Photos Can’t Do Justice To Egypt’s Awesome Sites Most Of The Ruins And Temples Celebrate The After-Life With Decorative, Beautifully Carved Treasures

Pictures don’t do Egypt justice.

The pyramids, for example, are much larger than you would think - huge, really. Stand next to a block at the base of Cheops’ pyramid and you realize the block is as tall as you.

It is enthralling to visit the temples, with their painted columns and hieroglyphics, 5,000 years old but some looking as if they were only recently completed. View the tomb paintings, with their brightly colored representations of such gods as Anubis, the god of mummification, or look up at ceilings covered with painted stars.

During life, the ancient Egyptians worshiped numerous gods and built temples dedicated to them, many of which still stand.

At death, they believed a certain series of actions - as detailed in The Book of The Dead - would ensure the spirit’s passage into the afterlife. Their idea of heaven was a place similar to life, in which all of one’s desires and needs were met. Besides the paintings and engravings from The Book of The Dead that decorate the insides of tombs, items believed needed for a satisfying afterlife also were placed there.

This obsession with the afterlife permeates any tour of Egypt. Other than temples, most of the ruins are associated with death. Rather than being maudlin or depressing, their decoration celebrates the deceased’s life - and hoped-for afterlife - in beautifully carved and painted pictorials.

When viewing the art, much of which is stunningly well-preserved, you lose sight of the fact these people are all dead.

I now better understand why the French and British wanted ancient Egyptian treasures for their cities and museums. The Egyptian treasures are so fabulous you just want to take them home.

You are given that chance on every occasion. Egypt is a shopper’s paradise, and it is impossible to walk in any tourist area without being approached by someone selling a reproduction of something. Stone scarabs, ankhs, galabias, statues of gods, belly-dancing outfits, rugs, jewelry - anything you can imagine wanting or not wanting is available at your fingertips.

Or, shop at the bazaars found at every tourist spot and in every city. There are buys on tourist items, as well as more expensive keepsakes. But you have to deal. Nothing sells for the asking price. Everything is negotiable, and the word is you should expect to pay from 30 to 75 percent less than the original asking price - and not until after extensive negotiations and walking away several times.

In addition to Cairo, any trip to Egypt should include visits to Luxor, for the Valleys of Kings and Queens and Nobles’ Tombs, Hatshepsut’s Mortuary Temple, the Ramesseum, Luxor Temple and Karnak; Aswan, for the Aswan Dam, Old Cataract Hotel, ancient rock quarry, Aswan Market and Abu Simbel, and - if possible - a Nile River cruise.

Cairo is a city full of the old and the new: pyramids and luxury hotels, donkey carts and tour buses. There are surprises around every corner.

A modern corner gas station sits next to an open-air neighborhood market in Giza, a suburb of Cairo. In front, a woman clothed in black chats with friends while balancing a flat of eggs on her head.

We visit Pharaohs’ Papyrus Institute, where tourists shop for reproductions of drawings from The Book of The Dead, not really a book but a series of drawings. Because the drawings and hieroglyphics are found with such repetition in some pyramids and most tombs on the tourist circuit, the scenes with gods, in particular, become familiar icons that soon are very dear. They demand to be bought.

As we round the corner and approach the strip-shopping center in Giza, the pyramids and Sphinx loom. The address of the papyrus shop is Sphinx Square.

In addition to vendors, you’ll also find “nice people” at archaeological sites. They wait to offer some tidbit of information.

“Thanks,” you say, but, alas, it’s not enough. What they want for their “kindness” is the ever-present and soon-to-be-dreaded baksheesh, or tip. It is a way of life in Egypt, and you’d best get used to doling out Egyptian pounds (about 30 cents each) for everything from information to photos.

This capitalism at its worst or best gets old, and by the end of the trip we stop worrying about hurting vendors’ feelings. They seem to be a necessary evil and are easily overshadowed by the beauty of the archaeological sites.

The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities: The Egyptian museum is a wonderful starting point for a trip to Egypt. It houses about 120,000 objects, of which 44,000 are on display at any one time, according to guidebooks. Wandering through this museum takes you from prehistory through Old, Middle and New Kingdoms, and into Greek and Roman periods.

The Mummy Room, closed from 1981 to 1993 during a discussion of reburying the mummies, is now open and holds the well-preserved mummified remains of several Pharaohs. You can look them right in the face, which is weirdly fascinating.

The multi-roomed Tut exhibit displays 1,700 large and small items discovered in what we later find is a tiny tomb. This is a fabulous exhibit - a mind-boggling display of gold sarcophagi, masks, embalming paraphernalia, burial furniture, statues of gods and jewelry. It is unknown whether Tut wore all of this jewelry during his lifetime, but if he did, it is possible he was the Liberace of the Ancients.

Saqqara: Visiting the tombs and pyramids at Saqqara also is a good introduction. This is where it all began. Zoser’s Step Pyramid was the first burial monument of its kind.

Zoser added several stories (or steps) to what originally was built as a mastaba. Voila, a step pyramid. This burial shape caught on and it was only in the next century the pyramids at Giza were begun.

The Pyramid of Unas, built about 300 years after the Step Pyramid, is not much to look at from the outside, but it holds great surprises in its interior. One of the first pyramids to be decorated inside, it contains illustrations from a forerunner of The Book of The Dead, known to us as Pyramid Text.

The Great Pyramids and Sphinx at Giza: Entering The Great Pyramid of Cheops at Giza, you walk down, then up, multiple ramps at about a 30-degree angle, sometimes crouching, for what seems like a very long time. But it’s really about 5 minutes until you emerge in a 28-foot gallery and walk a while more.

At one point, the electricity failed during our ascent, extinguishing all light. But, with the help of flashlights, we made it to the pink Aswan granite King’s Chamber deep in the heart of the pyramid, which holds an open, empty stone sarcophagus.

This room seemed to have very little air in it, adding to the spookiness of the experience. Getting out is equally difficult, especially if you have vertigo. The glowing limestone casing blocks, believed to have covered the outside of the pyramid, are long gone, as is the gilt that may have covered the top.

On the south side of the Great Pyramid is the Solar Boat Museum, built on the site where archaeologists found a boat of Lebanese cedar that was part of Cheops’ burial paraphernalia. The very large boat might have been used by the deceased Pharaoh’s spirit to cross into the afterworld. Visitors are able to view the boat from several levels.

The mysterious Sphinx, with its inscrutable smile, is still there, but it is currently blocked off from tourists and is covered with scaffolding.

Still, it is fabulous, nestled in the sand like a cat on a blanket. Several dreams are associated with the Sphinx, including one by Tuthmosis IV, great-grandfather of King Tut, that he would be made Pharaoh if he cleared away the sand.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: IF YOU GO TOURS - Many international tour operators offer trips to Europe, often combined with Mediterranean or Nile cruises. Contact any travel agent for information. HEALTH - No shots are required for travel in Egypt, although an up-to-date tetanus shot and a gamma globulin shot (for protection from hepatitis A, which can be spread by food handlers) are recommended. Call your local health district for more information. VISAS - A visa is required for travel in Egypt and may be obtained by filling out a visa application form and sending it, $15 and your passport to Egyptian Consulate, 1990 Post Oak Blvd., No. 2180, Houston, TX 77056; call (713) 961-4915. PHOTOGRAPHY - Photography with no flash is allowed in most of the tombs after paying a small fee. Video filming in the tombs is either forbidden or discouraged by a very high fee. Video filming is permitted without charge in most open-air monuments. MORE INFORMATION - U.S. State Department information line: (202) 647-5225.