Egypt 2008: Giza: the Pyramids, part one

OK, now it's time to get back to Egypt, photo collection complete or not. CH is in France this weekend so she hasn't had time to do anything more with her pictures. Oy vey. Who knew it'd be this difficult. :-) I guess I'll just have to post some more pictures later. Oh noes ... :-)

October 11th, still. :-)

From Memphis we drove off to meet our fellow countrymen, who had been taken out in another minibus and met us basically by the side of the road somewhere. :-D I don't remember who switched cars, us or them. Not very interesting anyway, because ... next stop, the Pyramids!! :-o

Everywhere we went we didn't have to wait in line to get tickets, because our guides always went to get them for us. This seemed to go quicker than standing in line on one's own, I guess they have a fast track for people guiding groups. I got that impression, anyway. Here we are getting our tickets - left to right CH, Hatem handing out the tickets, Inger-Lise (back turned), Sissel, Berit.

The Cheops pyramid in the background. Woo-hoo. :-)

A view of Cairo with tourists in the foreground. 'Hurry up, woman, can't you see there's a line??'

The first thing we did was drive past the pyramids and up to a lookout point which would give us a view of the whole area and where, as Hatem said, we could take nice pictures. :-) I of course had to take pictures through the car window as we drove. :-)

Cheops, left, and Khefren.

Mykerinos with three so-called 'Queen Pyramids' to the right. These were graves of queens/female consorts, obviously. There is a rectangular hole in the side of the Mykerinos pyramid; this happened during an earthquake which caused part of it to cave in.

Khefren ... v. obviously through the window of a moving car. :-D

Giza is on the very outskirts of Cairo. A view out towards the desert surrounding the city. Note the camels. :-)

On the lookout point there was quite a crowd, despite it being off season. Not sure I want to know what it's like at the peak of the tourist season ...

Hatem posed for a picture with the crowds in the background. :-)

An excellent view indeed. From left to right, Cheops, Khefren, Mykerinos, the Queen Pyramids. From this angle it looks as if Khefren is the largest; as I said, this is a trick of the terrain, Khefren's father king Cheops' grave is the biggest of the three, but Khefren's is built on higher ground. Imagine that; I bet his face was red when he discovered how it looked from the other side. ;-)

Me. Woo-hoo, pyramids!!! :-D

There was a kind of temporary bazaar set up along the side of the lookout area ... we didn't venture over to it since we didn't have a lot of time and we didn't want to be mobbed by crazed salesmen. They weren't very pushy, or didn't seem very pushy to us ... but again, we did have Hatem with us to discourage them. V. convenient. :-)

Desperate for a last few pictures as we drove off ... !

From the lookout point we drove back down to the foot of the pyramids. We were hoping to be able to get into one of them. CH hoped especially for Cheops since she got into Khefren the last time she was in Egypt. Did our wishes come true?? Stay tuned for the next Egypt post ... !! ;-)

To see more pictures from the pyramids, go here.