MONDAY

The evening was a mild disaster, because the art of the belly dance, although highly developed in Egypt, is accompanied by the art of guessing: all the shimmies and turns take place under a rather solid, and only in places vaguely transparent dress. Very inspiring, a variety of "Trivial Pursuit" - is that her hip? But on the way back to our rooms TraX and I had the opportunity to watch Mona’s very special evening gymnastics... which compensated for the fundamentalist demonstration.

TUESDAY

Ah, Gizeh! The Pyramids, and the mysterious Sphinx. While Teresa is out on the balcony, and most likely causing riots or other uprisings amidst the Hotel staff to compensate for the meager attention she got on the boat, I read my guidebook.

"The greatest Sphinx of all, called by Arabs 'Abû el-Hol,' the Father of Terror, is the Great Sphinx of Gizeh, who gazes enigmatically across the Nile towards the rising sun, its back towards the three great pyramids... In 1379, as reported by the Arab author Al Maqrizi, a man named Saim el Dahr hacked off the Sphinx's nose."

- Mr. Al Magrizi forgot to tell us what made Mr. El Dahr do so - most likely chagrin -

"Medieval and renaissance visitors took pieces of the Sphinx's headdress and face for talismans and remedies."

- Remedies, that's what the book says. Ground Sphinx head is good for insomnia, asthma, and a few other little inconveniences -

"During the 17th and 18th centuries, invading Marmalukes and French soldiers reportedly used the head for target practice."

And I bet you thought it was the sheer weight of aeons that ruined the Sphinx....

"Pharaoh Amenhotep II (1448-1420 B.C.) mentioned that the Sphinx was older than the Pyramids and generally considered to have been buried in sand until Thutmosis IV (18th Dynasty, 1420-1411 BC) had a dream of a god telling him to clear the sand away."

My Baedeker, 50 years old by now, is from a very special bookstore in Heidelberg, Germany, one that looks like it's selling spells, BE-potions and the like. And that's why my book continues,

"It is not widely known that along the axis of the Great Sphinx and the Chephren pyramid there is another Sphinx, excavated on several occasions, the first on record in Napoleonic times."

Looks like that Sphinx was incavated regularly. Frankly, the locals did not cotton to her. And, oddly enough, no illustrations are available. But Baedeker gives an exact map...

We'll check this out later, Teresa's coming back...

TUESDAY, later

Absolutely incredible! Now that we've seen it, nothing will be as before. Ali #3, one of the friendly, multilingual 11-year-old tourist entrepreneurs that run Gizeh, admitted, after hard bargaining, that there is something he called "Abû el-Hol's sister", (the aunt of terror, I suppose.) But, he said, it's a trek of half an hour through the desert, "because the camels refuse to go near the spot". So, wrapped in the gellabeyas all the tourists here don (the locals wear jeans) and carrying our inevitable bottles of Evian water, we made our way through dirt & stones.

And as we scaled the last dune, what my guide called "Sphinx #2" rose before us : 25 yards high, solid limestone, and about a quarter of her body mass concentrated in what must be the biggest tits on the planet. Forget Mt. Rushmore, forget it all....These hooters are probably visible from outer space.

My memory is somewhat blurred, but according to Teresa all the men of the expedition went berserk, ran up to the statue and did unspeakable things to it. The ladies’ only company was sublimely happy 11-year-old Ali #3, and what a wise decision it was to have a pre-adolescent guide... Returned totally exhausted (must have been the heat). The ladies will go shopping in Cairo.

WEDNESDAY

Transfer to Luxor by high-velocity air-conditioned train. All along the River Nile, with only one stop at Assiut (where the ladies rushed out to buy lots of "original Assiut scarfs" undoubtedly made in Hong Kong ). The landscape has a timeless, frozen quality, it's a permanent "déja vu". I have seen this village a hundred times now... And there are people who make this journey in two weeks by boat. And get shot at by fanatics every now and then. Well, not this year. Very unusual, all the girls wear their gellabeyas, and two or three are experimenting with chadors, veils. Hope it's just a disguise, but wasn't the original meaning of carnival "goodbye, flesh"? Are our ladies embracing fundamentalist ideology?

THURSDAY

No, they aren't. Not at all. Crossed the Nile today to go to the Valley of the Kings, and as soon as we were out of sight of the ferryman, the ladies demonstrated the main virtue of el gellabeya: you don't have to wear anything under it.…

Went to about a dozen or so tombs of aristocrats, all with beautiful wall paintings. It's dark inside, but there are boys with aluminum tablets which they use to reflect the sunlight and illuminate the tombs. The girls enjoy the flickering natural limelight.…

Again, everybody working here is 10 or so, which indicates there must be some more strong stuff around.…

We'll check out that temple of Hatshepsut tomorrow.…

TO BE CONTINUED...

And, as usual thanks to St. Stephan, who undertakes the unenviable task of purging my texts of Germanisms and adding those highlights that my English teacher at school called "slang" (and refused to tolerate).