Still heading for El Lahun

At 10.30 the police vehicle stops. We both backup and turn left past a massive cartload of what looks like corn stalks, but may be sugar cane. There's a man on top, just outside my bus window. I hold up my camera and ask (with my eyes) "Can I take your photo?" He nods, I take, he smiles, I do the thumbs up.We wobble on down this narrow dusty road, heading straight across the desert. And we are there at last! Our police get out of their vehicle. The two big bosses accompany us and the other four are detailed to spread out on high ground and survey the desert which completely surrounds what we have come to see.

It's a pyramid made of mud bricks, a very irregular shape, but huge - probably as high as the Great Pyramid in Cairo. It is so exciting to be here, visiting something that few people ever see. It's about 4000 years old. All the outer covering has long gone. There's a few robed Egyptian men, a shelter and two motorbikes. Around the pyramid are the tops of stone pillars. We move around clockwise, to see the entrance hole to the burial chamber, which is in the ground well away from the pyramid. There are 4000 year old bricks made of mud and straw. Sometimes these were dried in the sun, and sometimes baked in an oven. Round the back are eight square structures with flat tops called mastaba - these are tombs.I talk to a couple of the soldiers and say thanks for looking after us. He asks me what job my husband does and how old my children are.

And we're off, retracing our tracks back to the nearest small town where we go to a big restaurant, light and airy with a very high ceiling. The choice is chicken or meat. i choose chicken and what comes is a large tray. On it is a lump of chicken, the best rice I have ever tasted, a plate of tahini, a plate of Egyptian bread which I think is baked on top of a stove (to dip into the tahini), a soup plate of green peas and bits of other veg in a sauce. This is a dinner, not a lunch. A bottle of water comes with it. It is delicious, the best meal I have had in Egypt so far. (But the toilet is something to forget!)

Outside the restaurant are several amazing white structures which are dove cotes. They are about 3 metres high and come from the days when people bred pigeons as food.