The Pyramids of Giza

After we left the Cairo Museum we headed to Giza, the City of the Dead. One thing that really surprised me about Egypt was how green it was! I was sort of expecting another Bahrain like landscape, but its far greener! 

The Nile River on the drive (and all that green!)

On the drive... working on my notes! 

Marwa was amazing and had little goodie bags of snacks and drinks for us for the drive! Stella loved this tangerine soda- it had actual tangerine juice and pulp in it. It was delicious! 

When you think Egypt the first image that comes to mind is this vast desert with the pyramids right in the middle. The fact of the matter is, the actual city backs right up to the pyramids and the new city, October 6th city, is on the other side- so the pyramids are sort of hemmed in and surrounded by city. It was wild! You're just driving and all of a sudden you see the tops of the pyramids peeking between buildings!

Getting closer!

Camel rider- there were a lot of camels and horses all over Egypt being used as actual transportation

Our first big glimpse of the pyramids close up... it was totally surreal! 

Marwa got our tickets (this was something I really loved about her- she handled everything- from purchasing our tickets to haggling prices to ordering food. She took care of everything and we just paid her at the end of our day! It took so much stress off of everything and we could just sit back and enjoy everything.) and we decided to pay extra to get inside the Great Pyramid. She assured us that there wasn't really anything to see, but I figured it was worth it just to be able to stand inside the great Pyramid of Giza. I mean... once in a lifetime opportunity, ya know?

She stopped at the base of the pyramid and told us about the history and specs on it. Erected in and finished around 2560 BCE it was originally 146 meters high but the top is no longer there so it stands at 137 meters high. It was the tallest man made structure for 3800 years. The Great Pyramid is 2,300,000 stone blocks of limestone- the largest of which weights 15 tons and the smallest weighs 1.5 tons. It was built for the Pharoah Khufu as his final resting place. 

Climbing to the entrance!

We were so excited to just be climbing on the great-freaking-pyramid! So surreal!

Right inside the entrance

There was a part of the climb to the center where Stella could stand straight up but Christopher and I were crawling! 

The tiny space opened up to the center part of the pyramid and we could all stand up! Let me just say...it was HOT. And stuffy. There is absolutely zero air flowing in that space and its just hot and thick air. But it was still awesome! 

So we get to the end of the climb and we were directly in the center of the pyramid which was the kings burial chamber. There was a security guard in there yelling at everyone to stop taking pictures.... and then he saw Stella and made everyone move out of the way so we could take pictures of her! 

Then he snapped one of us and told us "Welcome to Egypt!"

Climbing down!

After our climb at the entrance of the pyramid!


The view from the pyramid- that's the city of Giza!

No biggie... just a girl climbing around on one of the seven Ancient Wonders of the World! 

Walking around towards the second pyramid

Obligatory pyramid photo! 

And I had to do Pyramid pose in front of the Great Pyramid...haha!

The second pyramid- its owner is the Pharoah Khafre and it is the second tallest at 136.4 meters high. It's built on a bedrock thats 10 meters higher than Khufu's pyramid so it gives the illusion of being taller, but it's not.


The smallest of the three pyramids belongs to the Pharoah Menkaure who was the son of Khafre and grandson of Khufu. It originally stood at 65.5 meters high but now stands 61 meters tall.


There are actually 9 pyramids in Giza- some aren't as well constructed or were smaller for the queens so the three larger ones are what everyone thinks of when they think about the Pyramids of Giza. This one thats off in the distance is the Sakkara pyramid and it was the first to be built and serves as the necropolis for the Ancient Egyptian capital, Memphis. The Sakkara step pyramid is the oldest complete stone building complex known in history. This is a terrible picture, but it was quite a ways off in the distance!


The clouds were shifting around in the sky and it was a really neat trick of the light when a shadow would pass over one of the pyramids and darken it.

One of the many, many camels all around the pyramids just waiting for someone to take a ride!

Stella's big request for the trip was to ride camels around the pyramids...so, of course, we did. 

We've ridden camels before in Dubai, but it was just a short jaunt around a pen... this was not like that. This was a half hour ride on a camel. And these camels weren't the best listeners and mine and Stella's camel kept wanting to canoodle with Marwa's camel so he kept trotting to keep up... I was so sore and tired from squeezing the hell out of our camel and holding a death grip on Stella because I was worried we were going down at some point...haha! 

But then we stopped at the other side of the pyramids and the only way to get this view is to hire a camel or horse to take you... it was absolutely worth it! 

There are a few moments in life when something happens or you are standing somewhere you've always dreamed of and it seems like the best dream ever and like it can't possibly be true. This was one of those moments. I have always been fascinated with Ancient Egyptian history and teaching Stella about it has been an absolute joy and rekindled that interest so to sit there on top of a crazy ass camel just riding around in the desert staring at this incredible feat of ancient human engineering... it was just... there are no words adequate enough. 

Marwa told us that the pyramids are built in the exact center of the Earth and that they actually line up with a constellation of stars. She said that, at night they came for the light show they put on to show her kids and she hadn't really believed they lined up, but sure enough, there was a star at the top of each pyramid and the brightest stars were atop the two larger pyramids and a smaller, less bright star shone over the smallest. The innovation and ingenuity for the ancient Egyptians to have created them at just the right angles (51.5 degrees to be exact- and their sides are aligned almost perfectly with true north, south, east, and west)... so incredible!

After our camel ride we drove over to the other side of the pyramids and to the great sphinx! 

Marwa made me kiss it...lol

Thutmose IV had a dream stone erected between the paws of the Sphinx during the beginning of his reign as pharaoh in 1401 BCE, which was years after the Sphinx itself was built (sometime during Khafre's reign). Legend has it that he fell asleep at the Sphinx which was covered in sand from the neck down and in his dream the Great Sphinx told him that if he restored it and cleared away the sand, he would become the next pharaoh so the stone was built to honor his divine right to the throne. 

Also something of note... Marwa told us that its a common misconception that the people who built the pyramids were slaves but they've found evidence that that isn't true. The craftsmen and builders who built them were not only paid for their hard work but they were also given burial spaces and tombs next to the sphinx at the base of the pyramids in places of honor. 

After walking around the Sphinx and taking pictures, we headed across the street to a place for lunch! I told Marwa to order for us- that we wanted authentic Egyptian food and that our only stipulations were no wheat for Stella and that I was a vegetarian. She came through! Not only in food, but the view was amazing! I switched to the other side of the table and ate my lunch with the pyramids as the backdrop! 

Stella's lunch- grape leaves stuffed with rice and meat, chicken, and rice in the shape of a pyramid.

Ahh one of the best eggplant dishes I have ever had! Messaqa'a! It was so yummy!

After lunch we walked over to a perfumery and learned about different perfume oils and got to smell a bunch of different oils. They brought us tea and juice (I drank a cold hibiscus tea that was delicious) and we sniffed to our hearts content. We actually found an oil that we've been searching for since we got to Bahrain! Christopher bought a perfume oil for himself years ago on deployment and he couldn't remember what it was called or if he got it in Dubai or Abu Dhabi. We asked to smell a few of their blends for men and one called Ali Baba was just about a perfect match as best as we could recall. So we bought that one and a lotus flower oil for me. 

After the perfumery we headed to a papyrus shop. The papyrus plant is becoming scarce so the government has stepped in and is helping cultivate the plant and see that its properly used and harvested so the art form can continue. There are so many people selling cheap knock offs, but only a few places in Cairo are government sanctioned to be producing actual papyrus products so Marwa took us there and we met one of the artisans who taught us all about Papyrus! 

The first step is to cut the stem and peel the outer layer off and sliced thin. It soaks in water and the longer it soaks, the darker it gets. So most papyrus is light in color but some can be a darker brown.

Its super strong and won't break- he and Christopher tested it out!

After its been sliced and soaked they pound it with a mallet to pound out the liquid.

It's then rolled flat, squishing out more liquid.

Then the flattened strip is laid on fabric

And its layered in weave pattern. After that it's pressed and the natural sugars in addition to the pressure from the press bind together to form papyrus. Its incredibly strong and beautiful!

One of the artists putting Stella's name in hieroglyphics on some artwork we bought her

All of our goodies....

Stella's key of life and her name in a cartouche in hieroglyphs.




Our painting of the last judgement (you can also see the darker brown color of the papyrus here). The Ancient Egyptians believed that when they died they had a series of things to do to get to the afterlife. There was a journey to take, spells to know, and they were asked 200 questions by the gods and had to go through trials to get to the final judgement. During the final judgement the god Anubis would take the heart of the dead person and weigh it against the feather of truth (which was pulled from the goddess Maat's wing) and if it was heavier than the feather they were judged a bad person and their heart was eaten by the sin eater-the goddess Ammit, who was part crocodile, part lion, and part hippopotamus and they weren't able to cross over into paradise. But, if their heart was lighter than the feather, they were deemed a good person and were then permitted into paradise by the god Osiris. It is one of the most important pieces of the Book of the Dead and something every Ancient Egyptian knew. Side note here-I read that The Book of the Dead is actually translated from its original Egyptian as The Book of Coming Forth Into the Light which I just think is beautiful!


The Ancient Egyptian Calendar. The ancient Egyptians were the first to create and live by a twelve month calendar with 365 days.


After the papyrus factory we headed back to the hotel. We'd eaten a fairly late lunch and all of us were exhausted so we called it an early night and crashed!