Wednesday, December 16 (Climbing Pyramid, Meditating in King’s Chamber, Queens Chamber & Pit)
Today’s the day! We were up at 5AM and at the pyramid at 6AM as planned to begin the climb. Sammy explained that he didn’t need to go with us this trip because one of his friends was taking a group of five or six Germans and we could join them. The more the merrier! Before we started to climb, Sammy told us, “Look, the guards are going to yell at you, but just ignore them. They’re just doing their job. I’ll take care of everything.” Okay, that seems easy enough.
We began by climbing up to the regular tourist entrance in the center of the north face, about 59 feet off the ground. Of course at 6AM, the gate was securely locked and there were no guards or guides there.
Then, we walked east along a course of blocks to the northwest (?EAST) corner. That jagged corner edge would be our path to the top and this is where we strayed from the permitted area. So we started to climb.
The blocks are big. We’re both pretty tall (Kent is six foot two), and the blocks came to our waist, some higher, some a little lower, but it was challenging. You can’t climb it like stairs or a ladder. You must clamor up each course of that big pile of blocks. We progressed slowly but steadily. The desert air is chilly before the sun comes up, but we were building a sweat. It’s hard to tell where the top of the Pyramid is as you’re climbing. But you could glance at the ground from time to time to gauge your progress. Of course, that is terrifying!
According to the Herald-Journal (25 April, 1989), which reported the death of 21 year-old Peter Harold Flanagan, over 1,600 people had toppled from the dizzying heights over the course of 200 years. As you’re climbing it’s easy to see how dangerous it is. If you slipped even a little and fell off the stone you were standing on, you would roll and bounce all the way down.
When we got around 80 or 90 feet high we heard a commotion coming from the ground. There were 2 Egyptian Soldiers on the ground just below us. They were pointing AK-47s with 30 round magazines at us! They were yelling at us to come down immediately! Did we mention that they were pointing AK-47s at us? Just to be certain: THEY WERE POINTING AUTOMATIC RIFLES AT US!
We turned to our Guide with panicked faces. He glanced down then turned back to us. “Ignore the men with the machine guns”, he advised, “they just want more money.” Then he turned and continued climbing. We looked at each other. “Ignore the men with the machine guns? Is he crazy?! “Not as crazy as us. Let’s keep climbing.” So we did.
Folks, the main thing I remember about the climb is that the pyramid is really tall, and the higher you get, the less you want to look down. The Germans had gone ahead while we took our time.
About 270 feet up the pyramid’s northeast edge we came to an unusual notch in the stonework; about 20 feet high, and cutting in about 18 feet on each side. Historians have speculated that this may have resulted from removal of the white limestone casing blocks in antiquity, while a modern theory by archaeologists Jean-Pierre Houdin and Bob Brier pose that it could be part of an internal ramp system that allowed the heavy stones to be raised around the edges of the pyramid and methodically stacked to such great heights.
At the time, however, we knew none of this. All Kent knew is that the notch afforded some privacy and that he had way too much coffee for breakfast. Much relieved, we continued our climb for 171 more vertical feet to reach the top.
Dawn was breaking to the east as a panoramic view of the desert to the west filled our vision. It’s spectacular. Who can describe it with words? I mean, there’s plenty of pictures. There’s drone footage. I’m sure we’ll find some of that for this article. There’s our picture. Kent took a great picture of David apparently leaning of Khafre’s Pyramid and Dave took a picture of Kent hanging from the wooden structure, like in Sammy’s picture.
Then we slowly and VERY carefully climbed down, now with the dizzying view right in front of us. One false step would be fatal. When we got to the bottom, no one arrested us, or even gave us a second look. And Sammy was waiting for us.
It took about 90 minutes for the whole climb, so it was around 7:30AM when we were back on the ground.
In the winter season, the pyramid was supposed to open to tourists at 8AM, but we had another request: we wanted to meditate alone in the King’s Chamber. Sammy agreed to ask the guards to let us in but keep all other visitors out for an hour. We went in.
We were looking forward to sitting in the most silent room on Earth for an hour of uninterrupted spiritual Bliss. That was not to be. It was dead quiet for about 10 minutes…then the rats woke up – or they decided we were dead, and therefore safe to eat.
From beneath the grates to the side of the (so called) Sarcophagus we began to hear a lot of noise: shuffling, rustling, scurrying, crawling, or, just possibly, perhaps a small army of hungry rats, planning a sudden ambush! It wasn’t the supremely relaxing experience we had been anticipating. We meditated in the king’s chamber from 8:45 to 9:15, and took our time leaving to meet up with Sammy again.
By midmorning, it was time for some food and celebration so we had beers near the Sphinx. While we enjoyed our Stella Exports we asked Sammy to tell us what happened when he asked the guards to open up late, so we could mediate. “Oh! They wouldn’t go along with it. They said they have to open and close right on time or they could lose their job.” Then how did we get an hour alone in there?” Sammy said, “I stood on the path leading to the Great Pyramid and told every tourist, ‘Sorry, this pyramid is closed for cleaning now. Please visit Khefren’s Pyramid now, and come back to this pyramid after.”
We apologize to anybody whose vacation was disrupted by this.
After lunch Sammy arranged with a guide named Nasser to be our guide, because he had the keys to many of the locked gates.
First, Nassar unlocked the gate leading to the Queen’s Chamber, normally off limits to tourists. Next, he unlocked the gate to Subterranean Chamber, (aka ‘The Pit’) which is always off limits. Nasser didn’t join us and we crawled down the unlit shaft alone. We also climbed UP the descending passage to the metal gate at the top. On the way, we also took a side trip to climb 40-50 feet up the Well Shaft as far as we could go. The Pit is rough, unfinished, dirty, and a bit creepy. While down there, we even climbed to the end of the dead-end tunnel at the bottom of the pit. Recently we have heard that crawling down this very tight passageway is extremely dangerous. It’s possible to use up all the oxygen in there, lose consciousness and die.
We will end this account with a small incident that happened the day before, when we first went inside the Great Pyramid.
Just after leaving the Grand Gallery, and just before crawling under the sliding stone slabs in front of the King’s Chamber, we crawled past a rough hole in the right-side wall. Because we were carrying several flashlights we shined our lights up this hole and saw that it was wide enough to crawl into on hands and knees. It went up a slight incline, then turned sharply right. Whatever was up there was hidden from our view.
“Let’s go there!” We quickly crawled up the slope, turned right, then turned around and looked back the way we can come. “Check it out! All those tourists are crawling right past the hole like they don’t even see it!” “Yeah! I’ll bet it we were up here when they close the Pyramid for the night, the guards wouldn’t even see us. We’d be locked in the Great Pyramid for the entire night!”
Hmmm….something to think about. Why not? It still hasn’t got too weird for us!
Maybe next year.