0W4D Connecting the Mortal and Divine Worlds

Body is running on very little sleep.

Being here in Cairo reminds me of when I was living in Seoul, but in a different way. Yes, in both cities I did not get a lot of sleep. And yes both cities are 24 hour cities. But Seoul was a 24 hour city in that people liked to eat good Korean food, drink ridiculous amounts of soju and mekju (beer) and hike with no switchbacks. Here it seems people like to smoke strong sheesha on the street , drink chai or thick tar like coffee (which may I add tastes absolutely amazing- I’m sure my teeth will turn black before the end of this trip), and drive as if the demon had possessed them with their hand permanently glued onto the car horn. I fear for my life every time I cross the street.

Today I went to the site everyone thinks of when they think of Cairo-the Pyramids of Giza. It was quite hot (but not too humid like the suffocating heat of the east coast) so I am glad I am not here in the middle of summer. As Adel graciously offered to drive Beata and I to the pyramids, I couldn’t help but notice the different architectural styles (or lack thereof) of all the buildings as we drove post them. Of course all these buildings are covered in a layer of dirty brown soot, which also permeates the air (this could explain my coughing up unmentionable things and difficulty breathing). You have your beautiful traditional mosque surrounded by poorly made high rise crumbling concrete apartment buildings next to unfinished parking structures which have been worked on since the 90s. Then you have the occasional communist looking block building and this is all in filled with little souks filled with the hustle and bustle of people buying, selling and rushing to their next destination. Add speeding cars with no care for traffic rules. Welcome to Cairo.

But I digress.

Driving through Giza, a blurry pointed object in the distance gets closer at which point I realize that it is the Pyramid of Cheops that I am looking at. Well, hello pyramids. You are closer to the urban city than I imagined. On the other side lies the vast expanse of the Sahara desert. I’m sure that Giza would have continued had it not been for the Pyramids getting in the way.

Approaching the ticket booth I see queues of a mixture of head scarf covered Egyptians standing alongside tourists with a lot less clothes ranging from short shorts, cleavage bearing tank tops to tight jeans and even tummy bearing attire! Clothes and proper attire is a whole other topic I could go into, but will save this for another post. It is also very interesting to see the juxaposition of these tourists (me being one of them) and large noisy pollution making buses against the Great Pyramids.

We find that they are not selling any more tickets to enter the Great Pyramid and only tickets for the grounds of the pyramids. But as I have found in Egypt so far nothing is ever really %100 a no…so Beata in her Arabic sassiness was able to convince the ticket seller to sell her a sold out ticket. The seller proceeds to tell me there are no more. Of course I do not leave without a fight, and me in my not so sassy Arabic managed to sweetly say “this is my friend, please, just one more ticket , I want to see the pyramid, please”… and after a few minutes of persistent conversation I scored a ticket to enter the Great Pyramid and was as happy as if I had just won a golden ticket to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory.

Beata went to meditate inside the Great Pyramid while I walked the grounds touring the other pyramids and went on a scavenger hunt for the Sphinx. After a nice camel ride to get some pictures from afar (and the obligatory jumping picture) I went back to the Pyramid of Cheops where I was first in line for the 1 oclock entrance to the pyramid.

As I entered through a modern manmade hole in the limestone rock with a height taller than me, I walk through a damp lowly lit passage about 1.0 wide and 1.3 m high. Immediately I am hit with this feeling of energy and an aura that is indescribable, but I will do my best. An ascending passage where I am literally climbing up on my heads and knees (which I would not recommend to claustrophobics) takes me up to another passage so steep it seems as if it goes all the way to the heavens. In fact it is only 40 meters long. The passage has wood strips which allow you to grip onto something while walking up. Once I entered the great gallery, I was able to stand up straight and catch my breath… and low and behold a space of void.

I sat in silence with my eyes closed, focusing on my breathing, ignoring the drops turned buckets of sweat, thinking about nothing, and even zoning out the sounds of the loud tourists within this tomb which connected the mortal world with the divine.

I lost track of time and when I did come out to face the scorching desert heat in my face, sounds of loud car horns and vendors yelling cola, water, juice in 6 different languages, and smells of rotted cheese and decaying trash piles, I still felt as if I was in another world. This feeling is similar to when I hear the call of prayer here in Cairo, no matter what is happening or what I am doing, there is this feeling of calmness, serenity and peace that overcomes me.