Pharaoh's, pyramids and 5000 odd years of history

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We had to fly out of Heathrow at 8:30am so to get there on time we caught the bus from Cardiff at 3:30am which wasn’t much fun. The flight to Cairo was about 5 hrs and we felt very spoilt to get a meal on board as pretty much all of our flights up to date have been with budget airlines that don’t serve food. The hostel we were staying at arranged for a taxi to pick us up and the ride into the city was a little more intense then we expected. We’re pretty sure they don’t care much for road rules here! It was late afternoon when we got to our hostel so we decided just to go for a walk in the nice warm weather and get some dinner. Crossing the road was a case of walk and hope you don’t get hit, but we managed not to get ourselves run over after some of the locals showed us how to do it.

The next morning we left our hostel and walked to our meeting point hotel for our tour of Egypt. We had a bit of a meet and greet with our tour group at about 1 o’clock and then we headed out to get some lunch together. After lunch we visited the Al Azar mosque and our tour leader told us a bit about the buildings construction and the religion. From there we walked through some very intense markets and then went to see some Sufi dancers. From what we can gather Sufi dancing consists of people spinning around constantly while other people play instruments and sing. One guy was spinning in a circle for 25mins which is quite impressive and was made even more impressive when he stopped and stood completely still at the end.

Our next day was shaping up to be a big one with the first stop being the Pyramids of Giza. It was a bit of a shock that the pyramids are actually right on the edge of the city. It felt bizarre to be standing at the foot of these huge structures which are about 4500 years old. After our tour leader, Ahmed, told us the history behind them we went into the Great (Khufu) Pyramid. The room inside was actually quite small considering the size of the pyramid itself. After wandering around the 3 pyramids for a little while we went to see the Sphinx. The Sphinx is the representation of the Pharaoh in his god state with a lions body. So we soaked up the sight of the Sphinx with the pyramids in the back ground and took a “few” photos before walking to a nearby restaurant for lunch. From there we said goodbye to the pyramids and headed back into the city to visit the Egyptian Antiques Museum. The museum was incredible with so many ancient artefacts and it would take you a couple of days to get around and see everything. Because of this our leader took us around showing us the more important relics on show. The highlight of the museum was definitely the Tutankhamen rooms which housed the golden mask of his mummy which is symbolic when anyone thinks of the Egyptians Pharaohs. We saw many of his other treasures and his coffins of which he had three which fitted inside one another. It was amazing considering he wasn't even a very important or powerful Pharaoh (can only imagine what was in the big guys' tombs before they were raided by thieves). We also entered the mummification part of the museum and saw some of the famous Pharaohs including Ramses II and Queen Nefertiti. After the museum we headed back to our hotel to have a shower and get ready for our overnight train to Aswan, should be a lot of fun..........

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Photos

Karen the Muslim
all the women had to wear these head scarfs

Egyptian Antiques Museum
This was as close as our camera could get, no cameras allowed inside.

Sufi Dancers
These guys must be in training as they didn't spin for nearly as long as the first dancer

A Great Man on a Great Pyramid
you can sought of see how big they are here

........one more
thought we'd change things up here and put the sphinx and pyramid together