The Things Tourists Do!

I took a rider out a year ago on a trek around the desert. She was on a long trek herself and had been given a small stuffed animal to take pictures of in various places. In honor of her ride, she put the duck (I believe) into Wadi's bridle. I love photos of people doing random things.

Apologies for not posting for a while but I was being a tourist myself and visiting family in the US.

A Lonely Sarcophagus

...and a sad comment on pollution. Roughy ten or fifteen years ago a friend of mine was visiting the antiquities at Sakkara and took this photo except that in hers you could see the pyramids of Giza as well as the pyramids of Abu Sir. As little as six years ago the Giza pyramids were visible from Abu Sir more often than not, but it is no longer true. 

Spot light

On a winter afternoon with big thunder clouds blowing above the desert, the sun will shine down through a gap to highlight  a spot on the desert. When the spot happens to be the pyramids of Abu Sir.

Two Gems Broken

On our last ride from Dahshur we took a route that ordinarily would take us past two lovely limestone sarcophagi near the railway track that runs between Cairo and Fayoum. This time, however, we found two broken sarcophagi. Someone came and smashed them for no apparent reason.

The Edge

The images that come out of Egypt tend to be too selective for my taste. Dusty cities, camels by pyramids, people fighting against security forces downtown, stones in the desert.... they only catch small parts of our country. One of the most important things to know about Egypt is the dichotomy between the desert and the Nile Valley. Although geographically, Egypt is roughly the size of France, in terms of usable land space it is more  the size of the Netherlands. We have close to 100 million people with their cities and industries jammed into a tiny sliver of land running along the Nile. This photo shot from a hill just south of Sakkara's Step Pyramid highlights the knife-edge break between the desert and the lush valley.

A Place To Play

One of the things about the crowded Nile Valley is that there are so few places for leisure activities. Of course, leisure for the boys and men is football (soccer to North Americans) and for this you need a football field. These players are from the village of Abu Sir which is to the left of the photograph. Every Friday they gather on the edge of the desert and have a complete football league that plays in impromptu pitches.  In our little village, a clever land owner has built a football pitch complete with light poles on a piece of empty land. He will rent it out to people wanting to play by the hour, about LE 50 per hour which works out to be only about LE 2.5 per player for people wanting to play a game.

Antiquities Trash...AGAIN!

There is an area out in the desert behind the Step Pyramid where the Sakkara Antiquities people dump their dig debris. This is an interesting place to ride as there are bits of ancient mudbrick, old bones, bits of pottery and so on. However, lately they have also been dumping basic garbage out there and that is NOT ok. Every so often I post photos of this to try to bring it to the SCA's attention. This particular dump site is on an old road out into the desert and anyone doing a camel or donkey ride from the Step Pyramid would be riding right by it. Bad SCA!

New Tombs

For years the people of the village of Sakkara have battled with the antiquities authorities to try to expand the burial area for the village. There is no space to bury people in the Nile Valley. It is filled with dwellings, cities and farmland. In addition, the water table in the valley is so high that digging a hole a meter or so deep will hit water...not the best situation for burial. I'll bet that this has always been the case and that is why for thousands of years Egyptians have buried their dead at the edge of the desert. Within a month of the end of the 18 days of revolution (or whatever it may turn out to have been) these tombs had been built in a wadi next to Sakkara village and the pyramid of Pepi II.  In past years the Antiquities Council has brought in bulldozers to get rid of the village tombs but with the government in disarray no one did that this year. In fairness to the villagers, my unprofessional bet is that their tombs are unlikely to be a major problem, as in the valley that they chose for the location, the yearly flood would have made any construction in the area difficult if not impossible. But the horses sure miss one of their favourite gallops across the wadi.

Not A Clue

 

The desert in Egypt is full of interesting oddities. In our area you can find pharoanic remnants, fossilized seashells, and volcanic debris that is probably many millions of years old. I can rule out the first couple of categories, but that doesn't mean that I know what this is, although it is really fascinating.

Home Alone

 

One of the interesting things about the desert is the fact that while it looks empty, it isn't really. I have no idea what lives in this hole, and considering that it could be a scorpion or spider or snake, I'm not in a hurry to find out. There were many such holes in the area.

A Girl and Her Dogs

 

Christmas is chaotic anywhere anytime. My daughter and I decided that a walk in the desert would help to clear our heads. A couple of the dogs agreed.

Black Pyramid on a Winter Day

Riding near the Black Pyramid at Dahshur is an amazing experience any time, but yesterday was one of those crystal clear days with high rain clouds passing by. Truly incredible.

Blending In

Beige and black sheep against the beige desert with the Step Pyramid in the distance. I spotted this flock in the desert just after Eid el Adha, so the sheep were probably very relieved to be ambling through the desert. A pair of grey baby donkeys chased each other through the sand alongside.

The Road To Hell

I went to Sakkara Country Club with a friend today to arrange a stay for him and his wife next weekend. While there the manager opened his drapes and waved at a dark line in the desert next to the Club. Apparently last night a group of local sand and gravel miners trucked in tons of clay to construct a road coming in from the asphalt road to the Giza dump to the north, along the edge of the desert and then up the hills just behind the Club. Apparently the goal is to mine and truck away the hills behind the Club that hid the sight and considerable stench of the Giza dump from the rest of us. And this is on antiquities land. The dump is not but the road most certainly is, and it's highly probable that the workers on this endeavor will enjoy a bit of moonlight archaeology. So who are they paying off? The Army or Antiquities? Or both?

The Black Land

In the time of the pharoahs Egypt was divided into the Black Land of the Nile Valley and the Red Land of the desert. Most of the desert near the valley is a reddish colour. You can tell where the antiquities were by a slight white tinge to the desert where the stone chips still cover the sand after the limestone was cut up. The black soil of the valley used to be replenished by the silt from the Nile during the yearly flood. Now it is replenished by the addition of the manure from the water buffalo, silt dug out of the canals during dredging and the careful rotation of the crops by the farmers.

The Edge

It's hard to imagine the knife edge of the desert and the green. It isn't a matter of foliage thinning or grasses becoming scanter. One step it's green and lush and in the next you are trudging through sand.

Just To Get The Shot

It's amazing how you can get caught up in the immediate project and forget where you are and what you are doing. The young lady taking the photo has only been riding for a couple of months. Happily, her equine partner is a really lovely reliable mare.

Where's Waldo?

I was taking a Canadian rider for a spin in the desert yesterday and I noticed this round white object on a pile of sand and rock in the Boneyard. Can you spot Waldo?

Pampas Grass at the Desert Edge

Along most of the Nile Valley, the demarcation of the desert and the green is knife-edge sharp. Near the pyramids of Abu Sir there were a series of sun temples that included valley temples. The ruins of these have often made low points in the desert where moisture collects and plants can grow.

Georgia O'Keefe Would Love These

While on a ride out in the desert, we cut back home through the area fondly known as the Boneyard...a place where the Antiquities Department at Sakkara dumps excavation debris. You never know what you'll find there. This time there was a row of four canine skulls neatly lined up on an old plank of wood in the sand. They could be dogs; they could be jackals. We had no way of knowing. Kelly got the shot.