I won’t pretend to know exactly what unfolded in the Cairo streets and why. To paraphrase Fouad Ajami, we haven’t done well with Egypt — it is very difficult to read the mysteries of distant lands. I can only tell you what we saw and heard in the villages, and in hushed conversations with Egyptian friends, who first mentioned a protest scheduled for Tuesday a couple of days after my arrival. The anti-Mubarak opposition was railing against both his authoritarian regime and his financial corruption. The movement was gaining momentum and the word on the street was that this could be quite serious indeed. On Tuesday night my friend Darleen was due to arrive from California for her first visit to Egypt, eager to share the glorious rides I’d told her about over the years. I warned her about the protests, and cautioned her that if the demonstration surged she should be prepared to spend that night at an airport hotel. But things did not seem too worrisome and she joined me at the Mena House next to the Pyramids later that evening. The next morning I planned a special ride for Darleen, purchasing
“It was eerie, riding around the empty Pyramids plateau as army tanks and armored vehicles took up positions outside our hotel,” says Denise, pictured above right.
tickets allowing us to ride our horses right up to the Pyramids. As we ascended the Pyramids plateau, I was surprised to find no one there. Well, a few camel drivers and a handful of touts, an Egyptian family picnicking on a tomb, but no one else. No tourists. No buses, none of the typical noise and chaos. At first we reveled in our solitary excursion as we dismounted to explore the tombs, tracing our fingers around 4,500-year-old hieroglyphics, and walking our stallions across limestone and red granite blocks. But it was as though something was afoot in the underbrush. Something was building. We could feel it. 11 b ARABIAN HORSE WORLD b MARCH 2011