Legend has it (and this could be just good old fashioned tourist industry PR, who can know for certain?) that if you see the pyramids of Giza, and then you climb up one of the pyramids, and then you descend into the burial tomb inside the pyramid, all while holding fast in your heart and mind your fondest wish — well, accomplishing all three will grant that wish. 

         Ok, call me a sucker but with the small, small price of only EGP 100 (US$6.41) I descended into the burial chamber of King Khafre. His remains, of course, were no longer in residence, the tombs of Giza having been raided and emptied centuries ago by unnamed persons. Even the limestone façade was ripped off to use in other later construction by others in need of quality pyramid making materials. There was in fact not so much as a gum wrapper inside the tomb.  Clean as a whistle, it was.  You have to bend over to gain access to the burial chamber as the passage down into the tomb is only about four feet high. It’s narrow, too and steep. Your descent is aided by wooden slats nailed into the steep decline but if you have even the slightest claustrophobia this means of acquiring your heart’s desire is most definitely NOT recommended. (Try pulling apart a wishbone with a friend or wishing upon a star or whatnot.  Try anything that is some other non-tiny-passageway method of achieving fruition of your most sincere wish. I myself would not repeat this endeavor and almost turned back halfway down but six bucks is six bucks, so down I went.) 

         So, you’ve already figured out that King Khafre (who ruled ancient Egypt during the 4^th dynastic period from c. 2558 to 2532 BC ) was the guy buried inside the pyramid –-hence the Pyramid of King Khafre —  but Khafre had four wives and god knows how many kids so it’s entirely possible that once upon a time, more than  a few mummies were entombed inside this pyramid. It must have been close quarters however you look at it. One thing about the Pharaohs, they had a keen interest in the afterlife. It certainly does give one pause to stand in Giza, where most of  the famous pyramids stand, and recall that the construction of these pyramids, and the burial “benches” too, was all to facilitate the transition of the pharaohs from this life into the next. It begs the question, who were these guys and how did they convince their Fourth Dynastic Period cohorts that they were worthy of this effort (thousands upon thousands of “workers” and “slaves” perished while building the pyramids of ancient Egypt.) 

         Who the rulers of ancient Egypt were and how did they convince everybody that they were godlike is beyond the scope of this Desto. That’s what Google is for. Meanwhile, if you are an historian (a serious one) then you’d best high tail it over to Egypt asap because Egypt is the cradle of civilization. (I know, I know, the Persians say that Persia (now Iran) claims that distinction, but, yeah, no. There’s a reason everybody is still lining up, five thousand years after the fact, to visit all these Egyptian antiquities.) If it isn’t on that guy’s list of 100 things to do before you die, it should be. And, while you’re there, I whole heartedly recommend one of those fancy cruises down the Nile River. Just nothing at all bad about that, even if, like me, you are not a huge fan of cruises. These boats are generally small occupancy ships (100-150 passengers) with a very high staff to passenger ratio so you will be pampered within an inch of your life and that kind of grows on you. 

         I suppose there are alternative ways to get to Aswan from Cairo but we flew because that’s just how we do. A tour of the Aswan High Dam and the romantic Philae Temple (accessed by little ferry boats, occupancy 4) on the Island of Agilka gives you the quick and dirty tour of Aswan (don’t miss The Unfinished Obelisque because you can scamper unimpeded by hordes of tourists up to a truly magnificent view-all the while hearing the ubiquitous calls to prayer. It’s very moving and sets the mood for what’s to come in the coming days ahead.

         So, what is to come? An early morning sail to Kom Ombo where sits the Temple of Kom Ombo, This temple is, in terms of ancient history, much much newer than the Pyramids of Giza. More than two thousand years newer. Originally constructed to honor two gods, Sobek, the crocodile god, and Horus, the falcon god, the temple was obscured by river flood waters and sand and except for a period of use by Coptic Christians the ruins of the temple went unused for centuries upon centuries. It wasn’t until the end of the nineteenth century that the French archeologist and mining engineer, Jean Jacques de Morgan undertook to unearth and restore the temple to its present state. Notably, Morgan reported that much of the damage to the reliefs inside the temple was rendered by the Coptic Christians who defaced them, probably out of a misplaced sense of piety. Too judgy? I don’t know. Who does that? I mean geez, have a little respect for history, no? It reminded me of one of those lesser temples in Cambodia, Ta Prohm that was originally built as a Hindu temple and over the centuries was occupied by various other religious groups all of whom felt an urgent need to render at least a modicum of destruction to the structure’s carvings and artistry, so as to leave their own mark I suppose. These territorial defacements are not the finest moments of the world religions if you ask me. Also, see: wars and religious persecutions. But, this is just me. If you travel broadly you just eventually have to face the facts of man’s unfathomable intolerance and near constant inhumanity to mankind, and also the human propensity to be destructive rather than constructive.  Most often in the name of some deity or religion, don’t you know? It’s a bummer, but it goes with the territory of travel. You gotta suck it up and move on. 

And, so we did!

Speaking of world religion, no sojourn among them is complete without a visit to the Temple of Karnack, referred to by some (our guide) as “the mother of all religious buildings”. It’s been around for 4,000 plus years as a place of religious pilgrimage. In ancient times it was connected to the Luxor Temple by an avenue of sphinxes. Long gone now and what a shame that is. (See above for comments on wanton destruction of ancient art, and also: What does one do with a purloined sphinx?) 

If you’ve been to Egypt yourself you’ve no doubt visited the Valley of the Dead. You’ve heard more than you ever wanted to know about mummification. For those of you who haven’t yet enjoyed the privilege of a few days in the presence of an Egyptologist, let me enlighten you. The ancient royals’ obsession with life after death is documented thoroughly there in the Valley of the Dead. Here’s just some of what we know from that documentation. First, not just any old body could be preserved as a mummy with the intent to make it into the afterlife in your earthly incarnation. You had to be either one of the royals, one of their priests or priestesses (naturally), or a commoner with a LOT of cash. In order to avoid the problem of rotting organs, the mummified clients were parted from their brains, lungs, stomachs, livers and kidneys. These were stored nearby in alabaster containers that looked a lot like ordinary flower vases. Alabaster has the property to naturally preserve decomposing flesh, you see. (It also looks pretty when you insert a candle in it, circa 2020.) 

If you were lucky enough to be a king or even a queen back in the day, the evidence is that the folks in charge of such things would remove your brain from your nose holes. The process for lesser royals, like the kids, meant that they would drill a hole in the skull and take the brain out that way. (I had a lot of questions about brain mass in relation to nose hole size, etc. but suffice it to say here that my curiosity is not always appreciated by everyone in the international community.) The next step was to stuff the corpse full of tobacco which is a natural preservative. No opinions were rendered about the people who later  thought to stick the same stuff into a pipe and smoke it, thus killing annually about a half million Americans alone in its heyday. It’s enough to say that the plant was relatively benign in ancient Egypt and considered a sacred substance. (I’ve known a few smokers who would tell you the same thing but that’s a story for another day we’ll save for when I get around to Stuff That Kills You/an incomplete History of Substance Abuse.  

So, now you know that it was good to be royal in ancient Egypt especially if you were afraid that death was THE END. They went to extraordinary lengths to get to the hereafter, encumbered as they were with all their worldly goods, should there indeed even be a hereafter. (Still in question.) And by “extraordinary” I mean thousands upon thousands of slaves who were blindfolded while working so that they couldn’t tell anyone where the mummies were. It didn’t work though as a secrecy strategy. Most of the slaves died toiling in the 130 degree heat while digging the tombs and then they got buried in the valley, too. (Unceremoniously, however.) The ones that didn’t perish must have squealed because all the tombs were raided and plundered except for that of Tutenkamen, the boy king of Egypt whose mummy and riches were not discovered until 1922. Those of the boy king were subsequently carted around the world for folks to gawk at and now reside again in Cairo in the Egypt Museum (worth a visit, especially now that the NEW and improved Egypt museum is open for business). I think our timing was good in that we saved the boy king’s stuff for our last full day in Cairo after visiting all the other famous sites. You really get a sense of what a big damn deal it was to find his remains. One wonders where all those other mummies and all the goodies that were buried with them are now. And, where, pray tell, are all the souls who perished building their pyramids and their temples? Where ARE they now? Don’t you wonder? Did they make it into some afterlife after all? And, where are we headed behind them? 

Such deep wonderment nicely bookended our middle eastern trip. The vast stars in the sky of the Wadi Rum Desert in Jordan on the front end and the countless corpses of ancient Egypt on the backend. Mere corpses now, but once upon a time these were beings who were obsessed with, indeed spent most of their lives in pursuit of an afterlife. Stardust to stardust so to speak. I’ll leave you with this song lyric from the incomparable Dan Fogelberg (1951-2007) who more often than not fuels my musings on life and love and the meaning of it all after a trip that summons such profound speculation.

“Love when you can, cry when you have to, be who you must, that’s a part of the plan. Await your arrival with simple survival, and one day we’ll all understand.”

Amen, Dan. And, R.I.P. wherever you are.

In the 1960s there was nothing here but desert and more desert. Bedouin tents housed the populace which was largely uneducated (except for males studying the Holy Koran). To say that survival in this harsh climate was “hardscrabble” is perhaps the most understated statement in the history of history. Summer temps sometimes reach 130 F. in the interior. Truly then you must only see mad dogs and Englishmen on the streets of the seven Emerati states. We are here in the winter and at a brisk 85F you will occasionally see folks in down jackets and wool caps. It’s all relative, my friends.

It is a little mind blowing to realize that all of what you see as the modern UAE has occurred since the 1960s and most of it – the skyscrapers and such – since just ten years ago. 

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard the expression “they aren’t making any more beachfront”. Clearly those people haven’t been to the UAE where the construction of “more beach front” is what they do.  Like Qatar’s Pearl Island, the massive construction of land mass where none existed before out in the ocean boggles the mind, but here in the UAE it’s ongoing at an exponentially larger rate.  The first Palm Island (Google it) is up and running with some of the world’s finest hotels. (7 star hotels I didn’t even know existed.) I have not yet dared to ask, “What will happen to these man-made islands in the coming age of rising oceans?” but I suspect that the Arabs will figure it out and head off disaster before it happens by applying the same ingenuity that made them in the first place. 

These guys are light years ahead of the rest of the world in terms of the global water crisis, too. Just take the one of seven tiny Emerati states, Sharjah which has 7 water desalinization facilities and already has two of them running on solar energy exclusively. Perhaps when you’ve ALWAYS needed to be clever in finding water, finding it by desalinization is a breeze with the right know how. 

Question: What has 15 thousand parking spaces, 1,002 retail outlets, 22 movie screens, a ski resort, 200 restaurants and an aquarium with over 33 thousand marine animals? No, the answer is not Cleveland, Ohio, although that wouldn’t be a terrible guess. The correct answer is, the Dubai shopping mall. Yes, Margaret, I said a shopping mall (in Dubai). 

Dubai is one of the 7 Emirati states known altogether as the UAE  (Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain, Ras al Khaimah and Fujairah are the other six United Arab Emirates). If you’ve by chance visited the UAE, the chances are very good that you’ve parked in one of those parking spaces at the Dubai mall because nobody goes to the UAE without going to the Dubai mall. It’s just not something you would miss. Even I, not a lover of malls in general, admit that it’s pretty spectacular and well worth the effort to get there. Although we were in Dubai in the high season when the temps outside are a comfortable 80-90 degree range, I can imagine that it’s quite something to go snow skiing in the mall during the summer months when the temps (not often, but at times) can hit 120F in downtown Dubai. This mall is what Dubai is most famous for, perhaps only after the Burj Khalifa, currently the tallest building in the world at 829.8 meters tall (2,717 ft. for you Americanos). How did this tiny little country – the entire UAE population doesn’t quite reach 10 million with only 1.5 million residents claiming Arab citizenship and the others, of course, being expatriate workers – how is it that they lay claim to the magnificence of the Burj Khalifa, the highest building in the entire world? I’m so glad you asked.

In the beginning of the new millennium the government of Dubai, like some of the other gulf states, wisely peered into the future and saw a need for diversification from oil. This new building, originally named the Burj Dubai, was integral to the diversification plan. It was to be the centerpiece of a new development called Downtown Dubai and the distinction of being the tallest building in the world was intended to garner international recognition leading to investment. Oh boy, did it but not entirely as intended. In mid-construction the world wide economic downturn slowed, then halted progress threatening to bankrupt the project until the president of  the UAE (and also the supreme ruler of the still oil rich neighboring state of Abu Dhabi), Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan lent Dubai the dough to complete construction. Out of gratitude, the building’s name was changed to Burj Khalifa. When all was said and done about $1.5 billion U.S. went into the construction costs of the Burj Khalifa and now YOU can buy a residence in it today for somewhere in the neighborhood of $3,500 per sq. ft. You do the math.

Our Dubai guide was a veritable font of statistics and random architectural trivia. He claimed that the Chinese were in the process of constructing a building that would beat out the Burj Khalifa’s record height. In response, the UAE has planned to up the ante by constructing yet another tower (exact height a big, big Arab secret) called the Jeddah. Trust me when I tell you that you haven’t really lived a full life until you’ve driven around Dubai in the back seat of a car while two silly man-boys giggle up front about who has “the biggest”, etc. One of my more memorable international-boys-bonding experiences to be sure. (Don’t mind me, Margaret. I’ll just sit here in back in my burka and pretend I don’t get all the double entendre. Sheesh.)

Speaking of Abu Dhabi and really big, big things, you will not want to skip the gorgeous (and, yes, big – third biggest in the world) Sheik Zayed Grand Mosque. Every state in the UAE has at least one mosque built by Sheik Zayed but this one is notable for many reasons. At peak occupancy, as many as 41,000 worshippers can visit at the same time and that’s usually at the Eid services. The general public are invited to visit the mosque, however women must be completely covered to do so. On a side note, honestly, I came to appreciate and even like the costume change. A burka covers a multitude of sins (sloth and gluttony come easily to mind) and there’s no such thing as a bad hair day under a head scarf. It’s weirdly liberating to be completely free of the daily demands on western women to, if not try to look “good” at least be somewhat presentable in public. Under cover of a burka who knows when you last shaved your legs? 

Back to the wonders of the mosque. The carpet in the grand hall was hand woven by hundreds and hundreds of hand weaving women. You really have to see this in person to truly appreciate the human labor this entailed. The columns are inlaid mother of pearl and the chandeliers are made of Swarovski crystal. Lots and lots of them. (See photos but truly, photos do not do justice to the beauty. No wonder they let the public in. It is stunning and it should be shared with the infidels. 

It was a little bit weird to go to the Mosque after we first took a tour of Yas Island where a multi-purpose leisure, shopping and entertainment center features a real and true Formula One race track, the world’s fastest roller coaster and too many over-the-top entertainments to list. The juxtaposition of crass consumer indulgence (you can really drive that Formula One course for about $500) with the solemnity and beauty of the mosque was slightly jarring. What’s a sensitive soul to do after such contradiction? Here’s an idea. Why not go dune bashing?

I swam aside a twenty foot shark in the Florida Keys. I’ve Bungee jumped off the Kawarau Bridge in New Zealand and I almost got car-jacked in the Pacific Palisades (true story for another day), but I’ve never been more frightened than the day I elected to do something advertised as “dune bashing”. I honestly don’t know if this activity is done anywhere else on planet earth but in the UAE it’s all the rage. 

How does one proceed to “bash” a “dune”? As it happens there’s a brisk dune bashing business and multiple franchises. A young and traditionally garbed human picks you up at your hotel in the late afternoon. Multiple other guests will also be picked up along the way until the SUV is at capacity. Then you speed along the highway until the driver makes an abrupt turn off the paved highway into the desert sand. He pauses the vehicle to let out some desired amount of air from the car tires. Then he proceeds to drive through the desert like a maniac coming as close to capsizing the vehicle as is possible while tuning into very high volume Rap music. I know. You couldn’t have guessed. You and the other intrepid passengers bounce around inside the vehicle like so many ping pong balls in a Bingo spinner. (Bingo might have been a more appropriate activity for me, but it’s too late now.)

Bashing dunes will definitely shake you out of whatever existential doldrums you are languishing in. I promise you. 

Our fellow passengers happened to be a lovely Sikh family of four from India, the elder of whom whispered impassioned prayers to their deity throughout the entire activity. I suppose they assumed that’s what I was doing as well, however my prayers were of a purely profane nature. Don’t tell them. I’m sure they went back to India believing that I am a refined and genteel American dowager. Long story short, we survived. (Most people do and although there are ready statistics about Bungee fatalities, similar reports about deaths in the desert have either been squelched by Middle Eastern dune bashing entrepreneurs or you actually are less likely to see paradise while dune bashing. I cannot say for certain. As a reward for surviving you are taken to what seemed to be a fairly accurate facsimile of a real Bedouin desert camp where you will be treated to a lovely meal (including alcohol, and I have NO clue how they make that happen), henna tattooing, camel rides, and (Pablo’s favorite) a buxom belly dancer. All the pleasures of the Arabian desert in times past. It really was super. (Now that I’m not dead or seriously maimed.)

One final item on your UAE itinerary will take you out to one of the lesser (less fabulously wealthy) Emeriti states to a thriving camel farm where camels are bred for racing (a very popular sport in the UAE) and also for (I know, I know) consumption. They say, and I did not test this, that baby camel tastes just like veal. 

My last observation about this interesting place is that every single interaction we had with local inhabitants was charming and gracious. Everywhere we went, if the locals were picnicking, they sent their children to us with sweet offerings and more than once we were invited to join the party. I fell in love a little bit with the kindness of these strangers and though the customs are still so very foreign and perplexing, (e.g. you can still be sentenced to death by stoning for a variety of offenses) on the whole, the UAE is a marvel and you would be wise to go before our charm as American tourists wears off.