By the Pyramids

What a surprise to wake up this morning to discover that we are right beside the three great pyramids! We meet our new guide who is a wealth of knowledge and make our way to visit these three great monuments . How exciting and overwhelming is it to see these tombs! What we are seeing is actually the remnants of the inner casing and structure. Each of these pyramids should have had a shiny polished white limestone coating with a gold painted top. The three largest of the pyramids are for the father, son and grandson, each slighter smaller than the first as the fathers could never be dwarfed by a successor. Scattered around a number of smaller ones for the various wives and queens. We do not go inside these as there is little to see apparently, and we are best to wait to the valley of the kings before going inside. Rocks for these pyramids come from 45 km away and were floated down the Nile after being dug out of the quarry and shaped. 2.3 million stones are in the biggest on the pyramids that we are standing in front of .

We head up the hill and at the recommendation of our guide find the Bedouin camel headers and as a group we hire camels and go for a 30 min ride out into the edges of the dessert to view these same pyramids from a different angel. The camels are fun the ride and the young boys who lead us take our photos. I'm urged to try standing on the saddle on the camel and nervously I agree to try! No broken neck or hospital trip. After the camel ride we venture to yet another site nearby where the temples for the burial rights and embalming rituals take place are as well as the giant sphinx. This work is carved out of one large piece of stone that the quarried around in the process.

From here we head to the national museum in Cairo to see the treasure of Tutankhamen. This is a massive museum that one could spend days in, however our guide takes us directly to the Tutankhamen exhibit and orients us to it. This find was one of the most amazing and complete finds ever made. 3600 items were found intact in this tomb and they include both the little personal items and the large burial items. So much time, attention, resources and preparation to ensure safe passage through judgement in the afterlife and security for return from the dead and resurrection. The funeral mask is absolutely breathtaking and at moments it's hard to believe that you are looking at the real thing given the number of pictures, replicas etc I've seen in my life time. The archeologist that found this site removed the mask and when he did so, tore off the face of the mummy with it. He died in a car crash 2 weeks later which the Egyptians claim was the curse of the tomb. We can take no pictures in this museum.

We tour a few other sites round the city of Cairo which is hugely congested. It is wildly fun to be in the traffic with over loaded buses, motorcycles, wagons pulled donkeys, and all other manner of things. Suddenly a lane disappears because a seller has set up a stall of watermelons for sale. There is no square inch anywhere that is not occupied by someone or something. 22 million people live in this city. 90 million in egypt as a whole. We head to the train station for an 8 pm train overnight to Aswan.