Pyramids, Horses and Ghosts, oh my!

I have a fear of big things... big boats, big crowds, big buildings. I'm afraid because I think they're going to crush me. The pyramids, though, seemed so firmly rooted in the sand, so heavy, that I never once imagined that they would topple over. They scared me because they are so unearthly. The stones are so tightly fit together that you couldn't even fit a razor blade through them, like they were cut with a laser. An alien laser! Hopefully not an evil alien laser!! Their angles are so perfect, just resting in the desert for an unimaginable 4500 years. We rode for 2 hours on horseback, sometimes as the only tourists in sight, feeling like Giza was all ours. Bailey and the guide would take off at full gallop sometimes, leaving a cloud of sand dust between me and the stones. I know these observations are nothing out of the ordinary for a tourist, I'm sure, but being near the pyramids yesterday brought everything to a cellular level for me. We went inside the oldest true pyramid on earth at Dashur (different from Giza), down a good 200 steps that you had to crouch down and descend going backwards, like on a ladder. Down, down, into 3 stone chambers. The ceilings were tiered inwards, perfectly. There were 2 massive blocks of stone as walls in the middle chamber. Huge and flawlessly cut. How did they even move them! The smell inside was one I had never smelled. It was a mixture of stone and sand and dust and ancient pharohnic breath. For some inexplicable reason, we were the only 3 inside the pyramid. Way deep inside. And we stood in silence and listened. All three of us got chills, not from cold (because it was quite warm) but from a feeling of not being alone. A chill from the thought of being buried there, alone, for thousands of years, alone in your mummified body with gold and jewels and statues for companions...all in the silent darkness with this massive structure to hold you in. We felt like intruders. We climbed back up the 200 steps so fast we were completely breathless. So glad to see the light again.
After Dashur, all silent in the taxi, we looked out at the palm trees as we rode alongside some of the Nile river, past donkey drawn carts of watercress, small cafes with men smoking Sheesha, and women in their long robes buying cuts of meat off of a freshly slaughtered goat. Here and there you might see "Carpet Schools" set up in enormous palace style buildings for the buses of tourists. But mostly we felt like we were the only visitors. We rode into Cairo and admired the dozens of Mosque turrets peaking up above the buildings, awestruck by the size of the town and shocked by the slums on the outskirts. Finally, back in downtown, we walked to the train station and bought our tickets for Aswan, having to weave through rushhour foottraffic. I watched as young men jumped onto moving trains as they left the station, one of them not quite making it. I watched him disappear behind another train as his legs dangled in the air, desperately trying to get on the foot rail. This totally mortified me! I hope he made it. And last night, we bought our 50 cent bowl of Koshari (rice, noodles, chickpeas, lentils and sauce) and a 35 cent creamy icecream cone and ate it on a wall off the street. We had about 7 waiters come to take our drink order... and we weren't even at any restaurant! After a stroll through the busy streets, we came back to our room and fell asleep, quite content and ready for more Egypt.