Playing Hookie

Andrew, Josh, a few other members, and I had to miss church this Friday. We were too busy galloping horseback across the desert under the blazing Egyptian sun, camping under palms, relaxing fireside, and exploring the ruins of ancient temple complexes. In all honesty, the images conjured up in the reader's mind upon reading this summary of our activity are without a doubt far more romantic than was the activity itself. I shall provide just a few additional details about my experience in order to illustrate.

We hired horses from a local stable. The horses were by and large underfed and overworked, though not to the extreme. My horse was old and crotchety. It had a nasty tendency to bite or kick any thing that came within biting or kicking range. Several unfortunate horses and several even more unfortunate Boy Scouts learned of this propensity first hand. The group of scouts and leaders as a whole were unskilled in things equestrian. Our riding pace and direction was thus determined mostly by the caprices of the horses. When the horses' self will manifest itself too strongly, the guide's whip cracked and all became well for another few minutes.

After two and a half hours of riding mostly at a trot, when our rear ends were sufficiently beaten to a pulp and after a few false arrivals, we spotted the night's camp. It was two hundred yards from three crumbling step pyramids to the north, the back wall of a villa to the south and completely surrounded by... trash. Of course, for those who have already seen the streets of Cairo or visited the Great Pyramids, that should come as no surprise. Apparently, the city is just a little behind on developing a fully functional waste management system for it's some 20
millions inhabitants.

The scouts seemed to have no qualm pitching their tents among the plastic bag covered desert shrubbery. Andrew, Josh, and I chose to move a little farther out, just beyond the trash frontier. While dinner was being prepared, three men in galabayas arrived at out site to let us know that comping there was strictly prohibited. They poked around for a while asking for the responsible party and more or less holding their hand out for the baqsheesh (tip/bribe) that would have caused them to remember the new ordinance permitting camping in this one spot. They were generally ignored at first. In time, someone referred them to Mr. Mohamed, who owned the villa beyond the wall. After that, they disappeared.

Before dusk, several clusters of men and boys ventured out to the pyramids to cause mischief and take photos in the setting sun. Eventually the care takers came to tell us that the desert closed at 6 o'clock. (Strange, I didn't realize the desert had a closing time.) We pointed out that that gave us fifteen more minutes, but were then informed that the desert actually closed at 5 o'clock. Naturally, the closing time would easily have become 7 o'clock with just a little greasing of the outstretched palms, but we were satisfied with our visit and slowly made our way back.

When dusk fell, we began retiring to our tents. Josh and Andrew didn't use up half the space in their luggage for camping gear, so they had to borrow two sleeping bags and my rain fly for a ground tarp. The night air over the sand was much cooler than it is in the city and a stiff wind plastered sand against the tents and bags throughout the night.

Around 8pm Brother Lewis, Brother Hall, and their sons come out to meet us. Together we had a small sacrament and impromptu testimony meeting.

The activity of the next morning was more exploration of the pyramids and the partially disinterred burial complexes surrounding them. This time the guards' admonitions were fully disregarded until they became fed up with us and left. In the meantime, we were climbing up and around and through every bit of ancient architecture we could find. At one point Andrew, Josh, and I thought we should climb one of the pyramids. We began scrambling up the face with two scouts leading the way. As it became steeper, some pieces of crumbling stone fell here and there. I called up to the scouts in the lead way and told them to tread carefully, informing them that most rock climbing deaths occur from rocks falling from above. As I was finishing my sentence, one of them made a careless move that sent a pile of rubble cascading down over us. Josh and Andrew ducked to the sides. I turned to jump away and was hit square in the back by a decent-sized chunk of pyramid, which threw me few yards downward before I regained control. After that, everyone changed their mind about how cool it would be to reach the top.

When enough trouble had been caused and we were sufficiently hot, thirsty and tired, the group wandered back to camp. We lazily packed up our belongings and departed, arriving home by about 2pm on Saturday.