Gaza Pyramids, Sphinx and Museum

Trip Start Aug 19, 2006

Trip End Oct 02, 2006

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Flag of Egypt Cairo, Egypt
Sunday, August 27, 2006

I am still having difficulties uploading pictures. I will catch up as soon as I get to a good internet connection, I promise. Last night I met up with my "group" for the "Imaginative Traveller" Felucca tour. We went to a nightclub and had too much food and too much drink. I know that the latter was definitely true as I was convinced to get up and do a stirring Karaoke rendition of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall". (Everyone was doing it and after a careful survey of the list of songs I determined that this song had the least actual words of any of them). So my normally chronically shy self (stop sniggering those who know me!) was taken way outside of my comfort zone.

It is a small group and the people are Dave and Kirsten, both artists from the US (It's OK they didn't vote for George W Shrub), Shaun an Australian working in England, Olga. Shaun's partner and a Pole working in England and lastly, Debbie an English schoolteacher

"Tourist" Camel Train at Giza

. Our tour guide Amanda is also and Australian. So in this motley band of seven souls - three are from down under. Is this coincidence or simply a statement on the degree to which Australians succumb to the wonder lust?

It was a great night out and particularly fantastic to speak to a group of people who were not after my money or opening each sentence with "How much you pay?!". That being said, by the time Amanda had collected the local payment component, the tipping levy, site entrance fees etcetera, I needed to make a rapid dash to the bank!

The Gaza Pyramids were the first challenge for the band of Wayward Adventurers.

There is not much you can say about the Pyramids. They are there. They are very big.They are very old. And they have been very very successful in their principal role of keeping Kofu's and his family's name well known throughout the millennia. I took a lap of the Great pyramid of Cheops (or more correctly Kofu) and it was quiet a walk! (Although having to constantly swat away the incessant postcard and camel ride sellers probably added to the journey.) The funerary temple of Kahfu is buried under the Village of Nazlet El-Summan

A closer view of Khufu's Pyramid

. Our tour guide was al for evacuating the people and digging up the Village - but that seemed a bit extreme really.

Later we went down to view the Sphinx. Everything I said about the pyramids goes for the Spynx. It is old and it is big. It is part of the funerary temple for the Pharoe Khafre and has certainly done much to keep his name on the top 1,000 best known people of all time list.

From here it was to the museum where I didn't follow the tour but instead went back to view some of my favorite pieces (refer to previous entries) and to have a look at the Akenaton display. He was really depicted in a very strange manner in sculpture and there is some thought that he may have had a deforming illness.

From here it was back to the hotel to pack and to prepare for our journey to Aswan by overnight train.

Slideshow

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A funerary temple at Giza	A guide outside one of the smaller pyramids	Camel in fron of a lesser pyramid	Close up of the Sphinks Comments!
Detail of interlocking stones	Khafre's Pyramid	Khafre's Pyramid from funerary complex	Khafre's Pyramid with ruins in the foreground
Me in front of Sphinks - see the resemblance?	Me in front of the Pyramids	Me standing at the base of Cheop's Khufu's pyramid	Me with one of the "Tourist Police"
Sphinks 1	Sphinxs before Khafre's Pyramid	The Pyramid of Cheops (or more correctly Khufu)