Tales From a Female Traveller

Camels at the Pyramids of Giza

Remember folks, that the link at the top of the blog takes you to the photos that correspond to it.

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Foreword: Taken directly from Amelia Edwards’ classic travel memoirs ‘A Thousand Miles Up the Nile” I shall introduce this blog instalment with a rather amusing excerpt from her ‘Assuan to Elephantine’ chapter. Here Amelia professes her outstanding dislike for the camel, which just so happens to coincides with my lovely camel ride around the Pyramids of Giza.

“… Taken from this honest calling (transporting cargo) to perform in an absurd little drama got up especially for the entertainment of tourists, it is no wonder if the beasts are more than commonly ill-tempered. They know the whole proceeding (of hauling around tourists) to be essentially cockney and they resent it accordingly… The camel has its virtues so much at least must be admitted; but they do not lie upon the surface. My Buffon tells me, for instance, that he (the camel) carries a fresh water cistern in his stomach; which is meritorious. But the cistern ameliorates neither his gait nor his temper, which are abominable. Irreproachable as beasts of burden, he is open to many objections as a steed. It is unpleasant, in the first place, to ride an animal which not only objects to being ridden, but cherishes a strong personal antipathy to his rider. Such however, is his amiable peculiarity. You know that he hates you; from the moment you first walk round him, wondering where and how to begin the ascent of his hump. He does not, in fact, hesitate to tell you so in the roundest terms. He swears freely while you are taking your seat; snarls if you but move in the saddle; and stares you angrily in the face if you attempt to turn his head in any direction save that which he himself prefers. Should you preserve, he tires to bite your feet. If biting you feet does not answer, he lies down….”

On my third day in Cairo I decided to do a tour of all the Pyramids from Dashur to Giza (including Memphis and Saqqara where the great Step Pyramid of Djoser stands, all in chronological order). The day had been going really great and I had managed to thwart all attempts by so called “Tourist Police” offering me rides on camel back around the sites. I had made it all the way through and even shot off a few frames of an Arab letting his festy camel “kiss” him without giving any Baksheesh (tips) to anyone and it was getting on in the day, so I pretty much had to rush my way through most of the older pyramids in order to get to Giza before it closed. Giza was supposed to have been included in my little day trip package, meaning I was supposed to actually enter the Giza grounds and wonder at the Sphinx for the first time in real life, except that’s not exactly how it happened. You see, an old friend of mine had specifically warned me AGAINST accepting any camel rides into the desert, and instances of assault have been known to happen, so with this in mind as my driver takes me to the back of the Giza Pyramids where the stables are situated I told myself that I would just refuse to get out and that would be it, I would be taken to the main entrance gate.

Of course though, this did not happen. We pulled up and I politely abstained from exiting the car explaining that I didn’t want to ride a camel at all.
“No no, cheap price.” My driver says.
“I really don’t want to, but thanks anyway.” I respond.
At that point, an older man approaches my window, sticks his head inside the 3 inches it was cracked and yells in my face “CHEAP PRICE, CAMEL ROUND PYRAMID, ALL ENTRANCE, 120 POUNDS!”
As you can imagine this took me by surprise so I say “No thank you.” and ask my driver if we could please go to the main entrance now.
“No no.” he says “Tourist entrance no good, this better price, all entrance fee included, to much at tourist gate, you believe me.”
I was getting a little frustrated at this point and the horrible little man outside my window was still yelling at me and that’s when I realised that this was where my driver was to get his commission for the day and that he wasn’t leaving any time soon, at least not until I accepted a camel or horse ride. No amount of protesting on my behalf did any good and in the end the little man was yelling at me so much that I could see the veins in his neck bulging due to the anger that was dwelling up at my refusal to get out of the car. But I really did not want to get on any camel, I really don’t like camels all that much. They’re okay to look at and they make great photos but I really don’t like riding them. I had ridden a camel once before and remember distinctly hating it that much that I swore I would never get on another one. So when I found myself in the most ghetto part of Giza with two not so trustworthy Egyptian men yelling at me to get on one, I thought it best to comply for fear of being taken prisoner until I yielded. Besides, how long could it take and how bad could it possibly be?

So… out of the car I reluctantly exit and straight away my bags are snatched from me and I’m hoisted onto this diseased looking creature that the stable boy had retrieved 20 minutes ago and stood there intimidatingly waiting for me to relent. In went the tripod to the saddle bag, on went my backpack to the back of the saddle, up got the camel in the most violent way possible, on hopped my adolescent “guide” and off we all strolled AWAY from the pyramids. Now just to get an idea of what it’s like to be on a camel as it gets up, I shall insert another paragraph from Amelia’s book.

“…Now the lying down and getting up of a camel are performances designed for the express purpose of inflicting grievous bodily harm upon his rider. Thrown twice forward and twice backward, punched in his “wind” and damaged in his spine, the luckless novice receives four distinct shocks, each more violent and unexpected than the last. For this “execrable hunchback” is fearfully and wonderfully made. He has a superfluous joint somewhere in his legs, and uses it to revenge himself upon mankind….”

After having my back almost slipt in two from the getting up of the camel this sudden detour away from my intended destination took me by surprise and I immediately enquired as to where the heck we were going and why on earth we where going in the wrong direction. Apparently, the “tourist entrance” is in the opposite direction to the “dodgy rip off entrance” which is halfway out in the freaking desert (yes Kate, I know, I should have listened). As we rode through the slums of Giza all the warnings my friend had given me about accepting camel rides were running wildly through my brain. Would I get raped? Would I get murdered? Or worse… would I get robbed of my cameras?? Too late to back out now I thought to myself and I tried to put it all out of my mind as the first sight of the Great Pyramid appeared above the shifting sand dunes.

But this was the most difficult task I have possibly ever undertaken. So uncomfortable was the ride that I kept slipping forward in the saddle and inadvertently spooning the kid that was my guide which made the both of us, and probably the camel as well, more than a little awkward. To ease my load a little I had entrusted the kid with my film camera with its attached red filter and I of course, took the expensive digital, I still did not trust anyone from the slums, even if it was a sweet little innocent looking 12 year old stable boy of supposed reputable reputation. So I was a little more than eagle eyed at every point he shifted the camera around on his neck to make it a little more comfortable to wear.

Things were going smashingly until he must have decided that we weren’t going fast enough (note to ALL readers, camels are not MEANT to go fast), for he lets out this horrible guttural sound which scared me half to Hades and the camel protestingly went from a slightly uncomfortable rolling walk, to a hell on earth type gallop that threatened to launch me out of the saddle at every uneven, awkward pace and send me face first into the blisteringly hot sand below. This, I hated every second of and my attentions were soon torn away from what I think might have been an amazing view of the Pyramids to my right and I forgot completely that they were even there, for all I could think about was how the hell I was gonna manage to not fall and break my arse. Now, you’d think that riding a camel might be a similar experience to riding a horse. Well, you’d think wrong. So wrong, in fact, that it’s more like trying to ride a pissed off alligator, because those rugs that they throw over the saddle rubbed my thighs red raw, but the only way to hold on was with my legs, like riding bare back on a horse! Miss Edwards describes below exactly what it’s like to ride one of these horrid creatures…

“… His paces, however, are more complicated than his joints and more trying than his temper. He has four; a short walk, like the rolling of a small boat in a chopping sea; a long walk which dislocates every bone in your body; a trot that reduces you to imbecility; and a gallop that is sudden death. One tries in vain to imagine a crime for which the peine forte et dure of sixteen hours on camel-back would not be a full and sufficient expiation. It is a punishment to which one would not willingly be the means of condemning any human being – not even a reviewer….”

And you have no idea how right she is. Every moment on camel back is torture. I even thought that the darn thing was going to collapse under me every time there was the slightest of inclines for his legs were shaking that much that at one point as we tried to descend from a particularly large sand dune, the darn thing just stopped mid hill and refused to go any further, so my “guide” had to give in and force the animal back up the dune so it didn’t collapse halfway down. Amelia describes this experience beautifully.

“…They grinned, they sniffed, the snorted, they snarled, they disputed every foot of the way… I never heard any dumb animal make use of so much bad language in my life…”

And it’s true, it really is like the damn thing is literally swearing at you for daring to assume it will happily take you down a slope you yourself wouldn’t dare walk.
Now, all the camels around Giza look pretty much the same, the colourful tasselled head dresses, the woven blankets that are used as a cover to the saddle, except some look a little more worse for wear than others. My camel was most definitely one of the worse for wear camels, and you just know that in a few months he will be retired and sent off to the slaughter house to become a meal for a poor Egyptian family.

“… they all have gay (colourful) worsted tassels on their heads, and rugs flung over their high wooden saddles, by way of housings. The gentlemen of the Fostat (another ship in her convoy) had ridden away hours ago, cross-legged and serene; and we prepared to do likewise…” I could not agree more with Amelia here, every single Arab seems to have no problems at all riding a camel, they make it look so easy.

“…They urged their camels into a trot, and tried to look as if they liked it. The Idle Man and The Writer (Amelia and her travelling companion) wreathed their countenances in ghastly smiles, and did likewise not for worlds would they have admitted that they found the pace difficult. Such is the moral influence of the camel. He acts as a tonic; he promotes the Spartan virtues and if not himself heroic, is at least the cause of heroism in others…” Spartan virtues is exactly what you have to talk yourself into. You just have to grin and bear it because its WAY too late to get out of it. Not only did my “guide” like forcing the beast to trot, he liked making it gallop, and if you remember what Amelia says above about the gallop, it almost killed me.

When we arrive at the rip off gate we’re confronted with a dodgy tourist policeman and straight away my little “guide” and this twenty something rent-a-cop start having it out, leading me to think that we weren’t actually going to be let into the Giza grounds and I would be turned away having just ripped myself off of 120 pounds. Their argument went on for at least twenty minutes while I just sat there closed mouthed contemplating ordering my “guide” to just turn around. I can never tell, however, if Egyptians are actually arguing, or if they’re discussing the current weather conditions because the language is so vocal and violent looking (like the way Italians talk with their hands) that it always looks as if they’re having a massive argument. So here I am sure that I wasn’t getting in when all of a sudden the rent-a-cop takes off the string of barbed wire covering the massive whole in the tallest metal fence you’ve ever seen and lets us pass through. Although I am almost positive he kept bitching and moaning about it as we strolled away towards the pyramids… almost… could have been a wish for good luck… you never can tell.

So we’re strolling closer and closer to the pyramids when I ask my “guide” to stop so I could dismount to take a photo, plus my thighs were that raw that I was afraid they’d start bleeding if I didn’t. So… having my back broken again, down the camel goes, swearing all the way and off I hop. I grab my camera from my “guide”, put the viewfinder to my eye and see colour! “hmm, that’s weird.” I thought to myself…”I shouldn’t be seeing colour, I should be seeing red and black..” and that’s when it hit me… the expensive red filter I bought specifically for the purpose of these photos was gone. “SHIT!!!” I exclaim as my “guide” looks at me quizzically. “MY FILTER!!!” I looked on the ground, I looked in my pocket, I looked in my bag… it was gone. Then I remembered I was with a ghetto kid and I say to him “Do YOU have it!!” seeing as he was the one carrying the camera and he immediately replies “No. Sorry.” And looks at me with these huge brown eyes. Now you can bet yourself that at that point in time, after a ride that has completely realigned every bone in my body and starting to burn in the hotter than hot sun, that I wasn’t believe a single word this kid said to me. And I feel just terrible for the way I reacted. I honestly was convinced that this kid knew exactly what a filter was and how much he could get for it and was hiding it somewhere after he skilfully lifted it from my camera while he was being a “gentleman” as he carried it for me during the ride. So pissed off was I, in fact, that I had a little tantrum and kicked a few rocks and swore a few words. At this point, the poor little guy was so distressed that I was unhappy that he says to me “please wait with camel.” and starts heading off into the desert to look for my filter. As I watched him walk off into the desert and disappear behind the dunes the camel decided it was a good time to regurgitate and re-eat the food it had for breakfast. There’s no other sound like it, and no other smell, it’s simply disgusting. So there I stood, the pyramids in front of me and my guide walking off into the desert behind me leaving me alone with a camel that resented me.
‘That’s it.” I thought to myself. ‘I’m gonna get heat stroke and DIE and no one will ever find my cameras!!”
“BUUUURP!” went the camel as if it could read my mind.
“What are you looking at?” I accuse at it…
“BUUUURP… GAAAARRR.” It responds.
“Well it’s not your fault I suppose.” I say, softening a little as I remembered I liked camels when I wasn’t actually ON them. “Sorry that I’m riding you. But look at the amazing view.” I say to him, trying to explain my reasons for enslaving him. “How could I not?” And at this point, I think we both reached an understanding and when I decided to let it all go and pull out my camera, he practically posed for me.
“Work it baby.” I say to him, now at this time, completely delusional from the sun…
“BUUUURP.” He replies stoically as he moves his head a little to the right.
Eventually, my little bonding session with the beast came to and end and back came my little guide. “Sorry.” He says to me almost tearfully “I walk all way, I not find. I sorry.”
“That’s okay.” I say… it doesn’t matter now. By this time I felt so terrible that the little guy had actually walked all the way back through where we came and had come up with nothing and was so worried that I was having a bad time when I refused to get back on the camel, that he ended up taking the rug off the saddle, putting the softer, cushioned blanket over the saddle and reasoned with me to get back on the camel, probably fearing that in the time he had left me in the middle of the desert I had gained heat stroke and would collapse if I walked. So he helped me back on and walked himself.

We never actually went to the pyramids during this little excursion as after all of that the darn thing had closed and it turned out that the ticket price wasn’t included at all, we were doing the dodgy. So I saw the Sphinx off in the distance, took a few shots and we headed back to the dodgy gate. The whole way I had my eyes glued to the ground in the vain hope that I would find the filter, even though I still half believed that my little “guide” had lifted it. When we arrived back at the ghetto stables I dismounted that camel as fast as I could and made for my driver’s car like I had just robbed a bank when all of a sudden I hear “MISS… MISS!”
“What now.” I thought. “More baksheesh?” And as I turned around, here was my little guide standing with the filter in his hand. Apparently, as we were galloping along at breakneck speed on our way to the dodgy gate, that it had fallen off the camera with all the jolting around it received before my guide offered to carried, and fallen straight into the saddle bag.
“OH MY GOD!!” I shout. “YOU FOUND IT!!!” I’m pretty sure that I waffled on for a few minutes about how wonderful a kid he is as the whole stable just stood there and stared at me in complete confusion.

So I take my bad behaviour to be a lesson learned for the future. I was most definitely ripped off with the whole camel ride scam and so sure that my little guide had stolen my filter that my paranoia stopped me from letting it all roll off and instead turn it into a good time of seeing the pyramids from the sand dunes. And all heat stroke induced delusions aside, my camel conversation wasn’t all that bad. We’re now old friends!

Afterward: I am officially the world’s biggest idiot. In my haste to see everything there is to see in Egypt it seems that I have accidentally deleted all my digital photos from my trip to the earlier pyramids from Dashur, Memphis and Saqqara, including the pictures of my little guide walking off into the desert. So folks, unfortunately, you’ll all have to wait until I can develop my films. I’m such a moron and I feel like I could just cry over this tragic loss. Let us all take a moment to reflect…

posted by Lucyspeak @ 2:20 am