It was 1997, and I was on Semester at Sea’s fall voyage, a travel abroad program with accredited coursework transferrable to any university. We were in Egypt, one of the 10 countries we would visit during our 100-day trip, on a chaperoned excursion to Cairo.
We checked our watches… 11 p.m.: Go Time. A taxi was waiting outside the hotel lobby. We quietly tiptoed our way out of sight and through the front doors, where all five of us climbed into the single car and ducked out of the illuminating hotel entrance lights in case a teacher spotted us. Ten minutes later, the taxi pulled up to the perfume shop my friends had visited earlier that day. We were in Giza, just outside of Cairo, the city that housed the national park for the Egyptian pyramids and sphynx.
On the second floor of the building, we sat through a quick briefing: We’d all be given horses to ride through the desert, with five guys all named Mohammed, to the smaller of the 3 pyramids. From there, we would dismount and leave our horses with the Bedouins who lived at the base of the pyramids, ostensibly there to protect them, and quietly climb to the top. It’s not an easy climb and will take several hours, they told us in broken English. Remember, they reiterated, do not get caught. “When I signal, you…,” Mohammed (the leader) motioned with his hands, “get down.”
Excitement coursed through my veins. Was this a good idea? Would I get kicked out of the program if caught? But it was too late. I had committed, paid my share and arrived at the scheduled time, just as promised.
We mounted our Arabian horses on the street level, and one of the men opened the heavy doors that hid the stables of the ground floor. We rode out into the dark, down cobblestone streets toward the entrance of the desert. From this vantage point, there was nothing but desert to be seen under the full moon. The city was behind us and ahead in the distance were shadows of the imposing pyramids. Now that we were on sand, the horses lurched into a trot and then broke into a smooth gallop as we made our way toward the shadows. My ponytail blew behind me in the breeze, and I had the sensation of flying, pure freedom. I looked over at my friends and smiled with unbridled excitement.
Just as he said, when we arrived at the smaller pyramid, we dismounted and handed our reigns to several Bedouins, all wrapped head to toe in cloth, with just their faces exposed. Mohammad handed over our combined stipend and signaled for us to follow him.
The blocks making up the pyramid were bigger than I had thought, maybe 3 ½ to 4 feet high. At 5’1”, it was not easy to hoist myself up and over each block, but I got the hang of it. Slowly, we made our way to the top, stopping after every step to catch our breath.
Two blocks from the top, we heard Mohammad hush us and made the signal to duck. Over one side of the pyramid, hundreds of feet down, I saw a white truck driving around the back of the pyramids where we had just come from, shining a spotlight on its sides. For a second time that evening, I found myself ducking out of light, hiding from authorities. The spotlight shined up and down the sides of the structure, just barely missing us as we huddled against the ancient blocks. I looked over to see my friends. What if we got caught? What would happen to us? I felt butterflies in my stomach as I tried not to panic. We’d heard they still hung people in this country. What the hell were we thinking? We stayed immobile in darkness until we heard the crackle of gravel and the light disappeared as the truck continued its route. We had been in the only area cradled in darkness. I remember hoisting myself over the first block, catching my breath, and then lifting myself over the last one. There I sat, next to the pointed top stone, the capstone, where I rested my hand and felt intense energy coming from inside the structure.
Each of us had brought a small notebook, so we could write down exactly what we were feeling and thinking. We took about 5 minutes to scribble our thoughts on paper before heading down the treacherous path to the bottom, in the dark. I remember climbing backward, sliding down the block until I hit the limestone below me, and repeating the process for the following steps, again and again.
Eventually, we made it to the bottom, all smiling and laughing quietly in excitement over the adrenaline rush of evading the authorities. But the excursion wasn’t over yet. We each located our individual horses, mounted, and followed Mohammad out into the desert, waving goodbye to the Bedouins and then looking around for the truck and its spotlight. When we confirmed we were in the clear, he said: “We go!” and the horses took off in a gallop, back toward the lights of Giza and the distant glow of Cairo, over desert sand and gravel, as the sun rose with the potential of a new day.
As an adult, I cringe at the thought of taking a risk like this as a college student. So much was at stake! Turns out, a sentence can be up to three years in prison for climbing the pyramids. In addition to that, we would have all been kicked out of Semester at Sea if caught. There are plenty of legal adventures to take that can create a similar adrenaline rush, like surfing, skydiving and rock climbing. I highly recommend those! But this will always be one of those moments that will stay with me. I often see the three pyramids of Giza in photos and my memories of that night come back as clear as if we had ridden out into the desert yesterday.
Lee Wagner has a degree in finance from the University of Colorado and is a current journalism student at Brookdale. She is also a travel writer; her blog is: bonanzaroad.com.
