Memories of Egypt Day 14 and the Knights

​On the fourteenth day of my Egypt trip, we went to visit Abu Ghurab, and the Saqqara area. Saqqara includes the Pyramid of Unas, the Solar Temple of Userkaf and the Djoser Step Pyramid.  The step pyramid of King Djoser (not to be confused with Gozer the Destructor from the Ghostbusters movie 😉 ) began as a mastaba tomb with a flat roof. However, King Djoser and his Prime Minister, Imhotep, who was responsible for carrying out the project, continued to add another mastaba on top of the first and then another and another and so on until it finally ended with six terraces forming the step pyramid.  A side note on Imhotep:  apparently, he was an amazingly intelligent and talented man who had a big impact on Egypt through his contributions to astronomy, sculpture and architecture.  He was also an important scribe and physician.  Because of his notoriety he was later deified as a God of wisdom and medicine.  The thing of note about Abu Ghurab was definitely it's solar temples and the remains of a giant altar that was there. 

The best part of visiting this site, besides the opportunity to see the remaining structures themselves, was hands down riding camels.  They dropped us off some distance away from these pyramids with a group of lovely gentlemen and their camels, horses and donkeys.  We were able to ride up to the site as a camel caravan and it was just so much fun!  The man who led my camel on his donkey was so nice and kind to his animals.  He had a little switch, but I never saw him use it.  They did everything he wanted them to just by gentle nudges or noises he would make.  The owners also seem to find great humor in giving them amusing names like Rambo.  Mine was named Banana.  She had big blue eyes and she would give gentle nose-nudge kisses.  There was no fussing or spitting or any other bad camel behavior.  They were just so sweet.  

​The remains of the structures in the Saqqara necropolis that we were able to get up close and personal to were definitely worth the trip, but sadly they were in such bad condition.  To me it just looked like they were collapsing.  There were big blocks of stone just heaped around them that to me, looked like they had just fallen off with no attempt to replace or repair them.  Other big stone pieces had obviously served some sort of other purpose, but I have no idea what that was.  I’m sure if I researched it, I could find out, but I was more interested in just taking in the ancientness of the place.  It was one of those locations where it seemed like you could almost feel the movement of time and history flowing through you viscerally.  

​After our camel adventure, we drove into the city of Alexandria where we would stay for the night.  Oh, my goodness, what a wonderful city!  It had a very different vibe than the others we had visited.  Not to take anything away from them, because they were fantastic in their own right, but Alexandria just seemed to have a more modern, artistic and youthful vitality to it.  There were lots of sidewalk cafes and coffee shops and the people and women in particular were dressed more modernly as well.  It appeared much cleaner, and the gorgeous views of the Mediterranean Ocean didn’t hurt.  I was told that this was one of Egypt’s wealthier cities and by appearances it looked to be.  Even the traffic was much calmer and more organized.  We didn’t have much time to do anything that evening but check into the hotel and eat, so I believe that does it for day 14.  (We did spend more time seeing the sights of Alexandria the following day, so you can check back if you would like to hear more about it.)  

​As for the Tarot card today, I felt the need to choose based more on appearances than the meaning of the card itself.  I am pulling out all the Knights from my Nefertari deck and the Knight of Wands from the Smith-Waite.  While the Knights and horses in general do have to do with movement and taking action which makes sense with all of the moving around we did, I am more drawn to how much these horses and all their fancy trimmings remind me of our camel caravan!  One of the things I loved the most about the camels besides how sweet they were, was how finely they were decorated with colorful blankets and pom-poms. So, these four horses fit the bill.  And the King of Wands from the Smith-Waite version is just too perfect with the image of the pyramids in the background!