Pyramids and camel ride

Tuesday, September 25
Today we repacked our bags, packing clothes for the next 3 days into our small BYU bags. A short bus ride through a sea of agriculture, jerry-built homes and shops, fetid canals and general squalor is an archeological site displaying treasures from the time of one of the Ramses. The immense statue of the famous Ramses II made of polished limestone is breathtaking. Such beautiful work and flawless execution from artisans working with the most basic of tools inspires great respect and even reverence.


Our next stop was the Pyramids. Desecrated, plundered, defaced (literally!), these monuments to power, ego, and hope for eternity are still stupendous in their majestic size, precision of construction, and longevity. How the Egyptians managed the complex organization of labor and the physical movement of large stone blocks is still debatable. Pyramid construction may have involved ramps being erected around the pyramids, then blocks of stone would have been pulled up on sledges and the ramps dismantled later. It is believed that most of the labor for the construction of the pyramids came from farmers who were available during the season when the Nile River flooded and farmland was under water. It would also have been an ideal time for the transportation by boat of large stone blocks from their quarries to the pyramid sites.

The largest pyramid of all (in Giza, a little southwest of Cairo), contains approximately 2,300,000 blocks of stone, with an average weight of 2.5 tons each, completed around 2,550 BC. Some pyramids were built as burial places for kings, and others for queens. A pyramid also may have represented a stairway for the king to ascend to the heavens. A few thousand years after they were built, Arabs "quarried" the smooth outer stone off the face of the pyramids to make their own palaces and mosques. The pyramids are no longer miles out into the desert as pictures tend to portray them, but right adjacent to Cairo as the city encroaches upon them.

We walked into one of them, bending in half in order to walk down a ramp, then up again before arriving in a room – where there was really nothing to see. After coming back out, we had our first camel ride. Bob and I rode one together – such a bumpy ride – all the time I was sure I was going to slip off.







Afterwards we visited the Sphinx – another huge structure. Apparently it has been used for target practice by soldiers and it’s a shame because the nose, mouth, and other parts have been knocked off.

Next we visited a Papyrus shop, saw how they made paper out of the papyrus plant, and bought a papyrus picture. We visited another shop with more trinkets – I bargained for and bought a camel made from Alabaster (in memory of our real camel ride). That evening we took the night train to Luxor around 8:00 PM, had dinner – or tried to. It didn’t look appetizing at all so I ate our snacks instead. It was a noisy ride for the next 10 hours, but we managed to get some sleep.