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A quick note is in order to mention that our weekend is Friday and 
Saturday, and that Morad is a young man who is a sort of adopted 
son/neighbour/stable manager friend. Steph, Jackie, Tracy, and Merri 
know the horses and Morad well.

So what did we do that was so special anyway?  Not the usual Friday and 
Saturday morning rides, or even a decent moonlight ride since we have a 
full moon. Instead, Bunduq, Nazeer and Morad worked in a History 
Channel episode of Digging For The Truth that they are filming in Egypt 
right now. A few weeks ago I was contacted by an associate producer who 
had gotten my email address from a friend of a friend, sort of a 6 
degrees thing, saying that they were looking for a reliable horse to 
trust their star to in the desert between Giza and Sakkara. I wrote 
back to Kate saying that I could help out and also provide the Arab 
guide that they wanted in the form of Morad, who donned a galabeya 
(imagine riding in a bloody caftan!) for the job.

We tricked out Nazeer and Bunduq with Arab breastcollars and dangly 
bits and fuzzy dooda's on their headstalls in raucous colours. Bunduq 
was dubbed "Rasta Man" for his Jamaican outfit in red, yellow and 
green. Nazeer was more tasteful in black, red and navy. We used my 
usual endurance saddles with rag kilim rugs over them for an added 
flare. The boys were amazingly cool about all the funny clothes and 
remarkably cool and cooperative with the endless gallops up a short 
hill with a pause at the top and a canter to the bottom...I'm sure that 
they figured that these humans had lost their minds.  We had water and 
a bucket and a huge pile of fresh-cut forage in the back of my jeep and 
it didn't take them long to figure out where the best place to stand  
during rests was!  I think that the boys being very laid back was a 
real advantage with all of the "hurry up and wait" stuff that filming 
always entails. They'd munch away happily from the back of the jeep and 
then go off and gallop around the desert for 20 minutes at a time.

We started out at 1:30 pm on Friday to get the horses to Giza for a 
2:30 appointment. Luckily, the film crew wasn't any more punctual than 
anyone else here. Morad and my daughter drove over with gear and horse 
food in the jeep, while one of my grooms, Ahmed, rode Bunduq over with 
me. I don't often ride to Giza and today gave me a really good reason 
why not. The place is a dump. Disgusting. Not nice at all and full of 
tourists, thank heaven.  The ride there and back was long enough to 
wear me out thoroughly by the time I got home at 8:30 pm. A couple of 
cold beers and half a chicken sandwich later, I was out cold until 6 am 
this morning.

Today's shooting was at the pyramids of Abu Sir and Sakkara, which are 
basically our backyard, so the lead time wasn't so much. I dashed 
around feeding parrots and preparing dog food (we have to cook a stew 
for them here) and got to the horses at 7 am. We tacked them up and 
headed for Abu Sir where the crew was to meet us...with an hour and a 
half wait while they were stuck waiting at their hotel for the 
Antiquities Department stooge who had been assigned to them for the 
day.  The wait wasn't bad since the guys had figured out the 
back-of-jeep dining routine the day before, and half the neighbourhood 
showed up to ask what the devil we were doing in the middle of the 
desert. Yasmine amused herself by chipping flint tools which she then 
tried out on everything she could....I kept her away from the saddles. 
Anthropology children can be a burden. Today was more galloping around 
the desert interspersed with stuffing faces on fodder from the 
jeep...or green grapes if they could be snatched.

We didn't get paid for the work but it was fun and in January 2005 you 
will see my horses and Morad in the episode on pyramids. They are going 
to send me a DVD since we don't get History Channel. I was terribly 
proud of my boys who galloped about happily, didn't fuss at standing 
around for ages, and didn't spook or buck once. The story line is that 
there is this adventurer character (done up like Indiana Jones) who is 
traveling over the world investigating mysteries in adventurous 
manners. The star, Josh Bernstein, runs an outward-bound type center in 
Boulder, Colorado, in usual real life and has been diving in ritual 
pools in Guatemala, climbing mountains, doing all sorts of weird things 
for the show. Not a bad sort for an Indy wanna-be. The premise was that 
he's investigating pyramids along with interviews with Egyptologists 
but that he decides to ride from Giza to Sakkara on horseback. It 
wasn't entirely fake, since the horses DID go from Giza to Sakkara 
(though on two consecutive days) as well as from my place to Giza and 
back and my place to Sakkara and back.  But I'm the one who did all the 
riding and now I'm going to bed.

Not a bad weekend.

Maryanne
Cairo


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