4 Camels, 4 Pyramids


 

I took this picture back in the summer of 2017.  What stood out to me about that time was that there were very few tourists anywhere, especially around the pyramids, and it wasn't because it was 110 degrees that day. I was traveling with my family and it was our first day in Cairo. We were staying at the Sheraton on the Nile, and that morning, as we were leaving our hotel, I noticed there was a well-dressed gentleman in our group, which was odd because we were supposed to be the only ones on the tour.

"Who is that joining us?" I asked the hotel lobby representative

"Oh, you're Americans. All Americans are assigned a bodyguard. He will be with you throughout your time here in Cairo. His name is Ali."

And with that, he pulled open his jacket to show me his submachine gun, and off we went.

We visited the pyramids, the Manshiyat Nasr district, and Al-Azhar that day, and I had a great time chatting and eating with Ali. Apparently, he was a paramilitary police officer, and at the time, shortly after the deposal of the post-Arab Spring government, the government policy was that all Americans in a group were to be accompanied by protection. As we were driving around the city, I saw buses of tourists with modified platforms on the back with two men arming and mounting machine guns.

As you can see in the photo, there were no lines, no people, just the four pyramids and four camels. I had a lovely day, and just recently I was reminded of my time there when I was speaking with one of my friends who had also visited Egypt. I mentioned to him that Turkey is one of the places I don't enjoy visiting because they always overcharge tourists.

"Have you been to Egypt? It's much worse there."

I was dumbfounded. 

"No way. I didn't experience any of that while I was there." 

Now I know why. Thank you, Ali.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Twenty Years Ago Today. A Vision of Hope

Image
  Twenty years ago today, this  article  was published about a surgery I performed on a two-year-old girl named Alaa, a child blinded by war. Shrapnel from an American tank shell—fired on a children’s birthday party mistaken for an insurgent gathering—killed most of her cousins and family members. It left Alaa with a torn abdomen and filled her eyes with metal fragments that would rust and poison her ocular tissue. At the time, a local law student, Ashley Severance, contacted me at my private practice, asking if I could help. The surgeon originally scheduled to remove Alaa’s eyes had backed out—fearful, in that post-9/11 era, that saving this child might be seen as aiding the enemy rather than helping a fellow human being. I knew I had to try. If it were my child, I would want someone to do everything possible. father told me, “It’s not fair that a young child will never get to see her mother again.” He was told to let her die—her...
Read more

Beyond Understanding: Grokking the Reality Beyond Words.

Image
Elon  Musk’s AI startup, announced in July 2023, claims to seek “to understand the true nature of the universe,” according to its website. While this ambition is intriguing, it mirrors a timeless quest—one that sages and philosophers, have embarked on long before Musk. Case in point, the Buddha. The paradox, however, is that the true nature of the universe cannot be understood by “trying” to understand it. The act of understanding depends on a matrix of symbols, concepts, and language—constructs of the human mind, or what is referred to in eastern metaphysics as Maya. Any search for meaning within these frameworks is inherently limited by them. Kurt Gödel demonstrated in his incompleteness theorems that no system can explain itself entirely; it can only be understood by stepping beyond it. The same applies to our conceptual descriptions and models of reality. In much the same way, to truly grasp the universe, we must transcend the conceptual systems w...
Read more

Time to Mate. Love in the Serengeti.

Image
That morning, deep in the Serengeti, as I ventured out on a walking safari to witness the great wildebeest migration, I joked with my guide that I felt the urge to "mark my territory," so that lions knew who’s king of the jungle, or in this case savannah. He laughed, and we wandered, stepping into the vast wilderness on foot. As we walked, we spotted a male lion resting with two females in the distance. My guide nudged me, saying, “Let’s go, it’s getting late.” But I had a feeling something was about to happen. “No, let’s wait a bit longer,” I said, keeping my eyes on the scene. The lions stirred. I noticed them gazing intently toward the bush in the distance, where I could see rustling through my binoculars. The male and his lead lioness got up, walking in the direction of the movement. Then, from afar, another lioness approached—likely a new member of the pride. The male without hesitation left his mate behind and lay down, waiting. And then, ...
Read more