We woke up early and hopped in a cab and headed for Giza today.  Driving through Cairo, the huge office buildings and thirty-story apartment buildings began to fade into smaller (10 – 20 story) red brick and gray concrete towers with patches of bright green Nile delta farmland disappearing in between the buildings.  Almost all of these buildings, while appearing to have already been occupied for a long time, seem to be unfinished, with rooftops ready for additional development with concrete supports and rebar reaching skyward awaiting further growth.

It was a very hazy day (a euphemism I like to use in place of “smoggy”), and the atmosphere was beautiful with the morning sunlight streaming through the dust and haze. Brandon kept saying we should be able to see the pyramids looming over the horizon, but the haze prevented us from seeing anything.

After about 30 minutes in the cab, driving incredibly fast most of the way, we exited the highway and soon slowed to join the traffic of braying mules, clopping camels, and other erratic drivers and pedestrians.  I was shocked to see how close the city creeps up to the pyramids, but it was a beautiful sight nonetheless!

We started our morning at Naser Bresh stables.  There are dozens of stables around the pyramids, but this stable was recommended by our trusty Lonely Planet guidebook and was noted as having healthy, well-fed horses that are treated well.  Naser Bresh got us all set up.  My horse was white and as far as I can tell was named Ahmed Moon, and Brandon had a brown horse whose name I didn’t catch.

Our guide, like pretty much everyone else in Egypt, could not say “Brandon,” so me and “Bred” headed out with him into the desert.  After passing some trash piles, a modern day city of the dead, and lots of peculiar graffiti of many-humped camels, we were trotting along in the desert at last.  It was beautiful.  Brandon’s horse spooked my horse a few times, which sent my horse (and me!) flying through the desert at top speed… it was a little scary to tell the truth, but a lot of fun.

Our guide led us to a little hut atop a dune where we sat on a fallen palm trunk and drank delicious hot tea in the desert wind.  We got scammed by a heckling camel rider who talked us into getting on the camel and made me wear his scarf on my head.  Let’s not talk about it.  It was enough of a challenge to tell him NOT to lead Brandon out into the desert on his camel and leave me behind at the hut.  Lu’h!

Despite the camel scammer, it was a ton of fun.  We galloped at top speed toward the pyramids and then headed back.

There were far fewer tourists at the pyramids than I expected.  I’ll let the pictures tell the story.  The one thing we could not capture was the most amazing moment of sound I may have ever experienced.  Today is a Friday, a holy day for Muslims.  In addition to the call to prayer, there is more beautiful singing and sermons in Arabic projected on loudspeakers on Fridays.  Generally you can only hear it coming from your closest Mosque with a few other Mosques a little more quietly in the background… but today, on top of the Giza plateau, the acoustics and the wind carried the sounds from hundreds of Mosques in Giza and Cairo up to our ears all at once.  The clock struck noon, and slowly, one by one, more beautiful sounds piled in on the cacophony.  It was amazing.  And slowly, as the sermons wound down, the din of the overlapping language and song died out.

It was a beautiful day.  I never knew I’d actually get to experience these things in real life.