150. Pyramids

150.

We hop off the bus and walk up a little hill on a paved street lit by modern mercury-vapor lamps.

A few die-hard postcard salesmen and rent-a-camel hustlers make their pitch as we approach the monument but we outmaneuver them and walk right up to the stony heap. An Arab guide slips out of the shadows with a flashlight and insists on pointing out the two entrance openings—one dynamited and one original. He then demands a dollar for this service and will not leave us alone until we give him a quarter. He leaves cursing cheapskate tourists.

Kicking through the sand, we walk around the second pyramid. Near it in a parking lot a circle of laughing, singing young people are skylarking. It seems they use the pyramids as a drive-in lover’s lane after dark. Fifties rock and roll music from the states is blasting from several of their radios which adds a surreal soundtrack to our exploration.

We can’t find the sphinx but we know it has got to be around here somewhere. We circle the smaller “red” pyramid following the park road. Ahhh. Here it is! But what is it? This badly eroded sandstone lump seems to have the familiar shape of the famous lion-lady but I have seen natural rock formations in Utah that looked more like sculpture! Still, this must be it. I guess fame, vandals and a few thousand years are hard on anything!

A platoon of armed pyramid guards head us off. One speaks rudimentary English and offers to give us a guided tour of the mysterious sphinx. No thanks.

Instead we walk down a hill into a village where we buy some tasty mango juice. Then we follow a canal with local residents hollering “Welcome!” at us all the way back to our bus stop where we soon catch a Cairo-bound bus.

Our entire Cheapskate Moonlight Tour of the pyramids cost just fifty cents each and was good fun.

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