Looking north toward Cairo from the hill above the Giza Pyramids, we could see perhaps ten blocks into the closest neighborhoods. The rest of the gigantic city was completely obscured by dust, haze, mist,
smog. Nothing prepares you for the grandeur of the Giza site. Its artistic layout is more impressive than either the size of the pyramids or the engineering skills of their builders. And as in much of the rest of Egypt, where the ancient and the modern coincide, you have a curious mixture of feeling: disdain and awe. The attention to detail, the spiritual vision and concentration of effort among the ancients (the awe) juxtaposes with the sales pressure, the piles of trash, stuffed baby camels and cheap pyramid artifacts (the disdain you feel) permeating modern touristic Egypt.