It has been a dream of mine to see the Unfinished Obelisk in Aswan. And so I was overjoyed to be one of 6 people there that day in 2015. You can see how few people were there! But I was a bit dismayed to see that the path to walk on the obelisk was roped off. I knew you could walk on it, and could still see the stone that allowed you to gain entrance to it. So I did what I would never normally do, I went off the path!
A close up of the crack that made this obelisk unusable.
I walked over the chain, and just…walked onto the obelisk! There weren’t any guards nearby, and even if there were…I doubt they would do anything. I had climbed on top of a pyramid my first day, and the guard simply had asked my guide for a tip for allowing us to do so. I had seem so much of this “tip” culture, that I figured I’d be fine. And since I’d seen 2 others in my group do the exact same thing, I knew it was still safe. So I walked on the obelisk all on my own. I walked all the way up to the crack, and then slowly made my way down. About halfway up a Spanish guide started shouting in Spanish at me. One of my fellow group members helpfully said “He’s just saying for you to be careful.” But his shouting brought out 5 guards…so I quickly made my exit. Once I got off the obelisk, the guards went away and sat down, without saying anything to us. But nevertheless my heart was still pounding, as I had never done something even remotely illegal, so seeing 5 guards starting to converge on me got me nervous.
Travel Missteps is an every-other week series on how sometimes part of the journey is making mistakes and getting lost.
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