Passage to land of pharoahs
LET’S hope the ‘‘mummy’s curse’’ isn’t real. Because I’m sweatily crouching through a claustrophobic 40mlong tunnel inside Egypt’s fabled Great Pyramid on my climb to its 4500yearold royal burial chamber. Dangling from my necklace is an amulet charm — the protective Eye of Horus — because you can’t be too sure in this mythmesmerising land of powerhouse pharaohs and ominous gods.
‘‘People feel strong energy inside the pyramid,’’ forewarns Mohammed Bayoumy, an Egyptologist who is my G Adventures guide.
‘‘It is the last standing monument of the seven wonders of the ancient world.’’
He notes that within the conical confines, scientists have discovered a magnetic field that can supposedly cure diseases, sharpen a dull razor in a week and preserve an apple for two weeks unchanged.
For 12 days, it seems like I’m on a movie set as our G Adventures’ smallgroup tour explores grandiose temples, magnificent tombs, ghostly catacombs and wellpreserved dead bodies of Egypt’s extraordinary, sophisticated, ageold civilisation. I’m blown away by the sheer volume of muralemblazoned, hieroglyphicembellished monuments that whisk us back to when VIPs were a cowheaded goddess, a vultureheaded god, a sky goddess, a falconfaced god (that would be Horus, who lost his eye battling evil) and hundreds more of their mystical ilk.
We’ve entered a longvanished world — or underworld. At the necropolis Valley of the Kings, I descend to King Tut’s famed subterranean tomb and get the willies staring at his humanlike mummy with buck teeth.
Along the palmfringed Nile River, we amble through an elaborate colonnaded shrine dedicated to Sobek, the revered crocodile god; it’s here we gape at a dozen unwrapped crocodile mummies, some once adorned in lavish jewellery.
As for the living, Egyptians are very welcoming. Locals keep asking me to pose with them for selfies — in this Muslim country, a white American woman (me) is a novelty for a giggling crush of cloaked hijabwearing teen girls at the island Philae Temple and for footballplaying boys outside an Arabic McDonald’s.
Tourism, still plagued by terrorist fears, is slowly rebounding after plummeting following Egypt’s 2011 political uprising and subsequent Islamic extremist attacks. I never feel unsafe.
My biggest worry are the gauntlets of notoriously aggressive souvenir peddlers who drape you in Queen Nefertitiprint scarves and other wares before you blink.
One evening, in what could be a scene from a Marx Brothers comedy, I frantically sprint through Luxor’s openair bazaar with a string of kaftanclad vendors in pursuit waving alabaster bowls, Tshirts and Tut figurines. (Lesson learned: Never answer ‘‘Maybe’’ when asked ‘‘Maybe later?’’ and then go back the same route. They await.)
You’ll be up for the challenge if you get to Egypt the way I did — by being pampered like Cleopatra.
Let me digress. It’s not a chariot, but after departing Los Angeles, I devour a fourcourse, abovetheclouds, winepaired ‘‘candlelight dinner’’ in business class of Turkish Airlines’ 13hour nonstop flight to Istanbul before connecting to Cairo. (And don’t worry. The flickering votives are batteryoperated.)
The foodie feast is prepared by ‘‘Flying Chefs’’ donning white aprons and toque hats in the cabin, a sight itself.
By the time I land, I have been massaged by my own lieflat chair, have been schooled by Dr Ozstamped behealthywhileairborne videos and have ordered from the ‘‘wellness’’ menu a rooiboslavenderdate syrup tea that combats jet lag. Bring on the pyramids!
The triangular edifices are just the beginning of our antiquities adventure.
Even more astonishing are the dual rockcut temples of Abu Simbel, spectacularly carved into a mountainside and erected for Ramses II, the dynamo Pharaoh who ruled Egypt for 67 years. Four 20mtall figures of the seated Pharaoh theatrically flank an entrance, and along the muralreliefcovered interior, the omnipotent king is shown grasping vanquished enemies by their hair.
‘‘He was a very busy man. Why? Because he had 86 wives and 127 kids,’’ Mohammed says. As we quickly learn, ancient times are their own soap opera.
Abu Simbel is about a threehour drive from where we’re overnighting near the Sudan border in Aswan. That area is home to many of Egypt’s darkskinned Nubian people, one of the world’s oldest civilisations.
The following morning in Aswan, we board a 70cabin river cruise ship for a threeday picturesque Nile journey that ends in Luxor, the
‘‘world’s largest outdoor museum’’ (the city boasts onethird of the planet’s ancient monuments). The Luxor Temple, illuminated at night with its lengthy avenue of humanheaded sphinxes, is absolutely magical.
I’m an Egyptophile in no time. Outstanding guide Mohammed verses us on such tidbits as these: The Pharaohs’ beards were fake and strapped on (made of real hair, the goatees were believed to have divine attributes), mural artists created black paint by frying insects, and a favorite national dish of Egypt is koshary
(lentils, pasta, garbanzos and rice, topped with fried onions and tomato sauce — it is delicious!).
Just don’t eat much before you visit the two royal mummy rooms at Cairo’s renowned Egyptian Museum. Actually, I’m fascinated by how more than 4000 years ago, to preserve a body for the allimportant afterlife, Egyptians drilled a hole in the brain to suck out liquid, removed internal organs, soaked the corpse in salt for 40 days, filled it with resin, and wrapped it in layers of linen. Thanks to those efforts, I can scrutinise noble mummies — many miraculously with fingernails, hair and teeth intact — including the Ramses dynasty bigwigs and crafty Queen Hatshepsut, the female pharaoh who in life dressed like a man so followers would accept her as king.
Many of the mummies were discovered in Luxor in the vast Valley of the Kings, a graveyard for over 500 years of Egyptian history and more than 60 tombs. The handful we enter are stripped of their gilded riches and relics but retain exquisitely detailed wall reliefs. In King Tut’s chamber, the ‘‘boy Pharaoh’’, who was once entombed in a golden sarcophagus, lies inside climatecontrolled glass mummy toesup, an unbelievable specimen of Egypt’s exotic past.
On the outskirts of chaotic Cairo, we don’t solve the riddle of the ginormous halfman halflion Sphinx, its paws the size of semitrucks. It’s easy to understand why the world’s first and largest monolithic statue supposedly terrified worshippers so much that someone whacked off its nose to lessen its powers.
Nearby is the celebrated trio of Giza pyramids, anchored by the Great Pyramid built almost 150m high for Pharaoh Khufu. It took 2.3 million multitonne limestone blocks, 20 years and 100,000 labourers but ‘‘how the pyramid was constructed still remains a mystery’’, Mohammed says, against an atmospheric backdrop of robed locals offering camel rides in the desert sands.
Soon, I’m bent over, trudging through a dank, chiselled, narrow passageway inside the enduring engineering feat. The climb continues in a darkened shaft with a 45mlong steep ramp of wood stairs, then another short tunnel to as far as tourists can go — the rather plain, granitewalled, flatroofed King’s Chamber midway up the Great Pyramid. The only object in the haunting room is a broken empty stone coffin where Khufu was interred four millennia ago.
I’d like to tell you I have a pyramid power buzz. But I’m just lightheaded from the stifling air and remembering the Pharaoh’s body was never found. Before turning back, I touch my Eye of Horus necklace and happily reach in my pocket for the tiny goodluck scarab beetle that a vendor insisted I buy.