Tuesday 16th April – the Pyramids

I was due to check in for my tour at 7:15, so I was up by 6:00. Judith was on the same tour. An American gentleman who had just embarked the day before and was travelling with his mother (she was doing the World Tour and taking a different relative on each leg of it) must have decided that we were the most fun people in the group. He announced he’d sit with us on the bus. Of course we went to the back seat where all the rowdy children go. It was fun.

We had a long drive (about 3 hours) to reach the Sakkara, the ancient burial site with its stepped pyramid. This was the first pyramid built. It was a series of steps or benches. It was from this that later pharaohs got the idea of filling in the edges to make the pyramid shape. We were also allowed to see inside a tomb in the complex. This meant going down a sloped ladder-like arrangement, bent over as it was only about 3-4 foot in height, and then going up again before getting into the burial chamber. There were some fantastic carvings on the walls, but most of the colours had disappeared due to people using flash photography inside.

From there we were taken to see the three main pyramids – Cheops, Cephren, and a third pharaoh whose name I can’t remember. Again we had the opportunity to go inside one of the pyramids. This was very plain granite inside, with no carving. Oh, my aching knees by the time I got out!

Again we were given lunch at a hotel, welcomed by a local band. I was seated near an Australian man who could not understand a word I said, while the British people next to him understood it all. Another Australian couple on the bus had not recognised me as Australian, while all the British people assume I’ve come straight to the ship from Australia. Accents are funny things.

After this we were taken to see the sphinx. It’s huge! It is also set down in a pit, which shows how much the level of the land has been raised over the millennia by the drifting sand.

Unfortunately, all the time one is trying to marvel at these wonders and appreciate this once-in-a-lifetime sight, the experience is marred by all the hawkers who come along and keep shoving items in your face saying ‘One dollar, one dollar’. At one point I was so frustrated with one man who was pestering Judith that I turned to him and said ‘She has already said no three times!’ to which he replied ‘Okay’ and then proceeded to shove a different item in front of her face, saying ‘One dollar’. We did eventually buy some beaded head-dresses, but that was because the woman at the stall did not pester us as we looked at them. Only when it was evident that we were going to buy did she start showing us other things. I told her firmly that we had come to her because she had not pestered us, and we would walk away if she kept showing us other things.

Another impression from the day is all the new buildings in Cairo, those around the ring road appearing unfinished. Evidently the apartment buildings are built for a family, but glass is only put in the windows when people are ready to move in. When the next family member marries, a new apartment is finished off. We saw very few that actually appeared to be finished. These buildings just stretched on and on.

I was amazed by the barrenness of the land in Egypt. We passed through mile after mile of what must be sandstone cliffs, covered with dirty sand (just a bit of white sandstone glimpsed through the dirtiness). We saw no greenery. It was a bleak country.

We arrived back at the ship by 6:30, two hours before our expected time. (I assume the traffic was not as bad as they had made allowances for.)

I was tired, and my knees were rather painful, but the dance floor called me! My last dance of the evening was a waltz with Gary, and we had fun with me dancing the man’s part and him dancing the lady’s. I don’t think he’d ever tried that before. I had to tell him off for trying to lead!