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Egypt may be the most influential of the 22 Arab-speaking countries but it remains very poor. Many people earn less than 2 Euros per day and it is common in rural areas to see carts pulled by horses or donkeys. In Cairo, however, where you might expect to see a lot of scooters, almost all traffic is cars, trucks and buses and there seem to be plenty of wide roads and flyovers. For a city of 18 million people, we got the impression that traffic is more fluid than we had expected. The air pollution also seemed less bad than I had expected. Jacqueline, leader of our group, said the city had made a lot of progress over the last 20 years.
As we approached the Giza pyramids there were plenty of armed guards around, just as there were everywhere we went. Not all the guards travel by armored car.
The 60 or so pyramids in Egypt were built during the Old Kingdom (dynasties 4-6). The 3 main pyramids of Giza are the tombs of Cheops, his son Khafre and a king from the 4th dynasty, Menkaure. The Cheops pyramid is the biggest - made of 2.5 million limestone blocks averaging 2.5 tonnes each, its total mass was 6 million tonnes. It reached a height of 146 m and was the tallest man-made structure on the planet for more than 3000 years. The pyramid shown here, the Khafre pyramid (also called the Chephren pyramid), looks taller than the Cheops pyramid only because it is built on slightly higher ground. Some of the smooth limestone facing is still present at the top of this pyramid, but many stones were taken from the pyramids when Cairo was constructed around 900 AD.
Notice the people at the base of the pyramid.
It's thought that the Cheops pyramid was built in just 20 years, meaning that one block must have been installed every 4 minutes, 24 hours a day without interruption.
Contrary to popular belief, the pyramids were not built by slaves but rather by patriotic Egyptians when they were not needed to work on the farms.
The compulsory dromedary ride (there are no camels in Africa!) This could have been the biggest rip off of our trip - they wanted 200 Egyptian pounds (30 Euros) for our 3 minute ride...per person!
Yes - you guessed it - we made the terrible mistake of failing to negotiate the price BEFORE getting on the dromedaries.
A nice picture, but only after I cleaned it up in Photoshop to remove all the garbage that was scattered across this plateau. This dromedary area was really a bit of a dump.
In 1959 two trenches were discovered next to the Cheops pyramid, each containing a royal barge in more than 1000 pieces. One has been reassembled and put on display in a purpose-built building. It's about 40 m long and very elegant. The fact that the pieces were originally attached together with ropes rather than nails suggests that this barge was for ceremonial use rather than use on the Nile. The king would have needed a boat in his afterlife.
Can you detect a note of relief in my face in this photo?
Having looked at a cross-section diagram of the Cheops pyramid I promised myself that I would not visit the King's chamber at the centre of the pyramid since it was clear that the only access would be via a very long, narrow, low and steep passage. I told myself that the only option for me, being slightly claustrophobic, would be to visit the Queen's chamber, accessible via a shorter and more level passage.
Arriving at the chamber, I realized that I was actually in the King's chamber after all - the Queen's chamber is closed to the public.
The King's chamber is just an empty room but it is still impressive to see the craftsmanship with which the huge granite blocks that make up its walls were made - really just a couple of millimetres between each block.
We had to elbow our way through this crowd in order to get close to the Sphinx. Although many of the places we visited were crowded, it was only here and in Abu Simbel that the overcrowding was really unpleasant.
Was it worth the fight? Yes!
The sphinx, which guards the alley joining the Khafre pyramid to its temple, was long thought to represent Khafre but during our trip there were reports in the media that the face may in fact been that of Cheops instead.
According to legend, the nose was blown off by Napoleonic cannon fire.
Notice the heavy clouds in the background - we actually had some light rain that day - rather unusual for Cairo.
This is one of the famous paintings made by the Scot David Roberts who traveled to Egypt in the mid 19th century. At that time the Sphinx was buried up to its neck in sand. You can see more of his paintings here.
Back in Cairo, we were shocked to see how canals such as this one are used as rubbish dumps, for mile after mile.
Memphis was the capital of Egypt from much of the duration of Ancient Egypt. There isn't much left of Memphis now, and excavation is difficult because a village now lies on top of the ancient ruins. Memphis went into decline with the growth of Alexandria and then the creation of Fostat, the first Muslim capital. From that time on the structures at Memphis were dismantled and the stones used to made buildings in Cairo.
This is a statue of Ramses II with this left leg forward indicating that he was an important military general. He wears the crown of Upper Egypt, in the shape of a cone or bottle.
Ramses II had more than 200 children (must have been hard work) so choice of the Ramses name for a brand of condoms is surely one of the great mysteries of the 20th century?
Now we are in Saqqara, the necropolis of Memphis. The stepped pyramid in the background (the Djeser pyramid) is very significant since it was the first pyramid in the world. Prior to the construction of this pyramid the construction build over the underground tombs consisted only of a flat-roofed building.
Inside the famous Mena hotel. This hotel was built close the Giza pyramids to host visitors who came here after attending the ceremony marking the opening of the Suez canal in 1869.
A last look at the Khafre pyramid as seen during the Son et Lumiere spectacle that we attended that evening.
An old Arab saying states that: "Man fears time but time fears the pyramids".
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