The city has almost completely vanished. Its magnificent temples and palaces were torn down and pillaged by foreign invaders from the Romans onwards, and the ruins were then buried under the alluvial mud deposited by the annual flooding of the Nile. Palm groves, cultivated fields, and villages now cover the site of this once impressive city. What little has been discovered at Memphisis is gathered together in a small, open-air museum in the village of Mit Rahina.

The showpiece of the museum is a colossal limestone statue of Ramses II, which lies, truncated at the knees, in a viewing pavilion. The statue is similar to the colossus of Ramses II found in Memphis and replicated in Midan Ramses. In the garden there are more statues of Ramses II and an 18th-century Dynasty Sphinx, which, at 80 tons, is the largest calcite statue ever found! The garden also contains several calcite slabs, on which the sacred Apis bulls were mummified before being buried in nearby Saqqara.

The pure shapes of the pyramids grew larger and larger as we approached Giza. Ahmed circled the minivan around the three Giza Pyramids, one of the original Seven Wonders of the World. Besides the Big Three, there are several smaller pyramids along with hundreds of mastaba tombs for royal family members and nobles. It is windy and sandy and sunny, but the conditions are actually not too oppressive on this particular day. I have seen old movies where the characters climbed up the sides of the pyramids, but the Tourism and Antiquities Police makes sure that you will no longer do such a thing. Local riders have camels stationed at various places, either as set pieces for tourist photos or for actual rides through the desert. My friend commented that he had ridden a camel before and the up-and-down motions of the desert mainstay made him nauseous.

The largest one is the Great Pyramid of Cheops (Khufu), dating from 2650 BC. The immense scale reaches a height of 480 vertical feet, a weight of six million tons, and about 2.3 million blocks. The Pyramid of Chephren (Khafre) is slightly smaller but appears larger because it is a steeper pyramid, and part of the limestone coating remains on its exterior. We climbed into the belly of the Pyramid of Mycerinus (Menkaure), the smallest of the big three. It is a surreal and sweaty experience to be gingerly walking up and down some steps inside an actual pyramid!

Our final stop on the tour is at the enigmatic Sphinx, the unofficial mascot of all things Egyptian. The Sphinx was last renovated in 1998, so we could appreciate the reconstruction of the man-lion in good detail. It would have been nice to just linger and stare at our new comrade the Sphinx amongst the hordes of tourists, but it was hot and Ahmed needed to take us back to our hotel. Ahmed was kind enough to stop by at a local snack shop (he was thirsty too, after all) before the final sendoff.

I highly recommend signing up for this tour, even if the rates are higher now than in 1999. The price is not bad, many hassles are eliminated, and the content of the tour is educational and memorable.

Time moves us to Saqqara, the vast burial grounds of the Old Kingdom (2705 to 2155 BC) which form the largest archaeological site in Egypt. Much of the site has yet to be excavated as of now. The Step Pyramid of Zoser, designed by the architect Imhotep, is the world's first great stone structure of this scale. This mastaba pyramid has a broad rectangular base, not square, and consists of a stack of six steps. There were other buildings at this vast site, with much reconstruction having been done.

Ahmed then drove the three of us to the nearby Saqqara Restaurant for lunch. This place is packed with tourists on guided tours, and swarms of flies. We have a serviceable lunch platter with several grilled meats and freshly seared warm pita bread tossed over an open pit fire. During a break a local boy came up to our van clamoring for a pen. It seems that the Egyptian lads like to ask foreigners for cheap pens as souvenirs. I gave him a pen from a Montreal hotel, and the boy ran back giddily into his home as if I had given him King Tut's gold mask.

The tour was supposed to continue at a local carpet-making factory. I am not sure if this part of the tour was closed that day, or if Ahmed gauged that the three of us guys had no overwhelming inclinations to buy a carpet. Anyway, we skipped this part and we were now very excited to be heading for Giza. Our tour lasted from 9AM to 3PM, and it would have just been a longer day if we had been taken to the tapestry mill.

(Continued in Part 3)

My late/early British Airways flight arrived into Cairo about 1AM. After an interminable wait through customs, Salah Muhammad met me with my name on a sign. He tried to have me take the tour the very next day (that morning, actually), but I told him that my friends wanted to see other things before taking the tour. I guess he wanted to convince me so that I would not have a chance to change my mind on taking the tour after having provided free transportation into the city. Heck, the tour price is almost worth it just for the airport pickup itself!

A few days later Ahmed, a young man who claimed to be an assistant history professor at one of the universities, met us at our hotel. Ahmed was extremely professional and knowledgeable with his historical information, as my two friends basically agreed with his facts and detailed descriptions. It turned out that we were the only three people on this tour, so this became basically a private tour for us. Our guide drove us in a comfy minivan from our Giza hotel to Memphis, the oldest part of this tour.

Before we entered the local museum, Ahmed explained the early significance of Memphis in the Egyptian timeline. Memphis was the main city and capital of Egypt over 5000 years ago. The remnants of old Memphis are in the current village of Mit Rahina, about 12 miles southwest of Cairo. We took a brief tour of the small museum, highlighted by a prone statue of Ramses II. Discovered in 1820, the colossal statue is viewed by tourists as if he were on an operating table, from above as well as next to the limestone body. The Alabaster Sphinx of King Tuthmosis III is the other major draw here. There are a few minor pieces outside, hounded by stray dogs.

(Continued in Part 2)