Month: December 2010

The sphinx: little brother to the great pyramids . . .

If the pyramids are surprisingly huge, the sphinx is surprisingly small. It’s large in its own right, but compared to the monstrosities behind it, it comes off looking more like a cute kitty cat.

You have to hike down a hill to get from the pyramids to the Sphinx, so that is part of why it looks less impressive, because your first look at it is from above. And I say “hike” even though it’s a paved road because in Egypt all walking is really hiking in disguise. You have to stumble over rocks, sidestep to keep from twisting your ankle in the many potholes, leap out of the way of taxis that threaten to slam into you as the driver smokes and talks on his cell phone at the same time, hop over camel poop . . . There is no casual strolling here. It is human “Frogger.”
 

In front of the Sphinx there is a stone building that you can walk through that used to be a temple or the house of someone who built the Sphinx. Or maybe not. I think that’s what one of the kids was telling me.

Who needs Lonely Planet or Fodor’s when you have me as your tour guide?
  

There is a stone wall and gates that surround the entire Sphinx, so you can’t get very close to it. By walking through the building you can go inside the wall and get a little bit closer, but not much. However, you do get to see this very exciting version of an Egyptian wishing well: a dry pit that people toss money into.

We realized that Carter is quite the photographer. He took some of our favorite pictures that day, including this one of Josh and me.

and this one.

Poor Camille. Someday she’s going to realize that she slept through all these once in a lifetime opportunities. Maybe we’ll have to come back and do it all again 10 years from now. 

In case you couldn’t tell, I don’t know much about the Sphinx, except the boys told me that Napoleon and his men used to use it as target practice. Maybe that’s where his nose went. I’m sure by the time we leave here, I’ll know more than I ever wanted to know about Ancient Egypt, but this time it was fun to just go and look at everything.
Another of Carter’s photographic masterpieces. He got us all centered in front of the pyramid and intentionally included the smaller pyramid next to it. Too bad he’s not actually in the photo cause then this could be our Christmas card next year. Or not, since now you’ve all seen it. Let’s just call it the Christmas card for this year since we all know I didn’t send any.

“To view the pyramids, head left. To view the Chartiers, go right.”

It would not be a stretch to say that we were quite the attraction at the pyramids. I don’t know if it was the white skin, the light hair, or the baby, but we turned heads and had people trying to talk to us, wave at us, or touch us everywhere we went.

It was totally different than the past 3 weeks in Maadi. Walking around Maadi people will look at us, usually because of the baby, but we’re not special. There are plenty of other Americans/expats around. Kind of like movie stars in LA. People notice Jennifer Aniston, but since they’re likely to see Robert De Niro around the corner, it’s not that big of a deal. At the pyramids, we felt like Jennifer Aniston in Des Moines, Iowa. We were the stars of the show.

It started before we even got there, as a bus packed full of preteen girls pulled up beside us as we were walking. All of them were hanging out the windows, shrieking and laughing and smiling and waving and pointing at us. Naive momma that I am, I thought they were looking at the baby, but Josh says they were all fascinated by my preteen boys. Uh oh. I guess I should have known when they were all calling out, “what’s your name?” and “where are you from?”

We weren’t any less of a spectacle up at the pyramid site. Everyone wanted to talk to Josh. Two different guys who must have gone to the same peddler school said, “Where are you from? Oh America! High Ho Silver!” High Ho Silver? Wrong generation buddy. All I know about Silver is that he/she is a horse that has something to do with either Roy Rodgers or Buck Rodgers. And I might even be wrong about that part of it. Now if he had said, “The tribe has spoken,” then we could have been BFFs.

And once they found out that Josh spoke Arabic, he couldn’t get rid of them. One guy was calling him, “my Arabic brother” and was trying to give him one of the headdresses he was selling. I think he’s the same guy that was joking about buying me for 5 million camels. The nice thing about being a woman in this case was that very few people talked to me. I was happily trekking around, baby wrapped on my front and women smiled and young girls reached out to touch the baby, but none of the peddler people said more than “camel ride?” and took “la” (no) for an answer immediately. Meanwhile Josh had guys buzzing around him like flies at a picnic.

The camel ride people were particularly agressive. They kept following Josh around, introducing him to other camel-riding family members and calling out, “Hey, California!” After shedding a particularly persistent guy, Josh vowed that he wasn’t speaking Arabic to them any more.

All that and we still haven’t gotten to the Sphinx. Really? OK, tomorrow. I promise.

***reminder: you can click on any of the pictures to view them up close.

Wishing you were here
to have Christmas morning breakfast with us.
Santa pancakes for all!

The baby’s non-sleeping is kicking my butt so we’ll continue our tour of the pyramids tomorrow. So far this Christmas day I dragged myself to breakfast and then baby and I went back to bed for a 4 hour nap (during which she woke up 3 times, but at least she would nurse and go back to sleep). It’s 3:00 pm and I’m still in my pjs.

Meanwhile, SuperDad made breakfast and took the boys on a hike out in the desert. Merry Christmas to me!

***I can’t take credit for the Santa pancake idea. A friend of mine posted a photo of her Santa pancakes on facebook and I knew the boys would love it. It’s cherry pie filling for the hat and nose, chocolate chips for the eyes, and whipped cream for the hat and beard. Our pancakes are made with whole wheat flour, giving them a very “Egyptian Santa” appearance that wasn’t intentional, but very fitting.

Over the river and through the woods, to the pyramids we go . . .

We thought as a Christmas Eve adventure we would surprise the kids and take our first trip to the Giza Pyramids. The best part about our timing was that since it was a Friday morning, no one was out on the roads since most people were in the mosques at prayer services. Translation: virtually stress-free travel for me. I only thought I was going to die one time.

 
crossing over the Nile River
 
typical high-rise Cairo apartments
Yes, that is a weird, broken down ferris wheel sitting by the side of the highway.
No, I don’t have any idea why it’s there.
 
There are tons of half-finished and unoccupied buildings around Cairo, but they don’t look much different from the occupied ones. The main difference is the occupied ones all have laundry hanging from the windows and balconies. 
So we get to the pyramid site and I don’t care how big you expect the pyramids to be . . . they are even bigger than that. 
a lot bigger.
We came around the corner to see this massive mountain. Its size can’t be captured by my pathetic photography skillz.
See, it doesn’t look very impressive at all.

This Egyptian dude fits right into our family. And I bet he’d be quiet while I’m trying 
to get the baby to sleep
Hiking down to see the Sphinx.
You can see the back of its head in the background.
More to come . . .

Christmas Eve Eve

This is what our Christmas looks like:

 
a little fun in the sun
some swimming in the pool
 
Christmas cookie baking and decorating with friends
 
but with camel shaped cookie cutters, of course!
Another beautiful winter day in Egypt. Last week was too cold for me (it was in the 60s. I know, boo hoo, right?), but today was 75ish and sunny so while the boys were baking and decorating cookies with the kids at Maadi House I decided to take Camille for her first swim in a pool.

Now just like her mama, Camille loves to take baths and she likes the water to be HOT, so I was a little unsure if the baby pool water was going to be warm enough for the both of us, but I shouldn’t have worried. The water was heated, so it felt like sinking into our own private bathtub. It had to be at least 90, maybe even warmer. They must have known how I hate the cold water dance: tip toe around until your legs are numb and then gradually get lower and lower until you decide it’s not worth it and just get out. Oh, you actually take the plunge to get the pain over with in an instant? Ugh, not me.

But no need to worry about that here. As you can see, we’re both loving it.