Tag Archives: egypt

Erosion, disintegration, conspirology, and OMG-views: the Pyramids of Ancient Egypt.

As promised, herewith, a continuation of tales and pics and musings from my recent trip to Egypt. I’ll pass over the business segment of the trip (as it was much the same as most business segments when traveling: meetings, new acquaintances, discussions, new products, cyber immunity, and plans for the future), and get straight to our first tourism – the Giza Pyramids, no less (plus a spot of Kasperology)…

The Pyramids of Giza are probably one of the most popular and well-trodden places of interest to the tourist in the world – fantastical objects a gobsmacked public has been beholding with wonder for 4500 years already. Down the years terabytes of photos have been taken of them, zillions of tales written about them, and gazillions of scientific articles and assorted other dissertations published about them – and all that came before my short trip to see them the other week. Nevertheless, I wanted to take some photos of my own to share with you, and also to add my two cents in terms of observations and impressions of, and thoughts on, these wondrously wonderful wonders of the world…

So here we go: Cairo, Giza, the ancient Egyptian Pyramids…

My first impression: complete and utter ecstatic delight. Primordial, colossal constructions built several millennia ago! Just imagine the things they’ve endured and outlived! And did you know they were once coated in smooth granite tiles, or that the upper sections were covered in similarly smooth, perfectly white limestone? (Our guide also mentioned how there’s a hypothesis that states the peaks were covered in gold, or at least gold-colored stone.) One can only begin to wonder how grandiose such a spectacle must have been. What a civilization! And soooo long ago!

Read on…

Walk like an Egyptian.

Hi folks!

I’ve been just sooo busy of late. Not complaining one bit though, for much of that busy-ness is… the kind business I like most: travelling plenty for exhibitions, conferences, meetings, introductions, and sometimes lecturing at universities; plus – my ever-present guilty pleasure while on those same travels: small doses of tourism where I check out (preferably new-to-me) places of interest, camera always ready to hand…

Just the other day, my travels took me to a country that’s ever popular with regular tourists, but somehow I – a pro tourist :) – had never been to! Yes, you’ve seen it in the title already. And I’m sure many of you, dear readers, have been to Egypt yourselves. But moi? Jamais. Comment?! Pourqoi?!…

Indeed, though I’d visited precisely 100 countries of the world (my 100th was Angola, in 2020) before this +1, Egypt wasn’t one of them. For one reason or another, I’d always passed it by. My routes have always mostly been northerly (for example to the Americas), westerly (e.g., Europe), or easterly (Asia…). Directly south (almost) – not too often, besides Turkey perhaps…

So, finally, I’ve made it to the land of the pharaohs. Business was done (despite the traffic jams trying their best to foul up our scheduling), and the tourism was plentiful too. But of course it was. This is Egypt: more ancient history than you can shake a stick at…

No prizes for guessing which place of interest we checked out first – yes, of course, it had to be the Pyramids (who knew?!). I’ll be telling you plenty about them later; for now, in this post, some intro snaps for you:

Read on…