Cairo and Giza

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Wow. That'd be a pretty good description of day 1 in Egypt!

We started off this morning with a quick breakfast in our hotel (for the most part breakfast was really good) before hopping on our bus to Giza. Suddenly, while we were driving along some random street, a pyramid jumped out of nowhere; a few moments later and a second one became visible. Now we have all seen the pyramids on TV, and know what they look like. We all also know that they are really big. Our first impression, though, wasn't that they are really big, it was the they are frickin' huge!  Absolutely magnificent structures! The pictures really don't due them justice, but we will post photos anyways. 

In the vicinity of the pyramids there are many merchants trying either to sell you something or to scam some money out of you. Luckily our guide, Albert, forewarned us of some of the types of things to expect. Good thing too, because these people are super aggressive; if you even allow them to engage you in a very short and simple conversation, you will find it very difficult to get out of the situation without being extremely rude or coughing up some cash. As Stewart (one of the people in our group said), "politeness is a curse in this country!" 

Besides the merchants, the pyramids are an amazing experience. Albert gave us very nice explanations of each pyramid before giving us some time to walk around each of the pyramids and snap a few photos. 

You can see that the pyramids have been damaged over there long lives. Originally, they were completely smooth; there top-most layer was made of polished limestone or marble.  Much of that was later stolen and used to construct some of the buildings in Cairo. You can see the top of the second pyramid actually has some of its top layer intact. Even this, though, has been damaged over time. The polished finish has been eroded away, probably by sand storms over the 4000+ years since it was built. 

We purchased extra tickets for 30E£ (less than $6) so that we could go into the second pyramid. Cameras were not allowed, so we don't have any photos, but it was a very interesting experience. You start out by descending a long ramped corridor that is only about 4' high. When we reached the bottom (and we have no idea how far under the pyramid we must have descended), we were able to stand up - suddenly there was plenty of head room. The corridor continued in a straight line for about 30' before a ramp began climbing up. It was the same pitch as the first ramp, but it felt like it was longer, so we must have climbed to somewhere above ground level. This second ramped corridor also had a very low ceiling, so we had to crouch very low to make it up the ramp. At this point, it should be mentioned that the whole pyramid area was very crowded with tourists - including the interior of the pyramid. So these corridors were actually very crowded. Also, this is Egypt in the middle of summer - so I am sure you can imagine the temperature... hot.  Add the heat to the crowds and you get sweat, inside this tiny little corridor the smell was not good - but compared to the burial chamber up ahead, it was great. On e we reached the burial chamber, it was interesting to see how simple it was. A long rectangular room had a pit at one end - presumably where the sarcophagus was placed. The ceiling in the room was pitched, to help transfer the loads from the weight of the 10,000,000 tonnes or so of rock above it to the rocks that make up its walls. The entire room had a strong odour of BO. It actually smelled comparable to an outhouse - not one of the regularly maintained and cleaned port-a-potties that you see in the city but one of the permanent outhouses that you would see in a provincial park. At least there were lights though. Parts of the hallway, particularly the long flat section in the middle were unlit which gives you an awful closterphobic feeling.  So, after a quick look around, we quickly got the hell out of the pyramid! When we got outside again, it actually felt quite cool despite the fact that the temperature was about 35C (it was about 10 am). 

After visiting the pyramids individually, we headed up to the panoramic viewpoint where you can get a very nice view of all three large pyramids and the smaller pyramids which were built to bury the royal families. After a few quick photos and defending ourselves agains some more merchants we headed down to the Sphinx. Our first impression was that it was smaller than we expected. Whenever you see it on TV it is pictured as being mammoth. In person I was huge, but not as big as expected. It was very exciting to see it in person though. 

After we saw the Pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx we hopped on the bus and grabbed some lunch at a buffet restaurant. Our guide recommended the place because it was quick and would ice us plenty of time for our afternoon activities. Our guide told us the food was 15E£ (about $3) so we thought that was pretty cheap. The food was great, then the bill came. 50E£ later, per person, we felt a little ripped off, but it turns out we just misheard the guide. The price was 50E£ the whole time. This actually only works out to about $10 so it's not too bad. 

The next stop was a "Papyrus Museum". Really this was just a big art shop, but they did give us a really nice demo on how to make papyrus paper. Basically, the papyrus stem is debarked and cut into thin strips. After being softened with a hammer (to remove much of the natural sugars) the strips are soaked in water (for 6 days to make white paper or 12 days to make brown paper). The strips are then woven together into a sheet and put in a press for another six days. Finally, the sheet is left in the sun for an hour toddy thoroughly. This very simple process yields a very cool product: the paper is very strong can be crinkled into a ball, and even dunked in water with no adverse effects. If you use water based inks, the paper can be rinsed in the water to remove all the ink. After the demo, we had a short opportunity to look at and purchase any of the paintings on the wall. We decided not to purchase anything at this time, but we may later. 

Up next was the Cairo museum. This is where many of the most priceless artifacts are kept. From mellenia old statues (from both stone and wood!), to King Tut's tomb, to mummies, this museum had it all. Albert gave us a very nice tour through the non-air conditioned building showing us the most importation artifacts. A copy of the Rosetta stone was one of the first things we saw (the real stone is in London). After the tour we coughed up the extra 100E£ ($20) each to visit the mummy room. This room was air conditioned, as the museum making a strong effort to minimIze any wear on the mummies. Each mummy was kept In a climate controlled box with an air temp of 21C and 50% humidity. (One must wonder why this is necessary: some of these mummies are over 4000 years old and they lasted in remarkable condition out in the middle of the Egyptian desert, where the temperature often reaches  50C.

After we finished up at the museum, we headed off to the train station where we would board a sleeper train for the 13 hour trip to Aswan (south of Cairo, at the end of lake Nassir). The train was a designated "tourist train" so the first car behind the engine was a military car, loaded with fully armed and kitted up soldiers... A reminder of where we are and of some of the problems that have occurred in the past.

Sorry we haven't been ble to post photos for a bit. We are updating the blog from our iPhone and can't upload photos. When we have access to a proper computer we will add photos to the blog's past entries.

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