Cairo

Day Two – Act One

We had booked a car through a big local company with an office in the hotel to take us to the Pyramids for 7:30 and stay with us until we need him to go back. We had been assured that we would be there by 8 am I time to get 2 of the 100 tickets allotted for the dayfor entrance to the Great Pyramid of Cheops – when I say entrance, I mean deep inside. So we got up at 6:20, got ready, had our breakfast and were ready to go. Well, the car was not there. The manager was on the phone doing a lot of yelling and the clock was ticking. Finally, the car arrived and we were assured that the driver had filled it up with gas. But it was almost 8 when we left and we were sure we would not get our tickets. Off we went into the traffic, one half hour worse than at 7:30. Suddenly, the driver veered into a gas station. Well, I have never seen Ross so mad! All the time we get no worries no problem.

Well, we finally got there - by now it is 9:30 and Ross ran like the wind to the ticket office and came back waving them. All was forgiven….and we really did like our driver a lot (wait for Act Two).

Before I go any further, I must tell you that 1) we all know that the Sahara is creeping toward Cairo and 2) we saw, in Christine’s lecture, that the Pyramids are no longer located way out in the desert. It is still a shock to drive through Giza City and see them loom up just over the houses. The Giza Plateau is at the edge of town. From the Sphinx, I turned around and there was a main street!!!

Anyway, my first glimpse of the Great Pyramid of Khufu was breathtaking (sorry!!!). I could already see the two companion small ones and the Pyramid of Khafre
We decided to enter the Great Pyramid first. We climbed up to the entrance and went into the tunnel. We then climbed up and up on a ridged ramp – endless and very narrow. Then up two iron rungs and another ramp; then a final ramp, also endless and narrow, but this time with a low ceiling. Any idea what it is like to climb on a slippery wooden ridged board bent over almost double!!!! No? Well, I do now! Then at the top, almost crawling into the very high-ceilinged burial chamber. The room is empty save for an enormous sarcophagus. That is all that the discoverers found there – not only was the sarcophagus the only item in the room, the lid was missing and it had a damaged corner. They speculated that it was a decoy room. What is interesting about the sarcophagus is that the inner corners are perfectly square. To this day, based on their knowledge of Egyptian tools, scientists do not know how this was accomplished. Ross pointed out two air shafts for the souls to escape.

Then it was back down – even scarier on the slippery wood! But well worth the wait and the stress of the drive out!!

After that, it was one photo op after the next: The Great Pyramid of Khufu (Cheops) which has very little of its polished limestone exterior left…only around the base. The somewhat smaller Pyramid of Khafre has quite a lot at the apex, giving one a good idea of what the finished product once looked liked. Erosion and theft of blocks for building have done their work. We also saw the Pyramid of Menkaure, the smallest of the three large ones. There are also other much smaller pyramids and the flat-topped mastabas, the much older burial chambers. The golden age of pyramid building was during the 23rd century BC. Before that, pharaohs were buried in tombs deep inside the Valley of the Kings in Luxor. Tons of limestone was brought in by barge directly to Giza. Contrary to Hollywood myth, the workmen were not slaves, but paid and proud workers who had their own villages and tombs. Estimates of how many people worked on the tombs vary from 400,000 (Herodotus) to 20-30,000 men. The Pyramids were the tallest buildings on earth until they were eclipsed in1300 by Lincoln Cathedral!!!! Of course, they are no longer the tallest, but they are still the most massive structures on earth.

Ross started walking downhill and I was just trotting along, as is my wont (hahahahah) and I noticed something – a low structure with a huge ball of stone. I pointed and said: “What is that?” Well, the look he gave me told me I was going into the corner with the dunce cap. “What is that…what is that??? It’s the Sphinx you……….” (I forgot exactly what epithet he used as I collapsed in hysterical embarrassment.) “That,” he said, “is going on the blog…I cannot believe it”. Well, in all fairness, I WAS looking at it from behind and the head looks like a ball of stone. I will never live that down.

Anyway, the Sphinx is extremely beautiful and it is my favorite structure on the plateau. What a face! I had to tear myself away. Excavations are still going on – all over the plateau and what is ironic is that they are using sandbags to stay the encroachment of he Sahara.

We could not possibly see everything….but we saw the highlights. On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at the Mena Oberoi Hotel – built as a hunting lodge for King Farouk – over the top luxury with views of the pyramids right outside the windows. We had hoped to have some tea there, but we felt we should get back and stay on schedule.