The Pyramids

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Geo: 30.0571, 31.2272

Today was excellent. We drove to the Giza Pryamids. They are amazing. There are three large ones. The biggest one was closed, so we had the option to go into the 2nd largest one, which belonged to the pharaohs son. I was hesitant to go in. It is quite claustrophobic. The height at some sections is only 1.3m and its not very wide- quite cosy when they are people going in and out on the same steps. It was scary and hard to breath when I thought about all the stones above me. The pyramids are not hollow, like I thought they were. They were built 3,000 years ago and took 20 - 30 years to build. They started building the pyramid when the pharaoh started ruling. It took 100,000 workers to build them. It was very stuffy in the burial chamber- which is a small room with the coffin in it, directly under the middle of the pyramid. Tried to catch my breath, which was hard to do in the small stuffy room with no air flow. 1 minute later I left, went down steps, flat and then up steps. Egyptians were obviously shorted people. Was great to be out in the open air.
There are lots of camels and horses around here for rides. If they saw you take a photo of their camel- they asked for money. Saw a classic moment- a camel lifted its leg and pissed on the side of the 2nd pyramid. Down the hill I saw the sphinx. It looked really old and seemed to be crumbling and was partly covered in scaffolding.
We then went to the Eypgtian museum. Our guide was great and really informative. Learnt about King Tukandcomin who was a pharaoh at 9, died at 19 and the only tomb not to be robbed and was found intact. His treasures were amazing. He had an 11kg gold mask, gold coffin. His death is a mystery, with a few theories around.
After dinner at our hotel, we headed to the train station to catch a 12 hour train ride to Aswan. The train was so slow and they didn't turn off the lights which was just as annoying as the man continually walking up and down the carriage saying 'tea coffee' all night.

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Photos

01 Me and the pyramids
We drove to a lookout point so that all three pyramids could fit into a photo

02 The sphinx
Here is the Sphinx with scaffolding and the pyramids in the background

03 The pyramids
The pyramids are quite close to the capital city. This photo was taken from the bus as we were driving

04 Local transport
This is how the locals get around, they catch crowded minibuses