NILE HIGH club

KIRSTY MASTERMAN FINDS A WEALTH OF HISTORY IN CAIRO

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“KEEP moving” orders a voice deep from the abyss, as a length of peopletry try to avoid bashing their heads on the ancient rocks above them, me included.

Sweat dripping from my brow, there's no chance of stopping to catch my breath.

A few moments ago, I'd joined the crowds to marvel at the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the World, the Great Pyramid of Giza. Now I am actually inside the colossal structure.

Standing at over 140 metres high, I clearly hadn't thought what going inside what was once the tallest man-made structure in the world, would entail. However, crawling up the narrow, clammy shaft, where crowd control clearly isn’t a thing, I am beginning to have second thoughts-it’s intense!

Despite only being about 100 metres from the entrance to the King’s Chamber, it takes a good 15 minutes to reach it.

When I do finally make it, I remain at ground level as I try to catch my breath and look around at basically... nothing. Aside from the stone sarcophagus of Khufu (a stone coffin) the only other inhabitants of this tiny room are my fellow travellers.

I’m not sure what I expected; lavish, gold treasures, maybe a genie bursting from a lamp ready to grant me three wishes, but alas, these were ransacked many millennia ago.

Cairo, for me, has always been a bucketlist destination. However, it’s one of those places that have always seemed a little too daunting to take on by myself. I’ve learnt that sprawling, chaotic cities require some sort of professional navigation. Coupled with its vast, complex history, this only cemented that feeling. So I joined a whistlestop tour of Egypt's ancient city, with expert-led small-group tour company Jules Verne.

Cairo is not just one city, it is many cities stacked on top of each other. A city where pharaonic monuments sit beside medieval mosques, colonialera buildings and modern apartment blocks.