Sphynix-y and come back?

So I don’t usually write two posts back-to-back, as I just make you endure one ridiculously long entry; however, I felt that the tone of these two were just too different to allow them to be combined. Now, although I want to emphasize that modern Egypt is so much more than pyramids and hieroglyphics, I can’t talk about my trip to Cairo without talking about my crazy morning at the pyramids of Giza.

The reason I call it a crazy morning is because after living in an Arab country for almost a year, you would think that my friends and I would have learned that trying to do something within a time limit is almost impossible. Something is bound to go wrong, and anything that would normally take 5 minutes somewhere else will take about 2 hours when dealing with ‘Arab-time.’ However, we were in Cairo solely for a Fulbright conference, which meant that like it or not, we were on a very strict time schedule.

So, me and four other girls woke up one morning, piled in a cab, and headed off to the infamous Giza site. None of us had a guide book (it didn’t seem worth it for only 5 days in the city) and none of us had any idea what were going to find when we got there. Me and my Americanness excepted signs and guides or at the very least a cohesive map of one of the seven wonders of the world.

Ha, wrong assumption number one.

Wrong assumption number two was actually made by all of us. We assumbed that The Sphinx was large and situated away from the pyramids.

Wrong assumption number three was that the ticket office would inform us if the other sites (museums, descending into the pyramid, etc.) needed a separate ticket.

So, those three assumptions combined created the most interesting and hilarious morning of my Cairo trip.

You see, we entered the site at what appeared to be the largest pyramid and a fairly small sphinx. Now, please note that our cab driver fueled our confusion by saying that The Sphinx was at the end of the site away from the entrance. He, however, did not inform us that there are two entrances. So, our assumption that The Sphinx was far away caused us to disregard this smaller figure and proceed up the hill towards the pyramids.

As we started to walk up the hill, we noticed a very long line. Instantly, we thought of the time and hurried to situate ourselves among the hoards of tourists waiting to get a chance to walk down into the famous tomb. After twenty minutes of waiting, we finally made it to the front. This site required yet another ticket, which could only be purchased at a specific gate located at the other entrance to the site. No amount of bargining or pleading would make the gentlemen at the door let us in. No ticket. No entrance.

Slightly dejected, we decided that we should use our remaining time trying to get out to see The Sphnix instead of waiting in that silly line again. But by this time, we knew that walking on human legs wouldn’t get us there and back in 30 minutes.

So, we decided to go on horseback.

The next ten minutes of our morning was spent trying to make the stable hands understand that all we wanted to do was go The Sphinx and come back. One of my friends speaks excellent Arabic, so it seemed that there was no way he could be confused by our desire. But still, he looked at us with wonder and constantly said ‘You want Sphynix-y and come back?’ After that 10 minutes of assuring him that this was truly what we wanted, he simply shrugged and situated three of us in a carriage and two of us on horses.

And with that, we took off galloping towards the pyramids and away from our entrance containing a ’small’ sphinx. As we rounded the side of the pyramid, our stable hand guides stopped to allow us time to take pictures. By now it was clear that he really didn’t get our time predicament and we hurriedly told him that we only wanted to see The Sphinx. We had no time for taking other pictures. Confused, he agreed, muttered ‘Sphynix-y and come back?’ and took off in the direction we came.

Realizing that he was taking us that ’smaller’ sphynix we decided to just give up. Our time was up and we had to head back to the hotel. Our guide however, didn’t seem to understand our dejection. He merely pointed to the sphynix and said, ‘See? Sphnix-y!’ We descended from our horses, thankful to be on solid ground again, paid the man, and walked off. ‘Oh well,’ we thought, ‘at least we got to see the pyramids.’ We would see the Sphynix another time.

Well, if you can’t tell by now, that was The Sphnix. The sad thing about it is that we didn’t realize this until we got back to the hotel and recounted our exploits to our fellow Fulbrighters. It’s turns out that our seemingly haphazard horseback riding through the desert actually was to The Sphynix-y and back.

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