The dead do Egypt.

• Author: Loren, Richard
• Position: Worldview - Travel narrative

IN 1970, just after I had arrived in California and was crashing at Marty Balin's place in Mill Valley, I started reading his many books on the lore and legend of Egypt's ancient pyramids on the Giza Plateau. The Pyramids have inspired esoteric literature, rich and imaginative, with theories ranging from alien outposts to portals of cosmic revelation. Whether they are a supernatural vortex or the pharaoh's decomposing dreams of immortality, the structures on the Giza Plateau have lured generations of visitors with their wonder and mystery. I wanted to experience them in all their phenomenal majesty and it became one of my life's goals.

I continued to read and plan for Egypt over the years and, when the Grateful Dead went on their 1975 hiatus, I decided the time had come to take my trip. In December 1974, a month before my departure, I met Ken Kesey, the founder of the Merry Pranksters and a noted writer. He had just come back from a trip to the pyramids and was chronicling his adventures for Rolling Stone magazine. He gave me some great insights into what I might expect to encounter and his vivid descriptions sparked my enthusiasm for exotic adventure.

The following month, I flew out of San Francisco with two traveling companions, stopped briefly in New York, went on to Rome for a few days, and finally landed in Cairo. When we arrived, we were stunned by the culture. The Cairo airport was an international bazaar: a wild intersection of travelers from all over the world crisscrossing paths without any of the rational, orderly design that organizes and directs wayfarers in big city airports in the Western world. Two of us were dressed in casual California attire and did not merit a glance from the teeming masses of colorfully dressed Africans, Arabs, and Far Eastern exotics. However, the third member of our party, Goldie--a tall, voluptuous, and regal blonde--attracted numerous sustained appraisals.

My European and American travels were sanitized and programmed compared to the organic chaos of this Eastern transport mecca. Franchise coffee shops, generic cafes, leather-upholstered cocktail lounges, and gleaming restrooms were conspicuous in their absence, and finding our luggage was like a treasure hunt. We were directed to an undesignated, crowded space where porters in long, flowing galabias navigated carts loaded with luggage, cardboard boxes, and overflowing shopping bags through a mob of shoving, yelling travelers.

From out of the swirling horde, a small Egyptian man, neatly dressed in Western attire, emerged before us. "Excuse me, sir, I drive you and your wives to hotel. I make good price for you."

"Great," I said, "but first we have to find our luggage."

"Richard," Goldie called out standing out above the crowd on her tiptoes, "they're over there." She pointed to a fast-moving cart on the other side of the room. The little man instructed us to wait, then quickly slipped through the moving maze, targeting our luggage. He was back in short order with our suitcases and directed us out of the terminal to a parked compact car of unknown origin that he hastily loaded like an expert.

I sat beside our driver, the ubiquitously named Mohammed, while the women stared out the windows from the backseat at the donkey carts, weaving bicycles, and honking, smoking mass of cars that make up the pandemonium of traffic on the streets of Cairo. As Mohammed maneuvered through the bumper-to-bumper stream of careening vehicles, he kept glancing in his rearview mirror with undisguised interest. When we stopped momentarily at an intersection, he shifted around and smiled at Goldie. "Hello, Susie," he said.

"Goldie," she replied with a polite nod.

Mohammed resumed driving but gave me an approving glance. "Gold Susie is beautiful woman." I nodded and smiled, captivated by the flow of exotic sights outside my window. He checked the mirror again. "Have breasts round like melon."

"What did he say?" Goldie asked.

"He said you have beautiful eyes," I replied, not wanting our drive to be jeopardized by clashing cultural mores.

"Oh, that's sweet," Goldie said, turning her attention back to Cairo's mix of ancient and modem, East and West.

"Maybe, one day, you let your friend Mohammed take Gold Susie for drive?" His...