Tuesday, 13 June, 2006
Two photos for today.
Sunrise over the desert.
This photo was taken to the southwest of the pyramids.
I found the desert environment frightening. When I looked out over the expanse of open sand with no vegetation, water, or shelter, something deep in my animal being started screaming a danger warning. 'You can't survive there. Stay away.' It wasn't a thought; it was a feeling.
The only other time I can remember feeling such a deep threat from the environment was when I was in the desert in Arizona. My friend and I took at short hike into the desert in the middle of the day when it was 110 degrees. We had water. The car was only several hundred yards away, but the heat and sun generated a feeling from deep within 'You will die here. Go back.'
I've never been to the Arctic or Antarctica. I don't know if I'd feel the same way when faced with frigid cold and snow. I've never felt that way in forests, mountains or other wilderness areas in either winter or summer.
An unnatural danger around the pyramids were open shafts that archeologists had dug to look for other burial sites. The shafts, usually 2-3 feet wide at the top, were left open with no ropes around them or warning signs near them. The camel and horse just walked around them. Anyone could have fallen in them.
Also the desert around the pyramids was strewn with plastic bags and bottles, half buried in the sand. Even at a site of such historic and economic importance as a tourist site, no one picked them up.
(Photo info: iso 100, Tamron 18-200 lens at 50 mm, f/18, .8 sec, tripod), Giza, Egypt, May 19, 2006.
Posted By: donnamhughes | Comment (2)
Landscapes, Egypt
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