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On the day of our visit, the mood was celebratory, not fearfully guarded or funerary. The stage had been set for an outdoor production of Aida, Verdi’s opera commissioned for debut at the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869.
When one of the students went to sit next to her mother on the bench, I noticed that the mother hid her own beauty under a black meliyya, the head-to-toe garment that only allows an opening of slits for the eyes.
Today’s production, we were told, had been sold out. Instead we saw the spectacle of several high school girls in colorful clothes, visiting on a field trip. “They are from the town of Mansura in the north,” our guide said. They were pretty.
For some tourists a bonus in visiting the Pyramids was riding a camel in the surrounding desert. There were guards on camelback to make sure that hustlers were not close to the Pyramids.
In front of the funerary temple was the Sphinx. It had the body of a lion and the face of a man. “Lion means strength, and the man is the face of Khafre (Chepren), the pharaoh who built the second tallest Pyramid here. The funerary temple and other parts of the complex built by his father, Khufu, have not yet been found.”
“Entrance to pyramids was always in the middle of its north side,” our guide said as he pointed out the opening.
The pharaoh himself intended to ride a boat in this desert after his death. We saw a solar barque of cedar wood which had been buried in pits near the Great Pyramid for the pharaoh who had built that Pyramid. Not far from here were the empty country palace of the last king of Egypt, Farouk, and the yet to be finished building of the Grand Egyptian Museum.
In the midst of this Islamic world there was one store that displayed bottles of alcoholic drinks at its windows.
There were also three flower shops on this block. They had bright lights but were surrounded by rubbles around them. A hazardously unfinished building next to them
Many shops had Islamic writings on their portals: Allaho Akbar (God is Great), Besmellah (in the name of Allah), Alhamodlellah (Allah be praised), sometimes in their vernacular meaning of praise employed for their products.
The showcase in a photo shop posted pictures of women customers with provocative writings in English. One said “love forever,” and the other: “With You I forget Any Thing”.
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