A wise Egyptian once said, “Man fears time, but time fears the Pyramids”

If you took the largest Pyramid of Giza apart, block-by-block, you could build a ten-foot by one-foot wall around the entire country of France.  This of course was just one of the many fact’s told to us by Hamdee, our pyramid tour guide but more importantly, Egyptian history extraordinaire. From a far he was just another Egyptian, jeans, an old t-shirt, and a snazzy pair of dark sunglasses.  But once you got up close and realized the jumbo size binder he ALWAYS kept close full of Egyptian facts maps and I'm pretty sure mine and Derek’s entire personal history, you would realize he was the man. Appropriately, and to our pronunciation ease, we quickly nick named him “HD” because he was High Definition.  From the step pyramids to the sphinx HD new it all and since our tour began at 7:30am till 3pm he had plenty of time to pump us full of information. 

            The tree major pyramid sites are not very close together. In fact they are several kilometers apart. While it seemed that HD would have carried us on his back from pyramid to pyramid if we wanted, instead we had the pink flower coach as a form of transportation. As if the name wasn't enough it had gigantic flowers all over it and when Derek and I stepped out in our matching yellow Timbo shirts we certainly got some looks, but at the same time a force to reckon with.

            Our highlight of the day was the “small adventure” HD told us about in which he wisely opted to stay in the air-conditioned van. We pulled up to the Dahshur pyramid and HD said, “You guys are young and strong I think you will enjoy the adventure of climbing into the pyramid.” To us it was a no brainier, a chance to be Indiana Jones? I think yes. What were next our legs will never for give us.  Fully crouched and basically leapfrogging down the 60 meter tunnel into the center of the pyramid was truly amazing. I remember looking at Derek and yelling “Can you believe this were 60 meters below the ground and relying on the craftsmen ship of a 4,500 year old structure this thing could fall down on us any moment.” His response, “Ahhh yea Justin I know lets not think about that.” Then there was the climb back up. Holy Sh*T our legs were on fire, it was worse than Timmy Glens endless run, worse than Mr. G’s Greenbrook work out, and most importantly we had to then climb down 50 stairs carved out of sand, with our legs feeling like they could give out at any moment. When we got back to the van, dripping in sweat and gasping for air HD was hysterical and told us in the 10 years he had been doing these tours he has only done that “small adventure” a handful of times.  We certainly walked like an Egyptian.