Eurasia 2012

Pretty good day in Egypt today. For us at least.

Woke up a little after 5am and got up a bit before six.

Breakfast at this hotel was pretty awesome, they even had beef bacon :)

So we headed out at 7:30 and headed straight for Giza.

Pyramids!!

Great Pyramid of Giza

Pyramid of Khafre

View towards the entrances of the Great Pyramid of Giza

We got there early enough to get tickets to go into the Great Pyramid (100LE) - apparently they only sell 150 per day. So you get off the bus and go through security, and then the bus goes around to the parking area on the other side.

Yes, security is completely redundant, because you could leave whatever contraband on the bus when it goes around. Whatever.

You aren't allowed to take cameras into the Great Pyramid (they do bag checks), so we dumped the cameras on the bus and went in. It was super awesome! My favourite part is the huge corridor leading up to the burial chamber with its high ceilings. I was also very impressed with the stonework in the burial chamber - it was so precise! There's nothing left in the burial chamber except the sarcophagus, which was too big to get out, so it remains.

Came back out again, went and got our cameras, then wandered round for a while.

Great Pyramid of Giza
Photo by Dad

Excavations and smaller pyramids east of the Great Pyramid of Giza

Southeast ridge of the Great Pyramid of Giza

Pyramid of Menkaure (left) and Pyramid of Khafre (right)

Tip of the Pyramid of Khafre

Pyramid of Khafre

Me on the Great Pyramid of Giza

Giza plateau

Great Pyramid of Giza

Guys with a camel at the pyramids

Robber's entrance to the Great Pyramid of Giza
Photo by Dad

Unfortunately you can't stand still anywhere in Egypt (at the tourist destinations) because otherwise the ~~flies~~ local merchants swarm around you buzzing in your ears and won't leave you alone. You just have to keep walking with your head down. Which is really no way to enjoy the sights :(

Then we drove up to the "panorama" view of the pyramids.

Pyramid of Menkaure

The Pyramids of Giza

The Great Pyramid of Giza (left) and Pyramid of Khafre (right)

Camel in front of the Pyramid of Menkaure

North face of the Pyramid of Menkaure

Dad paid this guy an Egyptian pound to pose for this photo - worth it!
Photo by Dad

And then down to the Sphinx. A lot of it is badly eroded, so they've been doing a lot of work restoring it.

Great Sphinx of Giza

Pyramid of Menkaure, the Great Sphinx of Giza, and Pyramid of Khafre

Great Sphinx of Giza and Pyramid of Khafre
Photo by Dad

Great Sphinx of Giza

Inside the Valley Temple of Khafre

Oh and I might have had this bit of Joseph stuck in my head all day:

So back in Canaan the future looked rough Jacob's family were finding it tough
For the famine has caught us unprepared
We are thin
We are ill
We are getting scared
It's enough to make anyone weep
We are down to our very last sheep

We will starve if we hang around here

But in Egypt there's food going spare

They've got corn
They've got meat
They've got fruit and drinks

And if we have the time
We could see the Sphinx

So they finally decided to go
Off to Egypt to see brother Jo

Next we headed to Saqqara to see the step pyramid and other ruins there. And had a pretty clear view down to the "bent" pyramid, about fifteen kilometres away. This place was a lot quieter and far less tourists, so the flies were a bit more persistent because there were less targets.

Entrance to the funery complex

Stepped Pyramid of Djoser

South wall of the complex

Structures at Saqqara
Photo by Dad

Stepped Pyramid of Djoser

Bent Pyramid in distance on left, Red Pyramid on right

Western end of the colonnaded entrance
Photo by Dad

Stepped Pyramid of Djoser with other structures

Colonnaded entrance to the complex

Finally we went to a small museum which houses a pretty impressive statue of Rameses II and a few other smaller statues as well.

Statue of Rameses II

View north to Cairo Tower

Got back to the hotel pretty early (a bit after three). I started doing photo stuff and was going to blog, but decided I really needed to wash everything and have a shower.

A bit before five the parents and I headed out to dinner. We went back to Maison Thomas where we went last night, and this time shared a beef salami pizza. It was so yumm! Really enjoyed it.

Then hopped on the bus again to go back to the pyramids to see the 7:30 sound and light show at the Sphinx. It was a dramatisation of snippets of some of the Pharoahs' lives and deaths but was a little disjointed and I'm not sure it really had a plot or not. Still, the light show was pretty awesome, and was great to see the pyramids and sphinx lit up in all different colours.