In The Pyramidst Of Our Lives: Day 2: The Great Pyramids of Giza

Day 2 We were off to The Pyramids and The Sphinx. Once again we were guided by our fearless leader Sharif. I now like to refer to him as The Egyptian Encyclopedia. After the tour of the museum, who could have thought he could have more information and knowledge to give us. But we were wrong. He gave us yet another extensive amount of information about the Pyramids and The Sphinx. I am going to try and sum up the five and half hour day we had with him. We again began the day with being picked up by the bus at 8:40am. We of course slept through our alarm and woke up at 8:20.... So getting ready was fun and fast. We drove about 30 minutes to the pyramids. When we got there, Sharif filled us in on how to deal with all the vendors selling stuff and to avoid anyone with a camel close to the pyramids. We were to wait until he took us to a different place to ride camels. When we arrived he first took us to The Great Pyramid.

The Great Pyramid of Giza

The actual quarry that the pyramids were built from 18 miles away.

The Great Pyramid was built for the Pharaoh Khufu. It took over 20 years to build and took roughly 2.3 million blocks of limestone to build. The building of the Pyramid was concluded around 2560 BC. It was the tallest man made structure for over 3,800 years. It was no longer the tallest after The Empire State Building was built. The quarry they cut the limestone blocks from was nearly 18 miles away from the site of the pyramid. You can see the picture to the right is the actual quarry and causeway they used to move the blocks. Sharif told us the process of moving the blocks but because of the other information he gave me I don't remember. I just remember a bunch of angles he was giving us. The Great Pyramid was originally 481ft but after 5000 years of erosion and sand storms it is only 455ft. The pyramid was originally cased with smooth casting stones but erosion made it so now all that is present is actually the core structure of the pyramid. Oh and the base of the pyramid is 755ft long. So to walk around the entire Great Pyramid is just shy of .6 miles around. The picture above is me and Miranda sitting at The Great Pyramid, we are maybe 20ft off the ground and there is still over 400ft of pyramid above us, talk about a stair climber. And look how large the blocks are! Our legs only cover about a third of the way down one block!

A side view of The Great Pyramid

That is a long way up!

The Pyramid of Khafre

The second pyramid we saw was the Pyramid of Khafre. This the second largest pyramid at the complex. Originally 471ft it is now only 448ft due to erosion. The base is 706ft long. In the picture above, you can see at the top of the pyramid the white polished limestone that they used to encase the pyramids with. Now imagine 5000 years ago what that looked like glistening in the sun light. To find out why this pyramid looked like that and to now know that they all had the casing on it amazes me more and makes the imagination run wild to think what it looked like 5000 years ago. Khafre was son of Khufu. Also. we learned that this pyramid seems taller than the Great Pyramid only because it sits on top of 33ft of bedrock, on a higher plateau.


The Pyramid of Menkaure

This the third of all the pyramids. This the Pyramid of Menkaure. It is significantly smaller than the other two. It stands only 215ft tall and the base is only 339ft long. We found out from our guide this is because the prior dynasties spent so much on theirs and turned the economy upside down, that this was all the pharaoh could afford to build. If you compare all the other pyramids you can see how the quality of this pyramid doesn't compare to the others. This pyramid was my favorite because this is the one I went in. Miranda was not a fan of the closed spaces, so she decided to hang out in the air conditioned bus and wait. But, she came up to take pictures of the rest of us heading into the entrance of the pyramid. On the way to the pyramid, one of the vendors did offer me a million camels for Miranda. But Miranda's family needs not worry, I will not sell her. I have been offered several times different things for Miranda. Upon entering the pyramids we walked down a steep ramp that led to another set of stairs and led to the room where they kept the sarcophaguses. One of Miranda's coworkers decided she wanted to lay in one of those spots and the rest of us in unison went "OOOOOOOHHHH." We all believed this was bad juju. We wandered through a couple other areas. By that time we were all soaked in sweat because it was 100% humidity with no ventilation. So hot, sweaty people breath was everywhere. The air was literally thick to breathe. I have no pictures again because it is not allowed inside.

All of us that went into the pyramid


Me entering the pyramid

Us in front of the door to a burial chamber. If you look close, you can see the writings on the walls and door.

Hieroglyphs on the door.

While we were looking at all the pyramids we went into a mastaba. This is the other smaller building around some of the pyramids. This is the burial site of the social elite of Egypt's ancient period. We went inside and was greeted by a man who grabbed us and started giving us a tour, unknowing to us, he was going to ask for money at the end of it. But we saw many cool things inside. There was the ancient pictures on the wall as you can see from the picture below and also hieroglyphs around one of the doors that led in to one of the burial chambers. The man also took us to another room with columns. I don't remember what this room represented. All in all it was cool experience to actually see and be able to photograph some of the ancient writing on the walls.

Pictures carved into the limestone walls.

Before heading down to The Sphinx, our tour guide decided to take us up to a higher plateau where you can see a panoramic view of the pyramids. It was an amazing view. You can see by the picture below.

But the highlight for the whole trip is what we were doing while I took this picture.... It was the best moment of the day for me....but maybe not for Miranda.... I think I got more amusement at first though.....

Miranda's first camel ride and me by her side and of course the camel who posed for the picture.

Yes that's right, that is Miranda on top of a camel. She only wanted to do a picture on top but no one heard that part and we ended up going for about a 10 minute walk in the Sahara Desert by camel. It was so awesome. Miranda was terrified when the camel started to stand up. She let out a lovely high pitched yelp. Don't get me wrong this is no easy feat to do. The saddle she is on, she had to place both her hands and keep her arms locked, pushing herself backwards and then wait for the camel to stand. I didn't go on and neither the other male of the group Amril. I don't know why I didn't, I just decided I didn't want to. Plus I have two years to ride a camel. It was very cool to guide the camel for the short time the handler allowed me to. Remember how Miranda had to lock arms to stand up.....weeeellllll...... she had to do the same thing sitting the camel down. Unfortunately for her the camel decided to take his time. Instead of popping down like he did when he stood up he decided to pause with his front legs down and rear legs up. This left Miranda with locked arms in about a 50 degree angle for about 30 seconds. Could have maybe been longer. It was a fun experience for both of us.