Day Twenty-One: 21 Sept 2010

Today was our first day of touring without a whole bunch of driving.  We started our day at the Pyramids, which of course were awesome!!  They were built during the 4th dynasty under Kings Khufu, Kaefra and Menkau'ra.  The middle one is the one that's on the dollar bill, and it's the only one with any of the nice finish on the outside (near the top--the rest of it has been stripped and used to build houses).  I did have an interesting experience that taught me to be a bit more careful lol (but it wasn't funny then):

Ok so this Arab guy trots up to me on a camel and says "take a picture! free!" Me being the gullible human being I am believed him (albeit hesitantly), and went and stood by the camel.  Before I even knew what was happening he had me getting up on the camel (which was sitting down at this point), jumped on, got up and started galloping away with me on the camel! (he was still insisting that it was free at this point).  My buddy was having the same problem wth another guy nearby and he yelled that we needed to get down.  So, I had my driver stop but he wouldn't let me down until I payed him.  I thought "OK, I'll give the guy a dollar for his efforts."  Well, so I pulled out a few bills and he grabbed the whole handful, counted it all, took $15 and then put me down despite my protests. What a jerk. I was so mad. I learned a valuable lesson though, and I never got taken in again after that lol.  A funny note: one of our professors got SUPER upset about it because I guess one guy ended up really far away.  lol

Anyway, back to the pyramids: we got to go inside the middle one (Kaefra's).  The shaft was really short (about 4ft. tall) and we went pretty far under, but it was really neat.  Absolutely amazing stuff.  No wonder it's a world wonder.  After the pyramids we went and had a panoramic view of them from a bit further away.  That was the first time our group did the Waka Waka (it's a song/dance by Shakira); there were lots of tourists staring and even filming lol.  It was pretty funny.  After we were done with that we went and saw the Sphinx.  All sorts of people took pictures kissing the sphinx or something silly like that by the side of it.  When we were finished with the Sphinx we headed over to a papyrus place and learned how they make papyrus (I'm surprised how strong it is).  The rumor I heard was true: they do have the Abraham papyri there lol (on sale).  They also showed us the famous "Judgment" scene, it was really cool.  They had all sorts of things there for sale (yes they do take advantage of the tourists lol).  After lunch we visited Saqqara and saw the first pyramid ever created (the step-pyramid of Zozer) and the "bent" pyramid.  We also visited Memphis, where they have a huge surviving statue of Rameses II on display along with a bunch of smaller artifacts.  It was really neat stuff.

After the day's touring activities, we drove to the airport and had a flight down to Luxor (only about an hour or so), and stayed at the "luxurious Sheraton" right by the Nile.  Except for getting cheated out of 15 bucks, it was an extremely good day =)