The energy sense I had constantly in sunny, golden Egypt was one of openness, goodwill and heart expansion. It was almost palpable. (So was the air, but that's another story!)

I found the Egyptian people physically and mentally gorgeous: big, intelligent, open, extremely happy and very witty. The children—even the early teens—are so warm, so pleasant, so unspoiled (no TV!), so friendly! The women are the most beautiful in the whole world, and the men ain't bad, neither.

Egyptians tease constantly and will burst into laughter at the slightest provocation. Even with the language barrier, this humor came across, and I laughed a lot.

Now I understand better why it is so incomprehensible to them that one of their people could commit suicide and murder by taking down a plane.

The men love to flirt, and somehow have the capacity of being very gentle, loose, funny and friendly without losing an ounce of their masculinity–something the majority of men in the USA do not achieve so readily.

Muslim men are allowed multiple wives, and there were numerous exchanges in which members of my tour group got their kicks pointing me out to various males as a potential additional wife. I held my ground and maintained firmly that I was worth at least 15 camels, (they have to pay dowry, you see), although one of my gay companions gleefully insisted upon whispering to the Egyptian men that not only was I free–but I would actually PAY to marry them. Oh, well. How do you bring 15 camels back on an airplane, anyway...

We stayed in two places, Luxor on the Nile, and Cairo. We arrived at our first destination after (for me) over 33 hours of travel and waiting (including a four-hour delay in a smoke-filled airport...the Marlboro cowboy is prominent in Egypt, and nearly everyone smokes). When we FINALLY got to Luxor, utterly exhausted, we discovered that our hotel had not honored our tour group's (eight people) reservations. Other arrangements had to be hastily made, and our heads finally hit pillows (in the Luxor Hilton) at 3 a.m.

This was my Quaker friend Ruth Shilling's first time leading a tour. Imagine starting out in such a way! It was interesting watching her "baptism." She dealt with every obstacle with grace and confidence, and although I later discovered she encountered other unexpected predicaments, she kept her mouth shut, so we remained innocently unaware and were well nurtured.

My first Egyptian hotel room: outside were flower banks, a fountain...and the Nile River! Both five-star Egyptian hotels in which we stayed were magnificently landscaped and elegant. The second hotel, the famous Mena House in Cairo, was particularly spectacular, with high domed ceilings, carved gleaming wood, and Arabian complexities of ivory and gilding and lanterns...it looked like a movie set and took one's breath away. However, in both hotels, the actual bedrooms ranged from slightly shabby to the equivalent of a Sheraton, with fewer amenities. No washcloths, and in both the shower curtain smelled. I won't say of what. Don't travel to Egypt if you're prissy.

BUT...the staff was consistently courteous. Over and over one heard, "Welcome to Egypt," even from little children, and there was genuine warmth behind these words.

Sounds of the first night: It was very quiet in Luxor, but occasionally I would be awakened by weird low moans and groans and gibbering sounds. This turned out to be the speech of camels...and they talk a lot! They also drool and slobber vast gobs of gooey stuff, and when they shake their heads, everyone nearby is slimed. I like camels. No pretenses.

At dawn every day one is awakened by the singing chants of Islamic prayers from the minarets. These prayer calls are broadcast five times a day. Muslim men stop whatever they were doing, unroll a prayer mat, and kneel. The sounds of the prayers were exotic and strangely comforting. I can hear them now, even as I write.

The climate: very hot in Luxor, with bright, eye-squinting sunshine. It was cooler in Cairo, where it is winter. I even got CHILLY one sunset night in the SAHARA, if you can imagine, and ended up grateful I'd had to carry along my wool coat. I'd thought the air would be dry, but my hair was as curly as the dickens throughout the trip.

Egypt requires that tour groups have an Egyptian guide. Ours, Mohammed, had to be the best guide in the world. He was a Muslim (like, gee, could you GUESS that from his name?!), and such a very spiritual, open, evolved and wise man. A former director of antiquities with the Cairo Museum, his information was mind-boggling, and his style of delivery was passionate and theatrical. I saw other groups with guides who droned away monotonously, and felt sorry for them. These people's eyes would grow big with wonder when they overheard Mohammed, and often they tried to tag along with us to eavesdrop.

Along with the traditional sights, Mohammed took us into the countryside and we saw things that 99% of tourists to Egypt never even know exist.

There is no way to describe the awesomeness of the temples, tombs and pyramids. It is better than anything you could imagine. Someone said the best representation is in the new cartoon movie, "The Prince of Egypt." Photographs simply cannot replicate the grandeur of these places, nor the splendid open-hearted energy.

Imagine walking down avenues of sphinxes, being surrounded by hieroglyphs and gargantuan statues and pillars 4,000 years old—and being freely permitted to run one's hands over them!

Where most tours dash from one site to the next, Ruth's choice was to devote a lot of time to each individual site—sometimes an entire day. First we would wander around on our own, simply absorbing the feelings of the place and receiving impressions. Then we would gather to receive the equally excellent left-brain stuff from Mohammed—the information. The following morning, we would return at dawn to the site, before the crowds came, and meditate.

The meditations were awesome.

Our first meditation, in the Temple of Luxor, filled me with absolute ecstasy. It was in a little roofed room full of hieroglyphs, a "holy of holies." As we meditated in the glimmering rays of sunrise, we heard the joyous noises of Arabian oboes and drums and chants, because our journey happened to coincide with Mohammed's birthday, for which the people dressed in gaudy colors and the streets filled with bazaars and vendors of every type. It was a perfect backdrop for the meditation. This temple seemed like an old friend, and I was very sad when I had to leave.

Another dawn meditation which was very powerful was a secluded place in the huge Temple of Karnak. We were led to an enclosed temple off to one side, where we sat in a small, darkened room, the walls also full of hieroglyphs. Presiding over the room was a barely visible, dramatic granite statue of Sekhmet, the Lion Goddess, with the graceful body of a woman and the head of a lioness. I sat right next to the statue. Gradually the morning light brightened the room through a small shaft in the ceiling.

Ruth had explained that all the various Egyptian gods and goddesses, enfolded in myths and statues, in fact represent specific energies which are readily available. If one dismisses the myth and tunes in to those energies,—and it was easy to do so in Egypt—the results are spectacular.

The power in that temple of Sekhmet was like that of a blazing heart, which poured in fiercely through the top of my head. It took no effort, no call...just being there. I still feel it.

Although most of the sites felt joyous and brimming with loving energy, we went to one temple in the Valley of the Kings (where the tombs are) which impressed me with great sadness. I was a little surprised. It wasn't MY sadness I was feeling. I wondered: Did the ancient Egyptians feel great sorrow in this spot?

Only afterwards did I learn that this was the place where, about a year or two ago, 60 tourists were massacred by terrorists.

Although I had expected otherwise, security at Egyptian Airlines in JFK appeared to be nonexistent. For instance, in one waiting room where I sat—accessible to the general public without scrutiny—someone illegally went out a doorway leading to the airplanes and set off an alarm. The alarm rang for a full five minutes before anyone came to investigate, and then those who showed up acted more like Keystone Cops than security agents. A whole army of terrorists with bombs and guns could have easily slipped out to the planes during that time.

Security in Egypt was incredibly different. We had to pass through three different metal detectors and searches just to board a plane. The first thing we saw upon landing in Cairo, at the base of the airplane, were grim-faced men with berets carrying automatic rifles. There were metal detectors and guards with tommyguns EVERYWHERE in Egypt. I grew accustomed to it, and learned to joke with them. We even had to pass through detectors and by heavily armed guards to enter hotels and restaurants.

Even so, the Egyptian humor and friendliness was almost always evident. For instance, when passing by one such guard, he scowled at me, pointed his automatic rifle at my backpack and snarled, "Take out the bomb, please."

Then he laughed and laughed at my startled expression.

I realized that the guards were there to protect ME, and felt grateful. One day when we went out into the countryside away from the crowds, our little group had our very own guard with a tommygun accompany us. Just in case.

Here are some of the things I did:

I hiked several miles barefoot on the Sahara Desert. Much of the time I was all by myself.

I sailed under the full moon on the Nile River in a felucca.

Well, actually, the sails were down and the Nubian boat owners, in their gorgeous linen caftans, rowed us.

Well, actually, they took off the caftans and stripped down to their tank tops and shorts when they rowed. (I had no objections.)

I'd lusted after this excursion and had formed a mental picture of how elegant and suave I was going to look in the moonlight on this ancient, graceful, cushioned craft (with, incidentally, no life preservers!). That was shot to hell when I tried to row. The oar was huge, uncontrollable, and I almost got knocked into the Nile to drown. My fellow travelers found this highly amusing. Rather than rushing to save me as I was pleading for my life, pinned by the giant oar and being tugged overboard...they pulled out their cameras to take snapshots! For the rest of the tour, they would periodically bring up my distress and giggle in hysterics.

It really was one of those hilarious nights of nonstop laughter. You know.

The sailboat guys at one point decided to take a shortcut. They turned, and began slowly rowing our completely darkened little boat—right across the oncoming path of a very large, very fast cruise ship! I admit modestly to saving the day. I remembered that Ruth had given us all little flashlights. We quickly pulled them out and began blinking them at the cruise ship. After a few minutes, the ship flashed her lights at us and veered off to the side. So we did not drown in the Nile after all.

The Nile is so polluted that we were cautioned not to dip so much as a finger into it.

The life-threatening behavior of the boatmen made sense after observing Egyptian driving. It was AWFUL. Scary. They have no concept of lanes, and drive anyplace on the road they want. On two-lane roads, if they drive on the left, an oncoming vehicle must accommodate this, because they never budge. But sometimes they drive on the right. Most often, it is in the center of the road. I under-exaggerate.

Even in downtown Cairo on the expressway, drivers (including ours) paid no attention whatsoever to the lane lines, (unless it was to drive down the center of the lines). What should have been two or three lanes would suddenly erupt into five or six. Nobody ever signaled. Camels, little children riding mules, goat herds and water buffalo all mingled with the traffic, even on the expressway. Drivers swerved within INCHES of these beasts—and one another. Nobody used their lights at night!!! They only used their lights to flash someone when they were ready to pass, and always honked, too. Most of the cars had dents in them.

It seemed funny. Except that the head of the Egyptian tour agency with whom we dealt had had both legs broken when he was a pedestrian and was hit by a car.

The thing is, the Egyptians drive in this maniacal way with great joy and humor. There is none of the tension and rage present on roads that we have here at home, although there are thousands of legitimate excuses for it! Nobody appeared to get bent out of shape by anything anyone did.

Well, except once, when our van driver got irritated by the slow travel of herds of goats and water buffalo coming home at night on a narrow dirt road which wound through a little village. We had to remind him that this was okay—we LIKED watching the goat herds and water buffalo!

Other Egyptian modes of transportation:

I rode the lead camel on a camel train. The ride lasted for about an hour, as we climbed up the sand dunes in the sunset, with the Pyramids and Sphinx as a backdrop. I loved this. (My camel was the noisiest.)

You really do see guys in turbans and caftans sitting on camels all over Egypt.

Now, the FOOD: It was superb for a vegetarian! I became addicted to the huge breakfast buffets, with fava beans and falafel, rich yogurt, tahini, fire-roasted pita bread, assorted olives, spicy pickled limes, stewed apricots, golden raisins, buckwheat poached in milk, mango juice, guavas, and my all-time favorite, buffalo-milk cheese.

As for coffee—except for breakfast, where the coffee was pretty good, Egyptians drink either espresso made with local water, which tastes like sewer water, or Nescafe, a rather horrid instant coffee. Even on the airplane, the only coffee was Nescafe. Oh, well. Can't win 'em all.

You cannot drink the water or eat anything rinsed in water, or you will be in severe distress. We were given pills to help alleviate the symptoms, should disaster strike.

We ate in several rural restaurants. It was delicious, except that disaster struck on my last day in Egypt, and I had to use my pills. It wasn't so bad, lying in bed, meditating and looking at the pyramids all day long.

A touch of "Ramses' Revenge," as I term it, has remained with me. Who needs hypnosis for weight loss when you can go to Egypt?!

Returning to adventure: one night we went to the tiny, twisting, noisy, colorful, spice-scented bazaars of Cairo where the natives shop, walking through vendor-lined tunnels and covered passageways which wound about like a maze. It was more exotic and surreal than any Indiana Jones movie.

We went to a few sites where there were almost no other tourists, one of them being the Bent pyramid. I used to think that Jesus' 40-day sojourn in the wilderness was a deprivation. Now I see that it was a privilege.

Mohammed believes that the pyramids were originally made not as tombs, but as ways to connect to God.

In both cities and countryside, many Egyptian people live as they have for the past 5,000 years, in mud-brick buildings. The men wear turbans and caftans. We walked through mango groves along the Nile, and saw sheaves of sesame and papyrus. Skinny, wary cats prowled everywhere. There were also lots of dogs, who roamed about happily in packs of five or six. Many dogs and cats were pregnant. When the dogs got sleepy, wherever they were, even in a throng of people, they would just flop down on the ground and snooze. At first I thought there were dead dogs everywhere and I was upset.

There is no hunting allowed in Egypt.

Some of the less glamorous aspects:

Female circumcision was banished only a few years ago, and sadly most adult Moslem women in the country have undergone this suffering.

Garbage is everywhere in Egypt. Plastic bags have replaced reed baskets for the natives. The banks of the Nile and canals are garbage dumps, thick with non-biodegradable trash, where the goats roam and the dogs scavenge. The only thing to break the quiet of the Sahara desert is the ever-present sound of plastic bags skimmering across the sand.

The litter was the most dismal and sad at the Pyramids of Giza, where tourists from around the world throw their snack wrappers and styrofoam cups and used batteries anywhere, and nobody seems inclined to pick them up.

Bathrooms in Egypt are generally putrid. Even in the state-of-the-art museum outside the pyramids, a woman had to flush the ancient facility by using a bucket of water. (Ruth and I were thinking of writing a book about this subject entitled, "Where to Go in Egypt." Ha ha.)

In all restaurants and public places, there is a person in the bathroom (sometimes a male) who hands you a few pieces of toilet paper. You are obliged to tip this individual. I felt sorry for the poor people whose livelihoods depended upon this.

When I was in the famous Cairo Museum, the toilet-paper lady was jabbering with someone, so I just went ahead into the stall (where there was paper). As I began to lock the door, suddenly someone started pushing it fiercely from the other side and shouting something. It was the toilet-paper lady. I pushed back, but she persisted and finally won the contest. Having succeeded in budging the door open a few inches, she snaked her hand around inside, proffered a wad of toilet paper and demanded her tip.

Okay. Now for the Pyramids of Giza:

You always see pictures of the pyramids and sphinx against the desert. What they don't show in photos, besides the heaps of garbage, is that the city of Cairo comes right up nearly to the base of the pyramids. Our hotel was right on that edge.

When we first arrived at this hotel—the Mena House—I found to my dismay that my room was in the back, overlooking dirty Cairo apartment buildings and very noisy, honking traffic. I'd paid extra for a single room. Others, with roommates, had been assigned rooms overlooking the pyramids.

I whined and stamped my foot, albeit graciously (I didn't come 6,500 miles and pay thousands of dollars to look at a TRAFFIC JAM! says I.) It worked. Ruth paid someone a $15 bribe, my room was miraculously changed and I ended up having a spectacular view of the pyramids from my bed, as well as a wonderful balcony with a screen door. Ahhh, the delicious spoils of corruption!

Here is the climax of the trip. The night before Thanksgiving, under the full moon, our little group of eight had the Great Pyramid at Giza reserved solely for us for three hours–from 9 p.m. till midnight.

This was a rare treat, and is going to be even rarer. Because of the corruption from humidity from the breath of so many visitors, they are now putting limits on the number of people who will be allowed into the pyramids.

There are three chambers in the Great Pyramid. The highest, the King's Chamber, is a large stone room reached by climbing up through what is called the Great Gallery. There is a huge empty stone sarcophagus at one end of this chamber carved out of a solid piece of rock. It is said that Jesus lay in this sarcophagus as part of an initiation rite. The sarcophagus, if struck, rings on a single note. (The huge obelisks of Egypt, by the way, also vibrate and ring like a bell if they are struck...)

The middle chamber in the pyramid, accessed through a separate tunnel, is called the Queen's chamber.

The last chamber is rightly called "The Pit," and is only reached by descending deep down into the ground.

We entered the King's Chamber in the Pyramid and began our meditation. For an hour, the lights were turned off and we were in pitch blackness. I lay on the great block floor in the middle of the chamber, and realized I didn't want a mat or towel underneath me; it was important to be in contact with the stones themselves.

Inside the Great Pyramid is a powerful love. Everything else drops away, and one is held in the arms of a majestic, magnetic force.

When I had the opportunity to lie by myself inside the sarcophagus, the stone seemed porous and even soft, moving, breathing. As I looked up at the immense ancient blocks forming the ceiling high above me, it was as if there was a huge, loving heart pulsing through the rock that I could see...

After a time, I left the group and ventured by myself to meditate in the Queen's Chamber, which had a different, but also powerfully loving energy.

Although it would be potentially possible to manifest one's dreams by using the vortex energy of the pyramid, when I tried to think of my goals, I couldn't focus. And then I realized why...because the best and highest path is simply to align and surrender to the God-force.

Besides receiving, it was also important and powerful in the Pyramid to send love—both to other people, and to the structure itself.

Here comes the high drama and focal point of my visit:

While the rest of the group remained up in the King's Chamber, I went by myself to the entrance of the pit. (General tourists, by the way, are not allowed to go down into the pit.)

Imagine this: a tunnel carved in the rock in ancient times (now with dim lighting, unstable wooden foot-holds and shaky, thin metal banisters). The rock tunnel is a little more than an arm's width across, and its stone ceiling is so low that you are forced to stoop over and crouch down to move through it. It is impossible to stand erect.

Now envision this tunnel sloping steeply down, DOWN, much steeper than a staircase, going so far into the depths that you cannot see where it ends.

Here I am, looking down into the depths, all by myself. Nobody knows where I am.

The catch is this: I am a claustrophobic. I have nightmares about places like this.

As I stood there, peering into the tunnel, I realized how few people on the planet have ever experienced going into the pit of the Great Pyramid all by themselves. Those who have done so have at least had someone else know where they were.

They say that when you get into the pit, you face your fears head-on, and a person can go mad.

I stood there looking at that rock tunnel, which seemed to travel down endlessly, and I began to tremble. It was the most fearsome decision I have ever made in my life. I knew that if I went, and my claustrophobia overtook me in the middle of that tunnel, I might go crazy. I'd be trapped. And no one would know for a long time.

I elected to go anyway. So I descended towards the pit, moving backwards, hunched way over.

The descent went on forever. At the point where I thought I should have been at the bottom, perspiring and out of breath, I looked both up and down, and could see no beginning and no end.

But there was, finally, an end. And beyond it lay an even smaller passage. I had to worm my way through it on my hands and knees. I wasn't even sure that there would be anything on the other side.

But there was. It was a dimly lit room which stank of urine, full of enormous, unfinished black boulders, with a little corridor going between them. In one corner was a deep hole, fenced off.

Here's the odd part: it was amazingly familiar, as though I had been there before.

The power and the vibrations there, deep under the Great Pyramid of Giza, were throbbing—immense. I did not feel as though I wanted to remain in the pit very long! I recognized how yes, one's fears could indeed become intensified in that place and drive one insane.

Then my inner, higher voice told me that simply making the descent was what was necessary for me to face, and that I had done a good job.

In all the pyramids, climbing back UP the tunnels is always much, much faster than the descent, and this was also—gratefully, miraculously—true for The Pit.

I went back to the Queen's Chamber, where there is a lovely ledge upon which I sat by myself and meditated some more.

Afterwards, Ruth said to me in awe, with big eyes, "Rainey, do you realize how RARE your experience was–that you were in both the Queen's Chamber and the Pit ALL BY YOURSELF? That never happens to anyone!"

Yes.

You may all touch me when you see me, but it will cost a dollar.

(Hmmm, somehow that doesn't sound right, does it?!! Okay, make it 15 camels!)

Final anecdote:

On the long airplane ride home, an old Muslim grandmother, all bundled up, suddenly sat right down in the aisle and began rubbing her legs. It was evident that her legs were hurting her too terribly to sit in her seat any longer. I moved near her and made a gesture, kind of asking if I could help, and she nodded. I wanted to do some energy work on her, but realized that it would look too weird.

Instead, as one of the airline officials raised her up and placed her back in her seat, I began sending Reiki healing to her legs. I sensed that another of our group, also a Reiki Master, was doing the same, and I asked Ruth to send to the old woman as well.

Within moments, her eyes closed and she slept with a beautiful smile on her old wrinkled face for the rest of the journey. When she left the plane, she seemed to be fine.

I wondered if she had felt any of the strong healing energy we had sent her. Well, while we were waiting for our suitcases, she suddenly darted over to me, out of the blue, and plopped a great big wet kiss on my cheek!

Thus the end of my journey.

Copyright  1999 by Mary Elizabeth Raines