Alexandria to Cairo. Our first stop was the Step Pyramid of Sakkara, followed by a shopping stop, lunch, then the Giza Pyramids and the Sphinx, culminating in the bonus attraction: Egyptian Motor Sports aka commute traffic which took about 4 hours. I shall never, ever EVER again complain about or otherwise besmirch any traffic I encounter anywhere in the United States.

There’s lots of history about the pyramids, most of which probably…and should…be Googled. Again, I was largely overwhelmed by the sights and concept of today to retain much of what our lovely tour guide provided.

At the most basic, pyramids are tombs of royalty to ensure safe passage to the After Life. Ancient Egyptian culture focused much more on life after death than on life on earth, so they did all they could for VIPs to make sure kings and their entourage enjoyed a blessed Eternal Life. So mummification was undertaken to preserve and prepare the physical body for transition to the After Life. The pyramids were tombs into which the bodies were placed…with all their most important worldly possessions…to increase the chances for acceptance into the great beyond. So only really important people got pyramids. Nevertheless, there are approximately 110 pyramids in Egypt of various sizes and states of preservation.

The Step Pyramid is the oldest pyramid, dating back to 2385 BC. The three pyramids of Giza were built some time later…maybe 1000 years (Google it; I will, too, when I have free Wi-Fi)…to honor a king, his son, and his father, all of which were kings. The Sphinx was built at the same time as the Giza pyramids as a Guard of the Cemetery of the Giza pyramids.

We also learned, thanks to a discovery of the nearby Valley of Workers just twelve years ago, that the long-held beliefs about who built the pyramids are false. The pyramids were NOT built by slaves nor by the Biblical Israelites while they were held in captivity in Egypt for 400 years. Instead, it turns out the pyramids were built by Egyptians who were paid for their efforts, worked an 8 hour day with breaks, for only 6 months out of the year. Must have been a pretty good union.

So those are the facts. The experience of seeing the pyramids? Quite an adventure.

The first glimpse we got of the pyramids was of two of the three Giza pyramids – the iconic ones that look like the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas. I was expecting to see them far off in the sandy wilderness, all alone, perhaps with a camel trotting by. Instead, they are pretty much in the middle of Cairo, right there near streets and billboards and camels you can ride for a steep price. As we got closer, they are actually on a hill so that there is indeed sandy wilderness, but it takes some doing to take a picture of them without modern Egypt in the background.

Two of the three Giza Pyramids in Cairo

I was also surprised to see how close the Sphinx is to the Giza pyramids. I thought the Sphinx sort of stood by itself. In actuality, it is right below the three Giza pyramids because it is actually guarding them. There is also a second Sphinx, right next to it, but all that is left is the base so it really just looks like an organized pile of rocks.

Us and the Sphinx guarding the Giza Pyramids

The Step Pyramid of Sakkara is more what I was expecting all of the pyramids to be: it was sort of off the beaten path with lots of sand around it. You had to want to be there; you couldn’t just happened upon it like you could with the Giza pyramids and the Sphinx. Because it is the oldest pyramid, and because it was built by a king who had a very high opinion of himself but not quite enough cash, it is somewhat deteriorated and has quite a bit of scaffolding to fill out its silhouette.

Step Pyramid and us avoiding taking a camel ride

My overall impression of the all the pyramids was that they were all smaller than I was expecting, especially the Sphinx. The largest one – Cheops of the Giza pyramids – is only about 450ish feet tall. While that is about as tall as a 45 story office building, I was still expecting something much taller for some reason. I blame George Lucas.

I was impressed how well preserved the pyramids are given their ages. I was also surprised we could actually go up and touch them (we touched the middle of the Giza pyramids). There was also an option to go into one of them but we declined. Talking with some people who went in, they reported it to be a dark, claustrophobic steep descent that a 5’2” woman had to stoop for, into a center area that yielded a view of a small hole. Most people used their cell phones to light the way and shimmy past people going the other direction. The petite adventurer I spoke to said her knees were already screaming and she knew her back would be yelling at her tomorrow. I quite enjoyed her description and confirmation that I used my time wisely taking exterior photos instead.

I tried very hard to be in the moment while we gazed at the pyramids, repeating to myself…and at times out loud to Rob…that we were in Egypt looking at The Pyramids. But it was very difficult to take in the reality of the moment because we were all very busy fending off extraordinarily aggressive vendors imploring us to buy postcards, headscarves, stuffed camels, “ancient” coins, and plastic pyramids…all for “only one dollar!”

Or, they would very graciously offer to take our picture with our own camera or allow us to take a picture of them or of their camel or horse for free…for the moment. Try to get your camera back and suddenly there was price. We witnessed two very animated and rather scary interactions between unwarned tourists and Jeckle and Hyde Egyptians who were your best friends one minute and then very scary and intimidating the next when you thought you were done and had paid the agreed upon price.

We also knew not to open our wallets or display any money, since either would make us a target for more sales pitches if not for pick pocketing. Rob and I stayed off to the side, said no a LOT, turned our backs and walked away, and felt terribly rude. But we managed to escape with our camera and all of our Euros. It took a ton of energy though. Every time we boarded the bus, we felt like we had survived yet another challenging round in a boxing ring. It was exhausting.

So I am very glad I got to see the pyramids for myself instead of relying on Hollywood to show them to me. I already treasure the photos we took. But I am so disappointed that the vendors turned what could have been a “pinch me so I know I’m not dreaming” experience into one that was instead so singularly focused on protecting my property and well-being. Seeing the pyramids was definitely a once in a lifetime experience. And one that will indeed only happen once because I have no interest in ever coming back to Egypt. More on that later, after I get a well-earned night of sleep.