People tell you that you haven’t succeeded in life, because you don’t have a wife, a house, a car, a successful career… “But man, have you ever seen the Pyramids?”
John Y., 61 years old, traveler

Now I have. Thank you John for being the first person I ever met to have exactly the same philosophy than me. The one in which I do not want to spend my whole life working to only have a few weeks of real life every year just because everyone else does like that, in which I refuse to spoil my short stay on Earth by following everyone on the path of “work to get money – consume to spend money – work more to consume more”, in which I would rather prefer to discover what is on this planet with my own eyes instead of seeing misery at the daily TV journal and tell myself that my house is safe and that the best choice is to stay in it until I die.

Thank you John. I am not alone anymore.

Now I have seen the Pyramids of Giza, the last of the Seven Ancient Wonders. I can die in peace now. Uh wait, I want to see the Taj Mahal too. And the Machu Picchu. And the Sistine Chapel. Oh crap, this one is not on my itinerary. Too bad, I will need to make another round-the-world trip I guess.

“Nothing can prepare you for the sense of awe and wonderment you’ll feel when you first lay eyes on the Pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx” (Matthew D Firestone, Lonely Planet Author). And I have to say, it is true. But not totally. I actually was incredibly amazed each time I saw them (I went twice), each time I approached them, each time I saw a new point of view. And, most of all, each time I touched one of them. My breath was taken out and my heart missed a beat – I mean, literaly – each time my hands entered in contact with these 4000-year old monuments, so huge that you cannot even imagine how huge they really are before seeing them, so impressive that your heart cannot but be moved by them.

I was so amazed by these monuments that I do not have much to say about it. My mind was kind of shut down the time I was on the Giza Plateau, not even able to realize how incredible it was to stand there, in front of the sheer bulk of these monuments that defy the weak mortality of the humans that built them (or that saw them, like myself, I suppose) and of the pharaohs that ordered them. I will simply put pictures, I guess. But pictures cannot approach the wonder it is to see and touch them, unfortunately.

Oh and I almost forgot, here is Saqqara, and the incredible step pyramid of Djoser. Apparently archeologically more interesting than the Pyramids of Giza, they also have much less tourists visiting it. I like.

Bonus track: incredible Sufi dance (derviches tourneurs) and spice market, direct from Cairo, Egypt.