October 16 - Sunday

Big plans for our first sightseeing trip.

A nice scattered breakfast buffet in the restaurant. I had boiled eggs and a few things. The toaster is slooooow.

Apparently we had an orientation meeting.

Onto the bus. An incredible drive out to Memphis an area about 25 miles south of Cairo. (Extras) The drive allowed us to get a glimpse of daily Egyptian life in the country. Along branches of the Nile we saw a lot of agriculture. Sugar cane, dates, rice(?)... Movie.

We stopped to see Memphis (link). I was dismayed. Memphis was the capital of Egypt during the Early Period. It is at the head of the Nile delta and so controlled traffic and trade in the early days. Memphis continued to be important until it declined with the rise of Alexandria. It is now GONE(!) there were a few statues and stele on display in the open air museum Mit Rahina. There should be temples and other large buildings here. It was destroyed by the Romans.

A rather small building holds the Colossus of Ramses II a pretty amazing statue laying on its back.

I had a bit of a run in with a friendly vendor.

Back on the bus and off to Dashour (link). Dashhour is a burial area about 25 miles south of Cairo. Eleven pyramids were built here. Five remain. This was a pyramid learning area. Movie.

Here we find the "bent" pyramid (link). It is an early pyramid. As it was being built it collapsed in the center because it was not on bedrock. They changed the angle to reduce the amount of material on the top. We walked all the way around it. The military guys repeatedly asked us for money.

Nearby is the "red" pyramid (link). I believe it is the oldest "real" pyramid and the third largest. We drove over. We hiked up a rather long and high stairway to enter the our first pyramid. Whew! We had to bend down and walk carefully down a sort of stair made by cross pieces. I bonked my head quite hard. It smelled pretty bad from bat pee. An interesting corbel ceiling.
   Finally we got to a room and a passage to the next room. Not much to see. We hiked back up and went to the bus.

The first attempted pyramid is here in a collapsed state.

Local color.

We stopped at a nice place for lunch. We sat at long tables. There was beer. There was a buffet. They brought out some grills, sort of like a hibachi with food already cooked on it. Quite nice actually. Movie.

Another eye popping ride home. We got caught in a nasty traffic jam not far from our hotel. Movie. Our aggressive drive went down a side street/alley and then another small alley and found a way around most of the traffic. Amazing. Movie.

We had a lecture from Dr. Hawass. Quite an enthusiastic speaker. Afterward he signed books. Norm and Diana had their book signed. Norm mentioned he was from San Jose. Dr. Hawass said "there is a nice Egyptian Museum in San Jose and his picture is hanging in the lobby." Nice. Not sure why we don't seem to have pictures of this.

A nice meal with a Sakara gold beer.

Apparently we went up to the bar for a drink.