Monday, May 19, 2008

Pyramids one of the seven wonders of the world Egypt: Day Three




We woke up in Cairo Egypt. Walking like Egyptians! We had a full day ahead of us and by the end of the day we would be 200 miles up the Nile river in Luxor. Because we were considered tourist due to a visa/passport thing we were required to have a tour guide. Our tour guides name was Hassin. We all loaded in the buss and went to the Giza Pyramids. We pulled up to the humongous pyramids, and our tour guide began to lecture us about these pyramids. He started his lecture by stating that the Pyramids are one of the seven wonders of the ancient world and that they were built by Pharaohs which was a title for king, and that was the extent of his lecture. I cant really explain the frustration we all had about our tour guide in Cairo (later we had a wonderful tour guide in Luxor). We all had the impression that our tour guide must have thought we had no idea where we were.
We finally got out of the bus and the pyramids were so incredible, seeing them was absolutely amazing. We stopped off at the first one just to take pictures and admire the incredible beauty. The second pyramid we went and crawled inside. Last week I had tried to crawl in some tunnels that my class went in but I felt too claustrophobic and after numerous attempts could not go in. At the entrance of the tunnel at the pyramid I almost had kind of a panic attack but I decided that I was only going to have this opportunity once so I had better do it. While I was inside the pyramid I realized that although the the Egyptians were very innovative they never really got the whole air circulation/conditioning idea. It was so stuffy and very warm inside the tunnel. Everyone was sweating so much, while inside the Pyramid was incredible to realize that I was actually inside this incredible wonder. Once we crawled of the tunnel we were so grateful to be in cool (but actually hot) Egypt. Cameras were not allowed inside any of the tunnels, but many of the other pictures that will be shown about the temples and such that we went to had similar carvings and pictures.
We then went to the Sphinx and all stopped in amazement. It was incredible to see it in real life. We walked around exploring the land and soaking it all in.
Then we went to the Saqqara- which were other pyramids, we went into temple there as well as other pyramids. The other pyramids were not as tight and a lot less congested because there were a lot fewer people who visit these ruins. Inside one of the pyramids they had etched stars representing the sky, it was painted blue with white stars. Cameras were not allowed again in this area so no pictures will be uploaded about the inside of the pyramids.
We also went to Memphis after eating lunch. Everything we saw was so incredible, these people were innovative, creative and resourceful. The most powerful thing to me about the things that we saw was the color that was added to some of the carvings in the temples and pyramids that we went into.
At the end of the day when we were extremely exhausted, dehydrated and hungry they took us to the Papyrus Factory. We walked in the store in awe and amazement (and without a clue about prices and still trying to convert from Dollars to Shekels to Egyptian pounds) and were explained about how papyrus were made. The Weiss family definitely made their claim and invested in the Egyptian economy (but not like some in our group), however Deb and Jenn were able to barter pretty well in the store and came away with two free papyrus.
We had some time to wait before the flight to Luxor, so we went to a carpet factory. We saw how these beautiful carpets were made by hand. The carpets are very expensive and absolutely beautiful. We all decided to pretend to be like Aladdin and go on a magic carpet ride. It was fun!
We then went to the airport to fly to Luxor. They separated the groups by last name one group would leave at 8 and then other at 8:10. I was in the first half of the alphabet and Deb and Jenn were in the last half so we were on different flights My plane left at 8:10.To say the security at the airport in Cairo was a joke would be an understatement. We were given tickets that did not have our names on them (My ticket was for Aubrey Larsen) and walked through security with our two liter bottles of water in hand despite all the airports warnings about not carrying 3 ounces of liquid. The short flight to Luxor was great and we checked into our hotel rooms and slept soundly preparing for a full day in Luxor.
Sorry for not posting one of all of us earlier. Here we all are at the pyramids and with tons of people!

8 comments:

Chris said...

Crazy stuff. I'm envious that you got to crawl around inside the pyramids. That's Indian Jones type stuff.

But (and this is where you get envious) I will be watching the new Indian Jones this weekend.

Cougarfan#1 said...

MOMO!
what an experience. I can't wait to see the pictures!

Anonymous said...

Not to burst your bubble Chris but he probably bought the new Indiana Jones movie while he was in Egypt :)

Jenn said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jenn said...

Hey Mitchell, how come there are no pictures of Deb and I in this blog! :(
Love you!
Jenn

alison said...

Mitchell, I'm so proud of you crawling through that tiny space even though you're slightly clausterphobic. Also, how do you get to Memphis, TN and then back to Egypt so fast, that must have been quite the whirl wind of traveling!

Jessie said...

what an adventure! I can't wait for you to get back so I can hear about it in real life :)

Anonymous said...

The current personal "wonder" or "witness" of God's love, is that you have been given the opportunity of being there.

Dad Weiss