Maydān al Jīzah

Off to the pyramids of Giza today! They're quite close to the city so it's a fairly short drive. There were a few busloads of tourists but nothing crazy. We got ample time to walk around and take our pyramid photos. The main one we're told is to pretend you're holding the top of the pyramid. At the Great Pyramid (Cheops). you can go inside for 360 LE, but there's nothing to see. For the experience of going in itself, we were advised better to save our money and pay 60LE at the second pyramid instead.

The second pyramid belongs to the son of Cheops' son. According to tradition, he couldn't build a pyramid bigger than than his father's, so to compensate, he built his smaller pyramid on higher ground, so it you look at the pyramids in a line, it actually looks as tall as the first one. You can see the pyramids line up at a viewpoint, but it was quite dusty out, so it's a bit hard to see.

After the pyramids, it was off to see the Sphinx on the side of the complex. The guardian of the burial area, it was really cool to see this man head on the body of a lion. There's a sound and light show in the evenings as well, and is supposed to be the best in the country.

We had some free time in the afternoon, and most of us went to the Egyptian Museum. It is being relocated once the new building is built, but we still got to wander through a lot of exhibits of sarcophaguses, burial masks, perfume bottles, mummies and more.

Tonight, it was off the train station for an overnight train to Aswan. There's something rustic about travelling by trains in this part of the world, giving us a feeling that we were travelling as folks did decades ago when they visited this exotic land.Read more