Baksheesh

I'm not sure if I was the first to see the man approaching us, or if we all saw it at the same time. Peaking over the crest of another sand dune was a second man on a camel, similarly costumed and armed. He kept his distance, but the first man kept coming. From the back of the line, Mahmoud shouted something in Arabic at our guide on the white donkey. The donkey broke into a trot, and the camels begrudgingly and half-heartedly followed suit. We were now attempting to run away from an armed man on a camel in the Sahara. Huh.

I looked over my shoulder to see if perhaps the quickly approaching man had some other destination in mind, but all was sand. I glanced at the train of camels bearing my friends, but none of them met my gaze; they were all staring at the man in blue.

Later I would come to find out that they all had similar thoughts:

This is where they take us out into the desert and kill us.
They're going to take my money and my passport. Oh, why did I bring my passport into the desert?
Of all the ways to die, I guess this is one hell of a way to go out.

And then things got cool.

As our camel train headed farther into the desert, Mahmoud peeled off and met the man on camelback halfway. They seemed to know each other, with a cool familiarity that suggested they did this often, but were not friends. I watched as Mahmoud slipped a hand under his black tunic and withdrew something. The man shifted on his camel. A row of brass buttons caught the light of the sinking desert sun, and I knew: police. The officer palmed Mahmoud's offering and turned his camel around. He disappeared as easily and as quickly as he had emerged.

Mahmoud rode up beside Sarah and Hafsa, and shouted, "We are taking you to where you can see not just the three big Pyramids, but all of the little ones too!" We all just nodded, and said nothing. Later it would become apparent what we all now knew: we were on the back side of the Pyramids. The side tourists can't go to. Behind the fence. Off the map. The beginning of the Sahara, patrolled by guards who could be bought for a price.

Later, when we finally reached the vantage point Mahmoud had been talking about, we grouped together. "This is illegal," somebody whispered. "We're not supposed to be out here." It was probably true, I realized, as I looked around, saw the Pyramids, and absolutely nothing. There should be tour buses, or pushy children hocking trinkets. Instead, there was the odd remnant of a shelter here, a crumbling stone foundation there, and lots of trash. Illegal. I thought on that. It would come to be a theme in our later adventures. Is it still illegal if its implementation is flexible or for sale? Several times that day throughout our Saharan sojourn, various police officers similarly outfitted would approach Mahmoud, and the same interchange would occur. We ourselves were never bothered. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Mahmoud was right, though. Once we finally reached this magic viewpoint, the sight was spectacular. I was cursing myself for deciding not to bring my camera to the information session that morning, but Hafsa and Aliyah were taking pictures for us all. We said it over and over that day, and in the ones to follow, that no camera could really get Egypt or the Pyramids right. The color of the stones. The vastness of the desert. The surrealness of their magnitude. It's really just something you have to see for yourself, and I hope you all do someday.

In the far off distance we saw a mass of tour buses, and various buildings. We guessed that was the "touristic entrance" to the site. After taking our panoramic shots, Mahmoud said it was time for us to "touch a Pyramid." So, we did. We followed our guide to the Pyramid of Khafre, the middle structure and the only one to retain part of its limestone coating. It is smaller than the Pyramid of Khufu ("the Great Pyramid"), but appears larger due to its angle of construction and the elevation of the ground around it.

We parked our camels at its base. My recalcitrant camel all but refused to kneel, and did so only after the encouragement of a whip or two by Mahmoud. It was nearing 4:00, at which time the entrance to the tomb apparently closed. You would expect large tour groups milling about, mass photos being taken by loud foreigners, but there was nothing. It was practically deserted.

The ticket office was a leaning shack where a man on a couch took your money, and the only people around were Egyptians. Mahmoud told us we weren't allowed to bring our cameras in, so we didn't try. A throng of Egyptians were at the entrance to the tomb, but the guard was not letting them in. It was only 3:45, but apparently it didn't matter. Men were arguing, the officials were distracted, and the six of us slipped past the gate. The guard looked annoyed. We passed under a rusting metal archway and began our descent into the Pyramid of Khafre.

The ground sloped significantly, and our traction was only maintained by a sporadic lattice of wood nailed into the walkway. The ground was lit, and the air was heavy.

We passed a man in the narrow hallway who told us in English to hurry up, that they were closing. Just as the path had fallen into the ground, it rose back up; we climbed until we reached a small room with an open stone coffin at one end. We looked around, and saw that it was the end of the line. This was apparently all there was to it, but we were inside a damn pyramid, so we didn't really care. As the air hung thick around us, Jacob suggested we tip the gatekeeper for allowing us in. Begrudgingly, we did--what did he do but operate within posted business hours?!--and made our way out of the pyramid.

Tipping, or baksheesh, in Egypt is a way of life. In the West, we tip for explicit services rendered. A porter for our bags, or our waitress at a restaurant. In Egypt, it goes beyond that. Certainly, this facet of tipping is included in baksheesh, but the man at the Radio Shack who opens the door for you expects money too. Sarah found this out about two minutes into Egypt, when she used the bathroom at the Cairo airport. A woman staffing the restroom handed her a roll of toilet paper, and a paper towel to dry her hands. Taken aback, Sarah said "Uhh...thank you?" to which the old woman replied by sticking her hand out for money.

But baksheesh goes beyond tipping everyone and their mother. Another of its uses is for the granting of favors. Almost everything in Egypt is for sale, from almost-after-hours tomb gazing to off the map camel rides. The only good thing about this is that the exchange rate is favorable for Americans. A tip of a pound, appropriate for all small and most moderate services, is about 17.5 US cents. In fact, the exchange rate can be amazing here, but more on that later.

We mounted our camels once again and went to pass by the Sphinx. As you can see, one of the drawbacks to seeing the Pyramids the "Egyptian way" was that we were not able to see the Sphinx from head on. We were on the other side of the aforementioned post-9/11 fence. I like the profile myself, but this means...Denney, I'm sorry. I couldn't get your Sphinx/fast food juxtaposition photo. But I'm here for another 5 months, and I imagine I can make it back to Giza again.

After staring at the Sphinx for awhile and recalling a clay modeling project I did in the 6th grade (thanks for the help on that, Mom), we decided to trade our camels for horses. While we waited for them to be brought back from the stables, we sat on a sand dune and watched the sun set over the Sahara. It was our first, but it would not be our last.

We kept repeating that it didn't seem real, that it really hadn't set in what we were doing. We talked about what kids back at school might be doing right now. It was snowing, we remembered. Kids were frantically trying to schedule appointments with their dean to drop this class and add the other. Future little diplomats were selling their souls to wrangle a course with such and such professor so that they could have an in with the State Department. And we were sitting at the edge of the world's biggest desert, looking out at the only remaining Wonder of the Ancient World, and we didn't care about school at all. It was a wonderful feeling.

Mahmoud's associates soon arrived with stout Arabian horses, and we took one last ride into the desert. For all his taunting that we should go to a gallop and have a race, whenever I took my horse to a trot he got uneasy. I've noticed that many Egyptians act foolhardy or crazy (e.g. "We will gallop the camels and whoever does not fall off, I will make you tea! But if you do fall off, you buy me a pyramid!"), but are realistic and prudent when it really comes down to it. I like their style of humor; it's bold and warm.

Eventually we took the horses back to the stable. On the way there we passed a dying horse in the street, in its last throes, lifting its feet into the air. No one seemed to notice but us. At his offie, we drank more mint tea, as is apparently customary. This time there was even more sugar in it. Please don't tell my dentist. Mahmoud arranged a taxi for us, and set the same price as before: 35 pounds. We piled in, and filled the half hour cab ride back to Cairo talking about Iran and, when we realized how toolish that sounded, talking about how amazing our day had been. Sketchy. Crazy. Lucky. Amazing. We had seen the Great Pyramids at Giza, and it was only our first day.

We had just maxed out Egypt. How could we ever top this?

I would quickly find out.