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. 

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.

Unexplained

Anyone following Egyptian current events knows that we have more than our share of odd events. This is a peculiar rock placement near Sakkara. The large stones are parts of some antiquities that have been excavated by the Japanese at Lion Hill and are probably part of a temple or something. What the smaller stones that have been placed on top of the limestone blocks are is anyone's guess.

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.

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 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.

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?

Ancient Engineering

While riding through Sakkara village I noticed something that I'd ridden past over twenty times previously without noticing. Look between the palm trees and you will see a tall pole with a stone ring around the end of it near the ground. The stone provided the counterweight to ease the job of hauling the water bucket attached to the other end out of the well. The chopped off palm trunk provided the fulcrum for this simple lever. The machine was known as a shadduf and it was one of the earliest machines.

Who Was That Masked Man?

I was escorting some visitors on a ride through the village of Sakkara yesterday and when we came around a corner we found this tiny little boy with only a tshirt on standing in the middle of the path. I called everyone's attention to our small obstacle and we very carefully passed by him. His mother was just up the way sitting on a step so he wasn't without supervision, but kids in the villages are assumed to be the responsibility of everyone so she wasn't too worried. We are always careful on the horses around any buildings.

We're All Here

We had to go visit the Sakkara Country Club where they have been renovating their hotel rooms. The rooms were originally horse boxes but they have been seriously transformed a couple of times now. The new embodiment is pretty nice.

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.

The Women

There is a small grouping of about four houses on a trail that I love to ride in the countryside just north of Sakkara. The track is narrow and can only be navigated by donkey, motorcycle, on foot or by horse. The children who live here are always happy to see us come by and greet us politely. The women are also very welcoming and willing to be photographed, something that isn't so common out here. It's pretty hard to get a good photograph from horseback, but this time I did and I have to take them into town to have them printed for the women and the children.

Thoughtful

We were waiting for some clients to come back from visiting the antiquities in Sakkara with a guide. A garden nursery that we've bought plants from us gave us a quiet spot to sit and relax with the horses until the guests arrived. The Photography Elf gave me the camera and became lost in thought. The boy was a bit more watchful.

Village Store

Many of the village women run small businesses out of their homes while the men work in the palm groves and fields. This woman and her daughter sell dried beans, rice and such in Sakkara village.

Pyramid Maintenance

You can find wonderful random moments all over Egypt. The other day I found this one at the Step Pyramid in Sakkara where workers were apparently doing some maintenance to the site. One group of men were cutting stone into blocks while another young man was painting blocks that had been placed against the wall of the pyramid with some colour that made them look old like the others.

The Walker

Like someone from an enigmatic movie, an elderly man in a galabeya walks across the desert sand. Probably a rather routine explanation for his travels is that he is working as a watchman at the antiquities site on the hill behind and to his left, where the archaeologists have identified the ruins as being the tomb of a pharoanic queen.

What The Mummy Wore

This is a real mummy wrapping that I found in the desert. Unlike the cartoon and movie mummy wrapping, it is not a long strip of gauze that goes round and around the body, but it is a relatively short piece of linen, tough linen at that too. This piece was around a foot that was dumped in a pile of debris. Not needing any extra feet around the farm, I left it where it was and just took a sample of the fabric.