The Oldest Trade, Eradicated
1 Comments Published by Tom Gara on Monday, August 11 at Monday, August 11, 2008.
Some people will tell you that farming is the world's oldest profession, some say it's prostitution.
They'e all wrong. For thousands of years, Egyptians have been ripping off tourists at the pyramids. They spotted Herodotus for a sucker, fleeced the 14th-century King of Mali, extracted rivers of baksheesh from Mark Twain and probably conned more money from American tourists today than you'll earn this year.
It is an ability that has become almost genetic, as if those who live and work by the pyramids have evolved over thousands of years in a brutal Survival of the Dodgiest. Only the man who can sucker foreigners into paying $80 for a ten-cent piece of cloth is destined to reproduce and have his unique, sketchy blueprint remain in genetic circulation.
But all that may be coming to an end. Things are changing, for the better or worse depending on your outlook:
- It's not as if the pyramids really need the preservation. Of all the historic sites in the world that can handle as much punishment as human beings can physically throw at them, the pyramids have to be number one, two and three. They are indestructible. If you want to protect something, how about all those gorgeous thousand year old mosques in the Old City that are falling to pieces and under the sole jusridiction of some random 120 year-old dude who uses them as a storehouse for piles of broken pieces of other mosques, etc...
- "Hawass insisted none of the innovations will diminish the experience of the visit. "We are giving back the magic of the pyramids," Hawass said."
Wrong. The magic of the pyramids is that despite thousands of years of total neglect, non-existent management and industrial scale fleecing and harassment, they are still the world's greatest tourist site. Only Egyptians can pull of a trick like that, and this is just messing it up.
They'e all wrong. For thousands of years, Egyptians have been ripping off tourists at the pyramids. They spotted Herodotus for a sucker, fleeced the 14th-century King of Mali, extracted rivers of baksheesh from Mark Twain and probably conned more money from American tourists today than you'll earn this year.
It is an ability that has become almost genetic, as if those who live and work by the pyramids have evolved over thousands of years in a brutal Survival of the Dodgiest. Only the man who can sucker foreigners into paying $80 for a ten-cent piece of cloth is destined to reproduce and have his unique, sketchy blueprint remain in genetic circulation.
But all that may be coming to an end. Things are changing, for the better or worse depending on your outlook:
"Visiting Egypt's famed Giza Pyramids has long been a nightmare, with hawkers peddling camel rides and pharaonic trinkets hustling tourists relentlessly at every turn.But now the hustlers are gone, as Egypt unveiled on Monday the first stage of an elaborate project to modernize the site and make it more tourist-friendly, complete with security cameras and a 12-mile fence with infrared sensors surrounding the site.
"It was a zoo," Zahi Hawass, Egypt's chief archaeologist, said of the usual free-for-all at the pyramids. "Now we are protecting both the tourists and the ancient monuments." (IHT)
I suppose this is "good" news, but I don't like it, for a few reasons:
- The pyramids are MEANT to be a strange, uncomfortable experience involving way too much haggling and frustration. Welcome to Cairo, assholes. If you want pleasant, comfortable serenity, go to the frigging British Museum or something.
- It's not as if the pyramids really need the preservation. Of all the historic sites in the world that can handle as much punishment as human beings can physically throw at them, the pyramids have to be number one, two and three. They are indestructible. If you want to protect something, how about all those gorgeous thousand year old mosques in the Old City that are falling to pieces and under the sole jusridiction of some random 120 year-old dude who uses them as a storehouse for piles of broken pieces of other mosques, etc...
- "Hawass insisted none of the innovations will diminish the experience of the visit. "We are giving back the magic of the pyramids," Hawass said."
Wrong. The magic of the pyramids is that despite thousands of years of total neglect, non-existent management and industrial scale fleecing and harassment, they are still the world's greatest tourist site. Only Egyptians can pull of a trick like that, and this is just messing it up.
I'm shocked and appalled.
I loved that I could go to the pyramids as a saavy Cairo denizen and not get tooled by all the con men, while at the same time watching all the scantily-clad tourists paying 100 LE for a 5 minute camel ride.
I guess this is all about that plan for the egyptian museum with the fancy palm treed-promenade linking it and the pyramids. Such a shame.