“You are about to witness the top of pyramids” the taxi driver told me, smiling nonchalantly. “It’s ok to laugh, or cry, or scream if you feel like it. I’ve had tourists do it all.” I looked, and surely a few seconds later the small triangles were there in the horizon. Only the top at first, and then slowly the rest of the Giza pyramids unfolded: sandy colored, uncaring, a pile of stones neatly stacked, bound with untranslated magic and mysteries. I looked at it all, and felt nothing. Some things are so great, their encounter shocking enough to empty one’s mind and heart from thoughts and emotions.
A guide shared with me the area’s facts and history, a traveler shared some of the popular conspiracy theories, my local host shared the beliefs of his people. None of these made me weep with joy and wonder, not like a camel did.
“Is it worth paying 10 dollars to go walk in the scorching heat just to see some old stones stalked on top of each other?” I raised a finger, licked it and let the light drift decide. “Yes, it is”, I decided.
I walked around the 12 pyramids – 3 bigger ones for the pharaohs, 9 smaller ones for their queens – structures defiant of their age and weather and people stumbling around with their sneakers and camels and plastic waste. A quiet, respectful yet questioning murmur rose around me; humans touching the stones, stepping on them, taking pictures that will last a fraction of the pyramid’s lifespan. Seeing them for one’s own self offered no clarity in the universe’s real nature. “We are.” the pyramids’ presence echoed.
The quietest moments in Cairo did not happen while I was laying jetlagged and wide awake in my bed at 2am, nor when the minarets stopped echoing the imam’s prayers. The quietest I’ve ever felt was while walking on the hot asphalt, with a sandy colored camel walking slowly next to me chewing some barely seen straw, its lips and teeth and mouth moving in exaggeration. Its huge and flat hooves caressing the road softly, quiet as a light breeze on the sun-scorched ground. As the beast passed me by, its beauty and indifference shocked me deeply. “I am”, its rhythmical movements declared unapologetically. The whole world’s mysteries exhaled a hot breath, connecting all the wisdom I’ve been absorbing during my days in Cairo, making all the magic tangible, reminding me that I, too, am. I started weeping. The camel and the man on its back kept moving along the hot road, and I had no option but to follow their shadow, tears drying quickly on my cheeks.
“Welcome to Alaska!” A man on a carriage snapped me out of it, and I laughed, more tears rolling down my cheeks. This world is full of mysteries that I might never understand, but falling in love with the world, and with it, myself, has never been easier than right at that moment.
