This morning two friends and I drove out to a farm near the village of Abu Sir outside of Cairo for a horseback ride around the countryside and neighboring Abu Sir necropolis pyramid fields. The farm and horse stables are owned by a woman named Maryanne. Along with her horses, Maryanne keeps goats, donkeys, a water buffalo and 16 dogs.
We set out with our guides for a leisurely walk. The irony being that this was supposed to be a birthday gift of sorts for one of our friends who informed us just before getting out of the car that she "has a fear of horses." Outstanding. We're tight, can you tell? She was a trooper and saw this as an opportunity to work on getting over her fear.
After winding through back alleys and side streets along the canal in the village we came to an opening in a wall. As we stepped through it felt like some sort of portal in time. The desert spread out before us in rolling dunes and pyramids of Abu Sir were visible in the distance.
In the photo below you can see the pyramid at Saqqara on the left, the Bent pyramid and the Red pyramid on the right.
The Nile Valley and the village were to our left:
Back over our left shoulder you can make out the skyline of Ma'adi through the haze:
After walking through the desert for a short while we turned left toward the village, picked our way through another opening in the wall and worked our way back to the farm. We passed a small group of bee keepers. I snapped this quick photo for our friends back in Arlington who are becoming bee keepers themselves:
Looking back toward the pyramids from the village, you could see the causeway that was used to bring the stones from the Nile. You can also just make out the two columns on either side where the causeway meets the pyramid. This is literally in someone's backyard.
One of the things that impressed me during this ride was the behavior of the motorists and people on the roads. Almost everyone understood to pull over and stop as we passed. Cars, trucks, kids with dogs, donkey cart drivers all stopped as we passed. Maryanne said that it took her years of riding and talking with the villagers for them to understand the importance of slowing down and stopping around the horses for the safety of everyone involved.
This is a shot of the horse I was riding as she stopped to get a snack from a Mulberry tree:
It was an excellent way to spend three hours this morning, and to see a part of EGypt that I had not seen before.
