CHAPTER 6. EGYPT CONT.

A ride to El Fayum takes a long day, a beautiful drive thru fine agricultural land, rich black soil and lush green crops in small plots. There are some tractors, but not in fields, some oxen and water buffalos pulling wooden ploughs, but mostly men and women cultivating with adzes. Crops are alfalfa, fava beans, tomatoes, spinach, a few orchards and vineyards. Irrigation is from ditches with many animals going around & around to lift water for the fields. People are riding burros with a little alfalfa on their lap or behind them; women are riding side saddle. There are traffic jams on muddy roads with trucks, donkey carts, busses, and more trucks. People, some in colorful garb, wave and smile at us. Women scrub clothes and dishes in the dirty canals.

Where irrigation ends the desert begins like a curtain is drawn between. There is not a tumbleweed or cactus in this barren desert. There are big military areas in the desert, with many soldiers. We see the Meydum pyramid, but watch the others climb up and inside.

After a late but good lunch of barbecued lake trout we walk to the nearby Greco Roman ruins of Karanis. At 6 pm we arrive at our new hotel, Siag Pyramids, still in the Giza area, but closer to Cairo.

The next day is shorter and easier with a visit to the Cairo Coptic museum. It is on the site of a Roman fortress from the first century A.D. One ruined tower remains and has been partially reconstructed. An old synagogue is being restored. A “hanging” church had been built over the entrance to the Roman fort. The museum has beautiful carved wood windows and decorated wood ceilings from old homes. It is a very interesting museum, with areas displaying carved wood, stone, fabric, and parchment as well as frescoes.

Back to the hotel for lunch and later a nature display with first the pyramids obscured by a dust storm, then high winds & horizontal torrents of rain accompanied by lightning and thunder.

It’s another day on the road south towards El Fayum, but with a stop at Memphis to see the large horizontal statue of Rameses II, the Alabaster Sphinx, and others. On to Sakkara and the step pyramid, the oldest free standing structure, from 2650 BC. Here a large complex is being partially reconstructed by workmen using ancient techniques to shape stone blocks. There is a canal with a sample of a cantilevered stone roof, many tour busses, and hordes of tourists speaking many languages! We stop on the way back to Cairo at a weaving arts school.