Pyramids

While in Cairo, we visited the 3 huge sets of pyramids in the area: Giza, Saqqara, and Dahshur. I really had to pick and choose which pictures to post because I took A LOT! This is actually true of all the posts from this trip.

The day after we got home from Israel, we headed straight to the most famous pyramids of all - Giza. Our claim to the fame for the day was that we were the first tourists inside the complex. We went early that morning to try to avoid the heat of the day. Susannah is standing here in front of the "Great Pyramid." It was the tallest man made thing in the world for over 3,000 years.

Our second claim to fame was that we were also the first ones to go inside the Great Pyramid that day. We weren't allowed to bring cameras inside, but after we came out, one of the workers there had us go back down the tunnel for a bit and he snapped this one for us. There are 3 burial chambers in the great pyramid. There's currently only one open to the public. It was quite the climb up there!

Here we are standing near the bottom of the Great Pyramid. Some tourist police were kind enough to take this picture . . . for a small sum of money.

We decided to be ultimate tourists and do the whole camel thing. We each had our own camel, but Katherine and I each had a little boy on the camel. Susannah's camel was tied to the back of mine. These boys were amazing at getting on and off the camels. They would also swing down off the saddles and take our pictures like this!

The boys were also our photographers when we were on the camels. They were so funny. We really like this slanted shot.

We were trying to appear to be looking at something in the distance. The boys were really concerned that we weren't looking at the cameras. It was pretty funny.

The pyramids at Giza were completed around 2560 BC but are the newest of the three sets we visited. I love this shot. We rode the camels all the way around to the desert side to get this shot. The one furthest back is the Great Pyramid.

I love this shot as well. There was a man who kept following us around and trying to give us soda and these head things so we'd pay him but it didn't work!

We wanted to take a quick shot of the boys and the camels.

Getting on and off the camels was a bit frightening. I wish I had been a second sooner on this shot of Susannah trying to dismount. Those camels are tall. They all of a sudden drop to their front knees and then start lowering their back legs.

The Sphinx was really cool as well. It's a lot smaller than I thought it was - it's still huge, just not anything close to the size of the pyramids. When the locals said Sphinx in English, it came out sort of funny - like Sphinkus.

The guards near here told us about this shot. I think it's pretty funny. This is the last shot I'm posting from the Giza Pyramids. Next is Saqqara.

In this shot we are with Dorothy Knapp. I'll do a post a little later that talks about the Knapps. She was our tour guide to these pyramids. Her driver, Ahmed, suggested this pose for us to do. He actually suggested it several times. He was funny.

This pyramid is called the step pyramid. The complex at Saqqara are the first set of pyramids built in Cairo. I found a good explanation for how cool these pyramids are in Wikipedia: "[Saqqara is] the oldest complete hewn stone building complex known in history." These were built starting around 2667 BC by Imhotep. There are still parts of the complex that are being excavated.

I like this shot from a structure across from the step pyramid because it has the cobra wall in it. I didn't even notice the cobras until someone pointed them out.

Of course, we had to get our picture by it.

One of the most awesome things about Saqqara was the huge amount of heiroglyphics that were there. This is the first one we really saw there.

This is a good example of some of the ones we saw. This came from a pillar of what is thought to be a mortuary. Okay, this is the last one I'm posting from Saqqara.

This is the Red Pyramid at Dahshur. This pyramid is also huge and was the world's first smooth sided pyramid. The pyramids at Dahshur were the second ones built. We actually got there right as it was closing so we just took some quick photos before they kicked us out.

This is the bent pyramid. Something went wrong when they were constructing this one, but it's still really cool. There's another big pyramid called the black pyramid, but we were so far away that the picture looks tiny. I loved the pyramids. I couldn't believe how old these all were. Someone put it in perspective when they said that Christ lived closer to our time than he did to the time when the pyramids were built!