Nov 1: Giza Pyramids

After over-eating at another breakfast buffet, we took a short bus ride to the Giza Pyramids, which are the ones visible from our hotel room balcony.  These date back to 2550 B.C., and were the burial places of three pharoahs:  Khufu (largest pyramid), Khafre (middle pyramid), and Menkaure (smallest).

 

 

The Great Pyramid is the oldest and largest of the three, and is oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the only one to remain largely intact. Its height is about 420 ft built mostly of limestone and granite (the stones averaging 2.5 tons), and was built over 20 years. The middle pyramid shows a sheathing (an extra layer of stone) at the top...all three initially had this, but was mostly peeled off for other construction over the years, as wood is almost non-existent here. 

 

We had the opportunity to climb up a narrow, steep, and short passageway (I actually had to crawl on hands and knees at one point, I foresee a sore back tonight!) going up 2/3 of the Great Pyramid's height

 

 

  to the actual burial chamber 

Our tour guide said that only 14% of the pyramid has had a thorough examination.  Recently, a machine detected 4 bricks having a different temperature than their neighbors at this spot (our tour director Walid is shown) :

 

The spot is supposed to be opened around next February, and they are expecting a room "the size of a Boeing 737".  So far they've only found one artifact from this pyramid (a small figurine about 3 inches tall, which we saw in the museum yesterday), but think this new chamber may have a significant amount of "treasure".  

 There were many "pyramid dogs" roaming around...they were an Egyptian breed adept at climbing on the pyramids (humans are not allowed to):

 

There were also boats buried around the pyramid (such as in this pit) as the deceased pharoahs continued their journeys into eternity.  Some boats were stolen because the wood was so valuable:

and they are currently digging up another one (for a total of four). 

We then finally got our camel ride:

Diane suffered a cut to her arm while riding.  Initially she thought it was a bite from a camel who came up alongside, but it could have been from the camel's bridle that scraped her arm as the camel was sniffing her arm. 

After I broke a few horses for the locals (yes, it's a real horse and it's really me)

we headed off to a restaurant which overlooked the pyramids and had yet another bountiful meal with naan bread, hummus, meats and veggies.

We briefly visited the sphinx (half man for wisdom, half lion for strength) near the pyramids.  This was carved from rock rather than built

Tonight, we jumped on another bus and attended the Sounds and Sights show at the pyramids and Sphinx.  It was ok, but overpriced (in my humble opinion) at $65 for just observing colored lighting and telling the story of the pharoahs for an hour over loudspeakers

Tomorrow we get up at 3am to catch an early morning flight at the Cairo airport heading south, oh boy!