The first time I saw the pyramids they were floating in a haze of heat over the flat, grey concrete rooftops of a run-down Cairo suburb. I was on the back of a ragged camel with green foam around its gums, and I was sharing the saddle with a local man named Mahmut who kept trying to put his hands in my pocket. Mahmut wasn't looking for money, which at first reassured me, then made me a little uncomfortable.

I first entered the pyramids in the flat heavy heat of noon, a white heat that pressed on the desert and foreshortened the horizon. It was cool and dark inside the great pyramid of Cheops, nowadays called Khufu, but it was scarcely more comfortable.

The sheer volume of stone around you made it difficult to breathe and hard to think. If you stood upright you dazed your head against the sandstone passage. I was inside the great pyramid for about 20 minutes, but I only had time to think one thing: "Gee, I'm inside the Great Pyramid."

The pyramids inspire awe and a sense of the marvellous, but I felt nothing of mystery about them. I felt no sense of being watched by the shadowed eyes of Anubis the jackal god of the underworld, no sense of otherworldly hands aligning the great blocks of stone with the stars. The pyramids to me are less than that and far more - they are a powerful monument to the glories of which human muscles and sweat and minds are capable.

I have been told that this attitude indicates an impoverished imagination and a sorry lack of wonder. Apparently the sense of wonder is more acutely at work in dizzy dreams of aliens and Atlanteans and lost civilisations who, although they hadn't invented the wheel or bar fridges or sunglasses, were really much smarter than we are. It is apparently being a spoilsport to find wonder in the hard works of men, rather than the fables and fantasies spun by those who cannot believe in human beings.

"I think the ancient Egyptians were just amazing," say the fabulists and fantasists, before going on to tell you why the amazing ancient Egyptians could not possibly have built the pyramids on their own. I do believe the Egyptians built the pyramids on their own, not least because I really do think human beings are amazing. I am a big fan of human beings, provided I don't have to spend too much time with them.

All of this is to explain why I was not disappointed on Tuesday morning when the National Geographic team opened the hidden door above the Queen's Chamber live on television and the whirling furies of the desert did not rush out in the shape of Arnold Vosloo.

As I huddled on the sofa, slightly dishevelled after a long night of waiting for the 2am broadcast, clutching a tumbler of cigarettes and smoking a bourbon, my mind happily turned to past great moments of early-morning live television: Gerrie Coetzee vs Leon Spinks; the 1981 Springbok tour to New Zealand; the 1992 Cricket World Cup. At that time of day, just you in the darkness with your television and a blanket, the world fairly trembles with imminence. Anything can happen, and you will be there. Even better, you will be here, so that when it does happen, the curse of Cheops won't actually fall on your head.

Two bright-eyed adventurers in chinos and khaki shirts were on hand to guide us through the revelations. "Hi, I'm Laura Greene!" said the one with long hair. "Hi, I'm Jay Schadler!" said the one with the square jaw. "And this is Zahi Hawass," they both said. Zahi Hawass, that old brigand, is the director of antiquities at Giza, and the biggest showman since Akhenaten (a pharaoh who was also a big showman, for those of you who haven't boned up on your Egyptology.)

Even though it was midnight, Zahi Hawass was fully kitted out in narrowed eyes and Indiana Jones floppy hat. Although Zahi Hawass is an annoying publicity hog and an archaeologist of the PT Barnum school, he has my lasting affection for firstly coining the word "pyramidiots" to describe the alien-spotting loons like Graham Hancock, and for working so assiduously to gather the hard evidence to dispel their gossamer speculations.

Happily, the show was not all about the hype and hullabaloo of the chamber. We were taken through an impressively cogent account of the latest findings on the Giza plateau. We stood in the ruins of the dormitories, recently excavated, that housed the ancient labourers who built the pyramids. It becomes more difficult to claim the ancients did not build the pyramids when you are looking at the place they slept after their shift.

Still, I was excited by the big event. I had no real expectation of dazzling revelations - besides the blessed day in 1921 when Howard Carter opened the tomb of Tutankhamen, science seldom works that way. All the same, I held my breath and drew closer as the probe passed through the stone slab. And then I sighed. "This is a wonderful discovery!" yelled Zahi Hawass gamely, like the Don King of Giza. "We have found another chamber!"

By television standards it was a disappointment, but I was not disappointed. As much as I value our knowledge of the past, I am pleased the pyramid still keeps some of her secrets. Like outer space and the ocean depths, it remains a repository of human dreams. I may have no patience with the crackpot theories new-agers substitute for dreams, but I love the dreams and stories we weave about the unknown places.

Soon enough the secrets will be revealed and the dreams will disperse. I want to know the secrets, but I will be sad when I do.