Beth and Me visiting the Pyramids at Giza, to the West of Cairo, Egypt.
“The Great Pyramid of Giza (also known as the Pyramid of Khufu or the Pyramid of Cheops) is the oldest and largest of the pyramids in the Giza pyramid complex bordering present-day Giza in Greater Cairo, Egypt. It is the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the only one to remain largely intact.” – Wikipedia
Putting that into plain English, you can see the top of the middle pyramid is mostly smooth – that is Cheops. It shows how the original pyramids once looked. They were smooth and thought to be actually shiny, glistening in the sunshine.
I have climbed down inside Cheops all the way to the central tomb. The tomb was raided a long time ago and only remains as a room with a sandstone box with the lid lifted off. Basically an empty sandstone box… no gold, nothing fancy, no Tutankhamun here.
The most amazing thing here is that you climb down through a very small tunnel that opens out from time to time but also involves some crawling on your back. This isn’t for anyone with a fear of enclosed spaces. When you get to the bottom, there is a breeze, fresh air!!!! it is really quite strange to climb all the way down below the desert to a very small sandy room and get a breeze of cool fresh air. I don’t think anyone has figured that out yet.
I wouldn’t recommend staying in Cairo for more than a day or two.
Key places to see and/or visit:
- Go to a perfumery – get some hand made glass bottles and fill them with your own perfume – they can make a unique perfume for you from various spices, musk and scents. Be careful, the glass is very fragile and does not travel very well
- Papyrus artwork. The stores copy/replicate famous hieroglyphics onto modern papyrus. These make excellent souvenirs as gifts for friends and family or talking points when framed at home. You will take these home rolled up ina cardboard tube and buy a nice glass frame at home.
- Painted metal – copper plate or solid metals painted with hieroglyphic designs – great to hang on a wall or use for serving food to guests.
- Carved wood. If you are going to buy any carved wood, (probably camels) I would suggest buying it from a street trader – they are much less likely to be made in china and will help people in poverty buy tomorrow’s dinner for their family.
- Postcards – children will swarm you to sell you books of postcards. Don’t buy any until you are at the end of your visit. If you buy one when you first arrive then you will be followed by 10 or 20 children for the rest of your visit, each of them hoping you will buy another book of postcards.
I loved visiting Cairo. We went to the Sphinx, which is almost always being restored and is the most intense for street traders.
The City of The Dead is an interesting place to drive past – the graveyard in the center of Cairo is now a lawless area, where various people, allegedly criminals, now live within the tombs. The police do not go within the graveyard and the residents do not leave the graveyard.
Don’t leave Cairo without visiting the Egyptian museum. When I was there, Tutankhamun’s sarcophagus was on display – there was quite a wait to walk past it and it felt something like a funeral, but even so, it is genuine, amazing and one of the largest pieces of crafted Gold you will ever see!