Pyramids by Bribe

We got a late start the next morning--the late night didn't help--and it was well into the afternoon when we decided to see the pyramids of Giza.  We caught a cab--one of the few honest cab drivers in Egypt, and proceeded to get the run down on the best places for kofta (kebabs made from ground meat). The driver stopped and bought us water--on him--and I ate some prickly pear--common on the streets in Cairo.  By the time we wove our way to Giza the pyramids were closed, but this was not something we learned until a couple "tour guides" had tried to wrestle our door open, while the car was moving, causing a giant shouting match to erupt while our driver slammed his door on the invaders' legs.  A touch scary, plenty exciting, we finally confirmed the pyramids were closed and found instead guides who would take us on horseback to the pyramids, bribing the police as we went so that we could enter despite the time.  I'm comfortable on horseback but it was new for some of the others, and Sarah's horse was malnourished and kept collapsing, literally, which must have been scary.  We were dressed up in Arab headdresses before we got there (they were a "gift" while the sodas were ten times normal price...also a gift until they had been drunk), and then made our way across the dunes.  The pyramids lift from a sea of development that laps their one edge, but there they are--magnificent, breathtakingly grand and large.  We caught the sunset, and as the sky turned dusky and orange a hundred minaret calls from Cairo called out the evening prayers and, alone for a moment on horseback the instant was hauntingly beautiful, enchanting, timeless and with me even now.

It was as if we were Lawrence of Arabia, and it was a true adventure--on the way we met a camel named Michael Jackson, realized our guide had one brown eye and one blind blue eye, learned that the Sphynx's nose is in the British Museum (the thieving bastards have all sorts of colonial plunder still tucked away in their dark basements), and my stirrup broke--giving me the chance to gallop stirrupless with bribed police as an audience.

Then the horse collapsed and another fight erupted

Arriving in Giza it was dark and scary--the locals don't like horses going down their alleys and we almost got caned by a less than pleasant man.  At last we got back to the hotel, and Anant, his friend Ayran, and I found an Indian restaurant run by the Oberoi--imagine that--and gorged on perfect butter chicken and lassis.  Not Egyptian, but wonderful.

Later, while the others had a sleep, Anant and I went back to the casinos and caught a straight flush that paid forty to one, and we turned our collective forty dollars into two hundred.  I'm not one to gamble--I hate seeing my hard-earned money go fast to no end, but in moderation, with a reasonable upper bound, which I could lose without being upset, it can be fun.  Once we caught our good cards we cashed out.  We were rolling high and beating the house and both of us knew it wasn't going to go on forever, so we quit while we were quite ahead.

Ahead, full, and happy, one ancient wonder under our belts.