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Published: August 12th 2006
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Walk like an Egyptian
Ah so cheesy but yet so necessary. The amount of people striking serious poses inspired us. After leaving Crete and Greece on Thursday I'm now into the second half of my trip: Egypt!
Getting here was an absolute mission though. My plane was scheduled to leave Heraklion (Crete) at 11.10pm for Athens and from there flying to Cairo leaving at 12.50am. However we were delayed leaving Heraklion until 12.00am (the London terrorist scare had flights all stuffed up) which put the Cairo connection into some major doubt! Luckily for me I had two forthright Egyptian men sitting next to me who raised merry hell with the Olympic Air people, so the pilot floored it to Athens (the scheduled 50 min flight had us on the ground in 35!). As soon as it docked we burst out the door and sprinted from the domestic terminal to the international gates and after hurdling some queues we got to the Cairo gate just as they were about to shut the doors. The plane itself was chaos with little Egyptian kids running down the aisles and people arguing over seats, but in a stroke of good luck I was seated next to a young Aussie couple so we chatted all the way (unbelieveably they mistook my accent for an Aussie
The Egyptian Museum
No photos allowed inside it so I thought bugger it - I will take one outside it just to spite them. one thinking I was a Tassie).
As we came into Cairo I had a window seat and the city looked like a sea of lights with a large black snake curving through the middle of it - mighty the Nile River! Luckily I had booked an airport pickup and transfer through my tour operators so when we landed he pulled some strings ands got me whisked through emigration and to a waiting car. In another stroke of luck during my 10 min sprint to gate in Athens they had managed to transfer my pack to the Cairo plane - I had resigned myself to it being left behind!
I didn't arrive at the hotel until about 3.30am and then I was so buggered that I crashed out. I had arrived in Cairo a day before my tour started so I spent yesterday having a good look around the city. I went to the Egyptian Museum which was really interesting, especially the Tutankhamen exhibition. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures as they no longer allow cameras inside the museum - evidently flashes damage the exhibits. Despite this it actually makes the museum a much nicer place to be as
Pyramid of Khafre
Slightly smaller than the Great Pyramid but still rather big. you don't have people posing for photos all the time which can get bloody annoying when you just want to look at something. The famous golden death mask of Tutankhamen is a work of beauty that can not be explained by mere words or even pictures - you will just have to come and see it for yourself!
The tour kicked off this morning with a trip to the last remaining ancient wonders of the world - the Pyramids of Giza! Although Egypt has 97 pyramids the three pyramids at Giza are considered to be far more special than the rest, and not just because they are your standard tourist fare. Scientists still have no idea how they were built, as the nearest limestone quarries are 48 km away on the other bank of the Nile. Each stone block weighed at least 2.5 tonnes and as they only had papyrus rope no one knows how they managed to hoist/drag them into place, let alone float them across the Nile. Some other weird and unexplained features that science has no answer to and that I'm dying to tell are:
* the fact that gravity within the interior of pyramids
The Great Pyramid (Khufu)
Yep out of all the pyramids this is a great one. You can see the squadrons of tourist buses in front of it. is less than anywhere else on the planet - 9.4 m/s instead of the standard 9.8 m/s they teach you at school. No one can explain why this is but you actually weigh less when they are inside these particular pyramids!
* they have done experiments where they put food on each outer step on the pyramids. Bacteria grew on the food at each level apart from the level where the burial chamber is - so there is some sort of unexplained force that kept the mummies from decomposing as well as the whole embalming process.
* Electrical devices like cellphones, laptops and radio receivers can't transmit within the pyramids, although they have no problem doing so in any of the other 94 pyramids where the rosk is just as thick
* and finally the one that will get the maths nerds excited, if you divide the height of each pyramid by their length and width you get pi (3.14159....). The same goes for the dimensions of the burial chambers inside. How could they calculate this so precisely is another mystery.
Ok enough pyramid facts already. While we were there we also saw the Sphinx which is just
as impressive as the immense pyramids behind it. Each pyramid has its own Sphinx to guard it from grave robbers so there are actually another two Sphinxes buried beside the other two pyramids which they have found by xraying the desert. There are no plans to dig these up though, as they worry that they would get damaged and perhaps even detract from the one true Sphinx that currently sits there.
So far our tour has been excellent. There are 10 of us on tour and they are a good bunch of people. I rooming with an Aussie guy called Tim who is a hard case and we get on really well which is great. The rest of the group are Aussies, Irish and Americans. Our guides are locals who are superb and they have done a fantastic job explaining all the sights to us. They also had great tips for getting rid of the hordes of people who try to sell you bogus camel rides or tacky statues for ridiculous prices. If yo talk to them in English then they will keep at it as they see tourists as fiar game One word - Lashuckran which merely means
The Sphinx and the Pyramid of Khafre
The Sphinx is a lion with Khafre's head. In this way they guard the Pharoah's tomb within the pyramid from grave robbers. "no thankyou" but tells them that if you know any Egyptian then you are probably too savvy to be cheated from your hard precious pounds.
Tonight we board an overnight train down to Luxor and from there it is a cruiseboat up the Nile! Thanks for all your messages from home and on my blogs. I know I waffle on a bit so it is good to hear that you actually like reading them!
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Grandad Fitchett
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Great Blogs to date
We have enjoyed all your Blogs so far, which show that you are interested in the relevant historical background. I did not know about the reduced gravitational force in the pyramids. Keep ëm copming Ben