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The Pyramids of Giza
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besides Italy, Egypt is the number one place in the world i have wanted to visit, something about it has always caught my attention and interest. we arrived in Cairo around 10:00 A.M., got our visas, exchanged our euros for Egyptian Pounds, and found our guide who helped us through customs and such before taking us to our driver. (That sounds so fancy.) landing in Cairo, the air here is very hazy from all the dust from the desert it is crazy and visibility is only about 2000 meters at most. the weather is sunny, about 76 degrees Fahrenheit so a nice change from cold and rainy Greece (Europe actually) which is having really bad flooding problems. driving in Egypt is insane, our driver said it is like playing those racing video games except it is all real! no one drives in a lane or obeys traffic lights, people just honk and drive and the most aggressive drivers get there first. our driver was born and raised in Egypt so he got us to our hotel in Giza safely thank goodness. the difference in Egypt between a 4 or 5 star hotel and a 3 star hotel is huge and things are really cheap here, especially with a 5.5 Egyptian Pound to $1 favorable exchange rate, so our friend Tasja when she planned the trip for us put us in 5 star hotels and it is great, they take care of everything and you don't have to life a finger, i could get used to this.
our first day in Cairo we got to relax in our room, order room service, and watch movies, since we were tired from our early flight and didn't know yet where to go in Egypt. there aren't any public transportation systems in Giza like buses or subways, just scary expensive taxis. so we soaked up the luxury of our hotel the first day.
Saturday we got u[ at 7:00 and our guide for Cairo picked us up at 8:00. the whole day we had our own private guide with a private driver it was awesome and better than being on a big tour bus with a bunch of people. we went to the open air museum in Memphis, the ancient original capital of Northern Egypt before it was unified and the capital of all Egypt became Cairo. the museum was really cool, i have never been to an outdoor one, and it had a giant statue of a sphinx with the head of Queen Hatshepsut, the longest ruling queen of Egypt ever at around 20 years. the museum also had a huge, rose granite, sarcophagus and a gigantic statue of Ramses II that they found lying down on site, same with the big sphinx and decided to build a museum around the 2 statues. next we went to the Step Pyramid, the first pyramid in the world built for the Pharaoh Zoser. we also got to go down into the tomb of a smaller, partially collapsed pyramid nearby and an above ground tomb of a noble. the tomb underneath the pyramid was so neat with the ceiling covered in stars and painted blue, hieroglyphics on the walls, and everything preserved for thousands of years. the Step Pyramid was amazing as well with a copy of Zoser's palace built next to it. unexpectedly, we got to go to a carpet making school, we had seen tons of them driving around, where we learned how knotted and woven silk and wool rugs are all made by hand by local artisans. we actually got to watch people make the rugs, then we went upstairs to see the finished products.
After that we had a traditional Egyptian lunch of humus, fresh, warm, pita bread, and skewered beef, chicken, and lamb over rice at an Egyptian equivalent of a country club, it was delicious. with full bellies, we went to the main event of the day, the Pyramids of Giza, the last of the 7 wonders of the Ancient World. they are absolutely massive and so amazing it took my breath away. it is a truly unreal and surreal experience to be standing here in front of the pyramids. the largest of the 3, actually the largest of all 107 pyramids in Egypt, is 147 meters tall, almost 500 feet, the base covers over 13 acres, and it is made of over 2,300,000 blocks each weighing 2-2.5 tons, sp the whole thing weighs over 1 billion pounds! there are 3 large ones and several smaller ones around. right below the second of the 3 pyramids is the great stone sphinx and the temples where they mummified the bodies. standing at the bottom of the hill looking up at the sphinx, the 3 Great Pyramids, and sand dunes is one of the most amazing sights ever in the world. just breathtaking in person to the point i can't even describe it. for our last stop we got to go to a jewelry shop and get cartouches with our names on them carved in Egyptian Hieroglyphics, which i have always wanted. exhausted after a full day, we got back to the hotel around 5:00, had dinner, watched TV, and went to bed.
this morning we had to get up at 4:00, so early! our driver from yesterday picked us up at 5:00 because our flight is at 7:30. now we head to Mount Sinai.
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| 72. | The Pyramids of Giza - Cairo, Egypt Nov 25, 2007 |
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