On Wednesday afternoon, Egypt got their internet back and I spent most of the work day reading reports of what was going on over there and trying to understand it.
I laid down in my room to read and try to recover from the brutal afternoon heat. I had brought along an Amazon Kindle (so I wouldn't have to lug around a bunch of books). When ever you're done reading, the Kindle has all these "screensaver" images that appear when you "lock" it. I locked it after reading and look at the screensaver that came up!
Next, Ahmed and I hopped back in the car and headed over to the open-air museum located at the former location of the ancient city of Memphis, which was the capital of the Old Kingdom.
At most of the antiquities sites in Egypt, there are armed guards like this. They all beckon you over (and you pretty much have to go because why would you ever risk disrespecting a man wearing a black wool uniform in the desert sun and carrying an assault-rifle) and when you go over and say hi - they ask you to take a picture of them, then do their best to shake you down for a "tip" for the privilege of capturing them in their uniform.
And just in case you're not convinced that he's a badass yet, Ramses II name in Greek is Ozymandias, which means he's also the inspiration for Adrian Veidt's character in WATCHMEN!
Check it out! They spend hundreds of years building this pyramid at a 55-degree angle. But when they got towards the top, it kept collapsing, so they decided to modify the design and change the slope of the pyramid to 43-degrees in order to complete it.
Back outside and here's a final picture of the pyramid! (I didn't take any pictures of the vaults inside because there wasn't very much light (duh!) and my flash would've alerted the "camera police" inside.)
Here's a picture of our descent into the burial chamber via a secret shaft that's hidden in the side of the pyramid! The shaftway is only 3' tall, 4' wide and goes down for over 200 feet at a 27-degree angle. I only took this one picture because it was such hard work hunching my way down the shaft in the crazy-heat!
Most people go to see the Pyramids of Giza in Cairo and don't come to Dashshur so there were hardly any other people there. And, you can actually CLIMB UP THE PYRAMID and then crawl down a tiny shaft into the burial chamber!
It was humbling to look at how detailed each single hieroglyph was. I can't even image how long or how many people it took to finish the carving on this one tiny section.
Check out this ancient road that was discovered in 1850. Archaeologists hypothesize that this road was used to transport "the procession of mummified bulls of the god of the dead, Osiris."
Another huge hole in the ground that went down what seemed like 100 feet. If I remember correctly, this was the place where they excavated huge wood ships that were buried with one of the pharaohs buried here.
Here's steps leading down to the entrance to one of the excavations that wasn't open to the public. Six storeys under the desert's surface, you know, NO BIG DEAL.
Obligatory shot of solo traveler in front of pyramid. Despite the fact that it was 110 F outside, wearing my BLACK HOODIE was preferable to exposing my skin to the mid-day Egyptian sun.
This is the back of Djoser's Step Pyramid. It's from 2630 BCE (4,640 years ago!!!) and is considered one of the oldest stone monuments in human history.
Pride goeth before the fall! As I was on my way walking out of the museum, literally 50 feet away from leaving, I turned around right in the middle of this huge room to take a picture of the awesome hugeness of these statues, and a guard appeared from behind a column (Indiana Jones style) stopped me and told me "Very bad. Very serious." OH SHIT.
He motioned for me to follow him to a doorway, which led to an empty hallway and then told me "Now you must wait here with me." Even though I was in the midst of assuming the worst, I knew that no matter what happened, I'd definitely have time to take the mummy memory card, chew it up and swallow it if I had to. And then I realized that being "detained" in the hallway didn't seem to make much sense so I decided to "go for it."
By going for it, I mean that I decided to do the Internation hand sign for "How about a nice big bribe and we can forget all about this?" by rubbing my thumb and my two forefingers together whilst simultaneously raising and lowering my eyebrows rapidly. He immediately recognized my gesture and countered with a gesture that I easily interpreted as "Sure, but it had better be a good one because I know you've probably got mummy photos on you."
I tried to venture a peek in my pocket without letting him see what I had (no easy task when you're dealing with money you've never seen before!). I quickly realized that I only had two bills on me! The first bill was a 25 Egyptian Pound note (about $4.50 USD) the other bill was twenty dollar bill! I decided it was better to be safe than sorry, folded up the twenty, and slipped it into his hand.
He tried to hide his smile and tried his best to play-off my subtle hand off with that look that everyone gets when they're like "Holy moly, this is just like a secret agent movie!" Just before he slipped the bill in his pocket, he couldn't resist a peek and glanced down at the bill. His eyes instantly got huge and he did a what looked like a vaudeville double-take. For a split second I thought I'd totally messed up, but then I realized that I just dropped a MONSTER bribe on him and he was intent on hustling me out of there before someone else got wind of the major jackpot he'd just hit. Hahahaha.
We quickly parted ways. I half-jogged my way to the exit smiling. I knew right then and there that me and Egypt were going to get along just fine.
After spending a long time marveling at the mummies, I went back out into the rest of the museum (because there's SO MUCH TO SEE). The museum was getting ready to close and there weren't many people around, so I didn't even bother to hide the fact that I was taking photos.
There are signs posted all inside the museum that say "No Photos", but considering they let me walk right into the museum with my camera in my hand, I figured it was probably no big deal to snap a few pics. (I'm not gonnna go crazy in there, but otherwise, how the heck am I supposed to remember the stuff I liked that I saw?)
I took a ninety minute nap and woke up feeling so refreshed that I decided to get right on with my sightseeing and set out to find my way to the insanely famous Museum of Egyptian Antiquities from my hotel on foot!
On Tuesday I purchased my plane ticket to Egypt! I'd have just enough for a two-week trip (all by myself...awwww) before starting my new job at Yodle in the beginning of April! Later that afternoon, I went to the bookstore to pick up a book about Egypt so I could begin making a list of places to visit and things to see!
