Visiting the Pyramids

It was fourteen years ago today that we were visiting the Pyramids of Giza.

A few funny moments on that day:

We hired a driver to take us on a tour of the nearby pyramids, including Dashur and Saqqara, and for whatever reason, he decided he would bring his neighbour to do the driving. He seemed pretty excited to introduce him to us. We stopped at the bank so that I could get some cash. At the time, it was right around five Egyptian pounds to the Canadian dollar. I made a point of carefully counting my pounds so that I was sure that I got out what I punched in…before I took my card out of the machine. "Make a hiss or a whooshing sound out loud," I wrote on the blog that evening. "That is the sound my card makes as it disappears into the slot." Getting my card back involved waking a bank employee from his early morning siesta and convincing him that having my card back on my person was a matter of some importance.

Fifteen minutes later, it was amazing to my nose that the smog of Cairo followed us confidently out into the countryside. Eventually, we came to realize that the smog dissipated rapidly once a window was rolled down. Windows stayed open for the remainder of the drive.

Not only had civilization crept up on the Pyramids of Giza by 2007, the corporate world had crept into Egypt as well. But with money to be made on hungry tourists, anxious for a taste of home, the corporate world is as the corporate world does.

It's interesting to look at Google Maps now to see how much more developed the area around the pyramids is these days. 

Later that night, the four of us were stuffed into a berth on the overnight train to Luxor. Within minutes, everyone was asleep, while I wrote about our day of chasing bank cards and ancient marvels.

All in all, December 6, 2007 was a good day.

Our first approach on the Sphinx, and the Pyramids beyond.

The View from the Pizza Hut across the street.

If you're interested in more of our travels, scroll through the blog, or check out our books.

Stories of our travels through Europe and the Middle East (including Egypt) are found in Today I Ate Cow Stomach.

Our three months in India make for an exhaustingly beautiful read, in The Happy Accident.

Our sometimes weary sojourns throughout Southeast Asia, as well as the preparations for an art show based on our travels are written about in Distant Early Warning.

Time to Read

Hello everyone,

If you’re like many people I know, you’re going to have a lot of time on your hands over the next few weeks, perhaps months.

As my inbox flooded with emails from CEOs across the country telling me what they were doing to help me through this time, I started to feel like a bit of a laggard. I mean, here are all these folks running multimillion/billion dollar companies (boring!) with all this great info about how they will continue to stock toilet paper for when we need it most, how drive-thrus will be operational, and how I will somehow still be insured after all this is behind us. Important stuff to be sure, but what was I doing? How was I going to fill the unimportant void in your life when you aren’t making use of the drive-thru or the 200 hundred rolls toilet paper? 

What could I possibly offer that isn’t covered by these two industries? In times like these, what could anyone possibly want besides food and toilet paper?

And then it hit me.

Now, if you’re thinking, “Holey Moley, Rey’s gonna give me some free art!” you can just hold your horses right there. The kind of art I do takes a lot of time, and I’m not about to just start handing away these tiny chunks of my soul for nothing. But on the other hand, what about writing? I mean, honestly, anyone can be an author these days. That’s why I became one! You can practically write in your sleep, while your driving to work, or while you’re travelling (if you didn’t catch the typo in that sentence, put the kibosh on you becoming a writer any time soon).

So, that big idea. What could I possibly have that might be interesting to you in times like these? Where we are stuck at home for weeks on end with enough toilet paper to last three pandemics? With thoughts of travelling to interesting places completely banished from our hopes and dreams?

Aha.

To that end, I’ve made my first book, Today I Ate Cow Stomach, available online for free for anyone who wishes to click the link below. DO NOT WORRY! This is not some link to a page that will ask you to pay for my other two books, whereupon you will get my first book free….although, that’s probably not a bad idea, and reason number one as to why I’m not the CEO of my own billion-dollar empire. 

Regardless, click the link below and you will be taken directly to the site hosting my book. You do not have to pass go or have a get-out-of-jail free card (not that that makes any sense) in order to access the book. It is free. Free as in “no money required.” You simply need to have an interest in travel, perhaps a desire to look at glorious, colour-filled pages of exotic destinations only marginally cramped by my mindless bouts of chatter. Actually no, that’s not true. It’s not mindless, but there is a lot of it, but that’s the charm of being me. An opinion on everything that isn’t about fast food or toilet paper.

If you have a friend or relative or neighbour who is interested in travel, feel free to pass this link on to them. I just know they will thank you for it because you are a good person.

For those of you who don’t know, Today I Ate Cow Stomach is about my family’s travels through Italy, Greece, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt, the first 137 days of our 275-day trip around the world a number of years ago. Loads of stories, hundreds and hundreds of photos of beautiful places, and some artwork as well. So I guess in a way there is free art involved!

Please know that I am not in any way making light of the situation we now find ourselves in. This is serious business, and likely the only way we’ll get through this is if those of us who are deemed “not essential” hunker down at home for a long period of time. In order to make at least some of those weeks go by a little quicker (it’s a long book) and more enjoyably, I thought I’d offer up Today I Ate Cow Stomach.

Stay well in these interesting times, and enjoy the read.

Again, pass this on to anyone who may be interested.

https://indd.adobe.com/view/5c504087-a835-4768-9e54-78e72dd7c066

Rey

275days.com