A Journey Back to B.C.

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We have breakfast at the hotel and I discover that Egyptians appreciate sweet things, heaven! I have Om Ali which is like Bread and Butter Pudding with fruit, coconut and LOADS of sugar in it, it is sooooo good!

After breakfast we are met by our guide for the next 2 days, Nesreen Mahmoud, she’s really nice and her English is fantastic!

First we’re off to see the Giza Plateau to visit the pyramids.

I’m glad we’re here in the low season because there is already a lot of people and a huge row of tour buses!

The largest is the Great Pyramid of Cheopes, the next is of his son Cephren and the smallest is of his Queen Micerinus (I hope I have the last 2 names the right way around!). The son’s is covered part way down on the top by a smooth layer of limestone, once upon a time it was fully covered but over time the limestone was stolen to build people’s houses. Now it looks like white chocolate poured over the top of icecream.

It is huge, we can climb part way up, and can only imagine what it must have been like building it. The King designs, plans and starts constructing while he is still living. The life he is living isn’t considered the important one, it’s when he moves into the next life that matters. So that is why they plan for it and take as many things, both real (like their belongings and favourite foods) and symbolic (like statues of gods and also of their servants doing daily jobs).

It seems so hard to believe that these have been here for over 3,000 years, I can’t get a backpack to last more than 1!

We have the opportunity to go down into one or more of the pyramids. The largest one costs the most, the second one a bit less and the Queen’s is free. They are all exactly the same so we choose the Queen’s. You have to crouch over at the waist to go down a steep slope about 25 metres, then it’s flat and your almost able to stand for a few metres, then it’s bent over even more for about 5 metres then down a two metre ladder. Then you are in a room about 5 metres square and about 3 metres high. This room held her casket and all her belongings.

We move up to another area where there a loads of camel drivers, horses with carts and horses to take people to have a look at all 9 pyramids with an uninterrupted view.

Nesreen negotiates us 2 camels for 200 Egyptian Pounds each for 30 minutes. So off we go, Cleopatra and her King across the sand dunes! My camel needs a little convincing to go at first, but then she settles in.

The view is unbelievable! So like something out of a movie. The guide even puts his head scarf on each of us and Tim gets to continue to wear it until the end - it suits him I have to say! They take loads of photos for us, including all the ‘postcard’ shots of us holding the pyramids etc. We end up with longer than our 30 minutes and he guide tries to swap his scarf for Tim’s hat, but his boss steps in and Tim gets to keep his hat, but has to give the scarf back!

The Sphinx is next and it is so much larger than it appeared in the Light Show last night.

There are heaps of people, including children, trying to sell scarves, postcards, bookmarks, even just to take your photo. I have learnt that La Shokaran means no thanks. Unfortunately the Japanese bus loads haven’t learned this and get pretty well hammered where ever they go. To the extent if someone is talking to us and they see the bus come, they are off like a shot after them.

THE SHOP STOPS

We get taken to the obligatory shops that you always do on tours - a souvenier shop, a clothing shop, a carpet making shop and a papyrus paper making shop. At least they have nice clean bathrooms to use and even though we don’t buy anything they are all informative.

The souvenier shop also sells jewellery, including pendants that they will put whatever name you want embossed in in hieroglyphics, we don’t get one here but we do keep the card we’re given with the alphabet on it. There is some amazing furniture for sale and I don’t even dare to look at the prices - much to Tim’s relief!

The carpet shop incorporates a school where the children are the ones making the carpets in return for an education. It sounds like a sweat shop, I know… Friday and Saturday are weekend days in Egypt so today there is only an adult working in the factory. But we’re shown how the rugs are handmade; some of it is so intricate I can see why children’s little fingers would be so good at it. We look upstairs at the carpets and can appreciate a little more why they are so expensive, but still not tempted.

The Papyrus shop shows how they use the papyrus plant to make paper, quite a process and the end product is really strong. Again really interesting but still not tempted!

The clothing shop is, well, just that. So we move on.

Nesreen takes us to her favourite drink shop and buys us each a Sugar Cane juice. It is literally the juice from sugar cane and even with nothing added it’s really sweet. I love it!

MMMM, EGYPTIAN FOOD!

We go to a restaurant for lunch and are greeted by an Egyptian band, but they only play as long as it takes you to walk through the door. So when a big bus comes it’s great because they actually play for more than 20 seconds!

There are some women sitting on the ground making flat bread, so I give it a go. I shouldn’t have. They make it look very simple by putting round balls of dough on a paddle then flipping it and spinning it in the air until it’s nice and flat then bake it in an open oven, like a pizza oven. Unfortunately the flip and spin doesn’t work for me and mine just ends up a gooey blob. Tim laughs like mad at me but is not game to give it a go himself!

Lunch is great, a huge selection of meats, dips, veges and bread is brought to the table and I wish I could eat more! Then we are full as a boot, they bring out watermelon! The fruit here is unbelievably sweet, delicious.

We’ve noticed there is a lot of cats around most places we go. They nearly all look healthy and loved, but dogs on the other hand are few and far between and when we do see them you can tell they have not been loved in a long time. We learn that in Islam, dogs are considered dirty. We find this out when we are talking about our dogs and how they sleep on the bed!

THE STEP PYRAMIDS

We then go to see the Step Pyramids and also the intricate series of stairs and tunnels that were also made to access it back in the day. The thought and engineering that went into everything is incredible considering how long ago this was done.

We then go to see the remains of the statue of Ramses II. It is so big and even though it’s now laying down and the poor fella is missing his legs you can see the detail that went into the making of his statue. All the kings statues that were made then do not show anything that may have been wrong physically with them. So they are all very fit and good looking, this was obviously the advent of photo shopping!

So after a very full, long but interesting day we head back to the hotel and hit the pool. Great end to a great day!

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