by Josh Gates
Then, like a lamb to the slaughter, the unassuming tourist is led into a tiny office where the con artist calls the hotel. Except that he doesn’t call the hotel. He calls an accomplice. After speaking in Arabic for a few moments, the man informs the tourist that the hotel has no record of his reservation and is fully booked. The alarmed mark then jumps on the phone; the fake hotel agent apologizes for the mix-up but confirms that there is no record on file. Alternate lies include that the hotel is undergoing renovation, has flooded, or is suddenly out of business. Luckily the con happens to know another hotel with vacancies (where he gets a healthy kickback for diverting our bewildered tourist). Pretty awesome, huh?
I shook off no less than three people who offered to call my hotel for me and then emerged into the throbbing heat, humidity, and screams of a hundred taxi drivers. “I take you to Marriott for eighty pounds,” someone yelled.
“You’re hilarious,” I offered back. “Twenty pounds.”
The cabbie smiled. “Okay, my friend. We go.”
“Great. And I don’t want to stop off at your friend’s store,” I added.
“Quick stop. I know wonderful price on rug.”
And this is how it goes in Cairo. By the time you get to your hotel, you’re tired, sweaty, possibly stabbed, and occasionally in possession of an overpriced oriental carpet. Here are a few actual exchanges from my last visit to the city.
Hotel Concierge: “I can arrange a private car for $500. Is okay?”
Me: “No, is not okay. As I understand it, your job is to help me, not screw me.”
Hotel Concierge: “How does fifty bucks sound?”
Guy at Memphis ruins: “My friend. Good camel. You want to buy?”
Me: “To own?”
Guy: “Yes, my friend.”
Me: “How old is it? It looks old.”
Guy: “Thirty-seven years, sir. Very strong.”
Me: “Thirty-seven years? Don’t these things die at, like, forty years?
Guy: “Yes. But will fetch good price for meat at butcher.”
Guy at Pyramids: “How much for your bracelet?”
Me: “Not for sale.”
Guy: “I give you two of my best postcards for it.”
Me: “Wow. What about if I throw in my watch for five postcards?”
Guy: “Yes, my friend! We have a deal?”
Me: “We do not.”
Guard: “I take your picture for one dollar.”
Me: “Okay, but I get to hold your gun.”
Guard: “Be careful. It’s loaded.”
All of this endless scamming exists, of course, because Egypt is a powerfully magnetic tourist destination and is featured on just about every traveler’s “bucket list.” The endless influx of mostly upper-class vacationers accounts for more than 15 percent of the country’s entire GDP. Add the fact that the average Egyptian nets less than $5,000 a year, and it’s easy to see how more than a few of the twenty million people in Cairo turned into Fagin from Oliver Twist. To make matters worse, the entire country is an infrastructural disaster. After they erected the greatest civilization in the history of the planet, it’s as though the Egyptians said, “Okay. That’s enough. Let’s just call it a day for the next five thousand years.”
The modern capital city that sprang up in the tenth century A.D. has outgrown itself many times over and is now a bustling mess of dust, grime, and human energy. Trying to drive through Cairo is like being trapped inside an Arabic version of the video game Paperboy. Camels, babies, women in burkas, runaway construction equipment—you name it, and it’s drifting out into the middle of the street. Enough to distract even the most focused of commuters.
In short, Egypt takes the silver medal in the Exhausting Destination Olympics (India still dominates the podium). But for those hearty enough to sidestep its pitfalls, it’s also one of the crown jewels of adventure travel. The people, even the ones ripping you off, are as warm and hospitable as any I’ve met, and they have a deep-rooted passion and pride for their collective past. There are places where travelers get a vague sense of history and places where history reaches right out and punches you in the gut. Egypt’s treasures are not just relics consigned to dusty shelves or remnant architecture on otherwise modernized city streets. The entire country is an open-air museum of the first degree, as vast and substantial as the desert dunes themselves. From the temples at Abu Simbel to the mighty Sphinx, visitors are ultimately humbled by a scale of antiquity seldom seen.
As we prepare to bring Destination Truth to Egypt, I’m cautious, to put it mildly. It will be more than a year before the three-decade dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak comes crashing down and the country rises in rebellion. With my previous excursions to Egypt as prologue and political tensions simmering, my critical hackles are up when it comes to toting our cameras to the Land of the Sun. Our first order of business is therefore to hire a top-notch “fixer.” For those unfamiliar with the term, fixers are native producers hired to facilitate the logistics of overseas productions. Able to speak the indigenous language, navigate local politics, and draw upon their own Rolodex of contacts, fixers can be indispensible assets to filming in foreign countries. In Egypt, they’re a downright necessity.
If the experience of getting through customs here is difficult as a tourist, just imagine what it looks like when you show up with twenty cases of expensive film equipment. Case in point: a few months before our arrival, another popular travel show headed to Cairo to film and never made it out of the airport. Literally. Unable to negotiate with airport officials, the entire production was turned around and forced to leave the country.
Intent on actually clearing the terminal, I search high and low for an Egyptian producer who can dial into our needs and help us navigate the road ahead. A trusted producer friend insists I call a man named Ramy Romany. When I ask him why, I’m told, “Just call him. He’s the guy.”
Ramy is the son of Romany Helmy, one of Egypt’s most respected fixers. As motion picture and television production crews flooded into Egypt like locusts in the last half of the twentieth century, Ramy’s father positioned himself as a big player in this business. Ramy and his sister are the next generation; together with their family, they have produced more than five hundred projects for the BBC, National Geographic, Discovery Channel, and countless other companies.
When I first call Ramy to suss out his abilities vis-à-vis a rather unique expedition, he answers the phone in what could pass for a velvety British accent.
“How can I help, Josh?”
“We’re hoping to accomplish a number of activities in Egypt, and some of them might be . . . difficult,” I say.
“Such as?” he hums calmly.
“I want access to film the Tut Mask at the Cairo Museum.”
“Not a problem.”
“I also want to be able to film at the Pyramids.”
“Not a problem.”
“I also want to—”
“Josh,” he cuts in. “What do you really want to do?”
I pause. “What I really want is access to King Tut’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings. Alone. At night.”
Silence on the line. “That is a challenge,” he admits. “Give me an hour.”
The discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun is one of the most thrilling stories of modern archaeology, and the ensuing legend of Tut’s curse may be one of the most romantic. In the early 1900s, Egyptologist Howard Carter, sponsored by his patron Lord Carnarvon, toiled in vain for six long seasons in the Valley of the Kings. After more than five years of nearly fruitless excavation and the shifting of tons of sand, Carter’s funding and support hung by a thread. And then, on the fourth of November, 1922, under the shadow of the tomb of Ramses VI, a step was discovered. By the next day twelve more stairs and a sealed entrance were revealed. On the verge of history, Carter sent a frantic cable to his sponsor: “At last have made wonderful discovery in valley; a magnificent tomb with seals intact; congratulations.” Nearly three weeks later, on the twe
nty-fourth of November, Carnarvon arrived with his daughter, and the dig resumed.
Once all sixteen stairs were cleared, the fully exposed door revealed several intact seals, one of which bore the name Tutankhamun. In the following days the door was opened, leading to a twenty-six-foot passageway and interior door. In his journals, Carter wrote, “At first I could see nothing, the hot air escaping from the chamber caused the candle flame to flicker, but presently, as my eyes grew accustomed to the light, details of the room within emerged slowly from the mist, strange animals, statues, and gold—everywhere the glint of gold. I was struck dumb with amazement, and when Lord Carnarvon, unable to stand the suspense any longer, inquired anxiously, ‘Can you see anything?’ it was all I could do to get out the words, ‘Yes, wonderful things.’ “
The tomb itself is surprisingly small, and Tut is believed to have been a relatively minor ruler. The real significance of Carter’s find is that, unlike every other royal tomb in the Valley of the Kings, which had been plundered bare, Tut’s was largely undisturbed. For the first time, the world bore witness to the full splendor and wealth of a pharaonic burial. The antechamber alone yielded nearly seven hundred objects, including disassembled chariots and ornate beds. The inner chamber housed four gilded shrines, a multilayered sarcophagus, and the famous golden mask.
Whisperings of the Pharaoh’s Curse began almost immediately. At the moment of the tomb’s discovery, all the lights in Cairo were said to flicker. Shortly after, a cobra, the symbol of royal rule, was discovered lurking in Carter’s house. Several months later, Lord Carnarvon died “mysteriously” after a shaving nick on a mosquito bite became infected. It was declared thereafter that any person who disturbed the tomb of Tut would fall victim to the powerful and ancient curse. While as many as a dozen other people connected with the discovery of the tomb did suffer early deaths, many workers present at the tomb’s discovery suffered no ill effects, and Carter himself lived to the reasonable age of sixty-four before dying of natural causes.
Though the factual fabric of the curse may be showing a few holes, the myth of Tut’s wrath continues to echo down through history. Our own interest in the story stemmed from curious recent events that transpired when a team of specialists moved Tut’s body for a CT scan. One researcher’s vehicle nearly ran over a small child on the way to the site, the state-of-the-art equipment malfunctioned in the presence of the mummy, and a storm kicked up over the usually peaceful valley. Many Egyptians still hold to the belief that these are signs of the infamous curse, and we took this as the perfect opportunity to test the merits of a purportedly three-thousand-year-old vengeance. That is, if I could get inside the tomb.
Good to his word, in one hour flat, Ramy calls back with promising news. He thinks he can arrange a private date with the most famous pharaoh of the ancient world. We land in Cairo and are met by Ramy Romany. His mane of black hair goes well with his dark suit and flashy smile. Ramy is a coil of enthusiasm in a rail-thin frame. He knows absolutely everybody in sight, shaking more hands than a politician in a primary. In the streets, Ramy parts a sea of rabid taxi drivers and airport hustlers like a modern-day Moses and throws me the keys to the beautifully beat-up Land Rover of my dreams. I could get used to this guy. We discover a Drifters—Greatest Hits cassette in the glove compartment and groove into Cairo. Because nothing says ancient Egypt like the dulcet tones of “Under the Boardwalk.”
We drive straight to the Egyptian Museum. For those who have never set foot in this place, it’s a complete sensory overload and, in a literal sense, the worst museum on the planet (which makes it my favorite). A depository disaster without equal, this is like God’s garage—if God were a hoarder. There’s no way to overstate the obscenity of volume within the 107 halls of this sprawling warehouse. There is zero regard for presentation; packing crates, dusty treasures, and precariously placed statues occupy every square inch of available space, teetering boxes piled to the ceiling. I shit you not, you could literally get killed by a falling mummy in here. Half of the displays aren’t even labeled. The immensely significant Palette of Narmer, a five-thousand- year-old siltstone relic, sits by the front door and is given all the presentational gravitas of a bag of Doritos in a 7-Eleven. Most people walk right by it, unaware that they just ignored one of the oldest hieroglyphic inscriptions ever discovered.
Ramy has arranged for us to film Tut’s death mask and is able to get us into the museum a full thirty minutes before it opens to the general public. This is a blessing, since the museum routinely suffers from a crushing sea of tourists that literally spills through the gates like a great wave the moment the doors open. After ushering us through a side entrance, Ramy motions us to wait patiently, as we’re not the only ones to come into the museum early. It turns out that Dr. Zahi Hawass is giving an interview on the second floor.
Hawass holds the position of secretary general of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities. If that sounds like an impressive title, it is. Hawass administers all of Egypt’s excavations and is personally responsible for allowing, denying, and overseeing projects all over the country. Though he is a polarizing figure who undeniably enjoys the media spotlight, Hawass has probably done more for Egyptology than the pharaohs. He’s established order over the thousands of archaeological sites, passionately advocated for a new museum, and worked to institute a culture of historical preservation across the country. He also directed the recent CT scan on Tut and has attested publicly to his unwillingness to dismiss the power of the curse.
Once Hawass vacates the museum, my team and I are turned loose. The experience of being alone here is such a privilege. The normally bustling galleries are eerily silent, and the sound of our footsteps echoes through the main hall. There are no shoving crowds, no shouting guides, and no snapping cameras. Under the watchful eye of megalithic statues, I roam past endless cases of papyrus fragments, gold coins, and mummified remains.
On the second floor, the spoils from Tut’s tomb take up most of the atrium. We navigate past Tut’s reassembled chariots and shimmering golden shrines into room three. Here, in a glass case, is the singular symbol of Egyptian antiquity: the death mask of Tutankhamun. I can hear the guards downstairs opening the front doors, and I know that in a matter of minutes this gallery will be bursting at the seams. But in the fleeting silence I stand face-to-face with a golden portrait of the boy king. His obsidian-and-lapis-lined eyes convey a distant yet unmistakably powerful gaze that is utterly hypnotic. After my moment of zoning out in the gallery, Evan interjects. “Um, Josh? Can you move?”
“Sorry,” I say, jumping out of the way. “Shoot it!” The team films fast and furiously as the sound of hundreds of footsteps rumble up the stairs.
After our visit to the museum, we make our way across town to the Giza Plateau to take in the iconic Pyramids. Here’s the thing about iconic places. After repeated exposure to these legendary locales and objects in magazines, in movies, and on postcards, it’s always amazing when they still manage to inspire awe in person. I’m similarly amazed when these touristic golden calves turn out to be deflating letdowns. Incidentally, my three-way tie for the most disappointing up-close icons on earth are:
The Mona Lisa. Even if you do manage to get past any one of the six million people a year that crowd into the Louvre to see Da Vinci’s masterwork, be prepared to be kept at bay by airport security dividers and a thick veneer of bulletproof glass. And the kicker: the painting is only twenty inches long.
Mount Rushmore. First of all, it’s in the middle of nowhere—the Black Hills of South Dakota. The real problem, though, is that once you’re close to it, the monument looks downright silly. The megalithic busts sit above a sloping pile of loose rocks. They look like they’re perched atop a hill rather than commanding a mountain (get whatever North by Northwest fantasy you have out of your head). More importantly, the proportions are wrong, and the execution is all-around sloppy. Also, it’s hard for me to get too worked up over a public-works project on seized Indian land tha
t was carved by a card-carrying member of the Ku Klux Klan. I’m just saying.
The Hollywood Sign. We all know the nine white letters that overlook the Hollywood Hills from more movies than we can count. The problem? In real life, we don’t see them via a swooping helicopter flyby. Instead, we view them from afar, and unfortunately, they look tiny. When friends come to visit me, they always ask where the Hollywood sign is. I point up into the hills and watch them squint, inevitably, in disappointment.
On the other end of the spectrum, there are a number of contenders for best in-person jaw-dropper. The Taj Mahal really is a staggering monument to love, Angkor Wat in Cambodia is all it’s cracked up to be, the Grand Canyon is incomprehensibly bonkers to behold, and the Christ the Redeemer Statue above Rio will knock your socks off. But for me, the choice is simple. The Pyramids at Giza.
Yes, the Giza Plateau sits on the western edge of Cairo and isn’t as remote as you’ve been led to believe. Yes, the site is crawling with guys selling camel rides, papyrus hawkers, and scammers galore, but it doesn’t matter. With each step toward these four-thousand-year-old marvels, it’s impossible to resist the urge to shake your head in disbelief. More than two million limestone blocks make up these otherworldly monuments, the only surviving member of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The scale, symmetry, and flawless execution are simply beyond comprehension.
We tour the Pyramids and speak with a few officials before setting off to our true destination: Luxor. The city appears out of nowhere, hugging the wide and gentle east bank of the Nile like a desert mirage. Compared to the frenetic chaos of Cairo’s endless alleys, the relative serenity of Luxor’s broad streets is dramatic. Originally known as Thebes, this once shimmering capital city is now a stunning playground of ruination. Across the river, the desert landscape rises up into a breathtaking escarpment, concealing the Valley of the Kings.