Around the world in 155 days: Ancient Egypt.... some pictures from the Pyramids of Giza

Hot! But I was so glad that the sandstorm of a couple of days earlier had abated, so the weather was great and we had a great view!

All three of the main pyramids.... there are some smaller Queen's Pyramids over the other side, but they are 10-15m high, compared to 70 odd metres for the smaller one on the right there above ....

OK, the Pyramids were cool. Even with the help of a dedicated Egyptian archaeologist to show me around, I still don't know how exactly they were built, or why (well, Why? exactly), but they were cool. And big. And humbling. How in God's name did they build them over 4,500 years ago? We haven't come very far.

The Great Pyramid of Khufu and the Pyramid of Khafre....

The whole plateau, with a very faint Cairo city in the background, obscured by dust (smog).....The Giza plateau is perched in the middle of a suburb - so it's odd to turn around and see a city behind you (I always imagined them deep in the desert - I guess at some point in the past, they were).

Me at the foot of the Great Pyramid of Khufu - in front of one of the blocks used to build it - that's the Pyramid of Khafre in the background....

The Pyramid of Khafre with one of the camel riding tourist police....

I credit the below pose to the camp hairdresser... he is ALL about the styling.....

I very much enjoyed my time there, and going inside the Great Pyramid was a great experience - an expensive and slightly claustrophobic one, but just great - seeing the broken granite sarcophagus of the King inside the main tomb chamber was amazing. (Sorry for running out of adjectives so quickly.) Looking up and seeing the 10,000 odd tonnes (more I think) of stone and granite above me wasn't so comforting, but they seem to have withstood the test of time, so..... I thought my chances of not being flattened were pretty good.

The blocks were enormous (below!) and when I was inside, there were hundreds upon thousands suspended above me.... it was more bearable than the Bolivian mine in Potosi however.

The Sphinx was amazing to meet in person.....

- and with the backdrop of the pyramids behind, was an amazing site.

I think I might die from the shwarma I ate for lunch. It was beef, but I found a piece of (beef) skin with hair attached inside - just for those of you (Mum) who are envious, and might need an incentive to stay in Australia.

I went to the Egyptian museum in the afternoon - which put into perspective how the Ancient Egyptians lived and how the tombs were arranged inside. The mummies were creepily eerily scary to look at and I felt sorry for the number of scared children dragged in their by their parents.

I should keep a log of all the poorly translated Arabic/English signs I see - some are quite funny. There is a sign in my bathroom at the hotel saying "Don't throw toilet paper at the toilet". Oh, I'm itching to. I've always wanted too.... And this is one of the few hotels I've had without a marker directing me to Mecca - I seem to have got by OK though thus far. One of the guys in my group is a 56yo gay, formerly Irish hairdresser who lives in King's Cross Sydney, and recently got escorted home by the police after attempting to walk home in a hood (not the sweatshirt kind), a harness, a codpiece and a strap-on that he'd painted the knob of in glow-in-the-dark red nail polish. He is hilarious, adorable and knows how to use my camera - the last couple of days have been a lot of fun. And educational.

No sooner have I got "used" to Cairo traffic than I'm off.... to Aswan tonight on the overnight train - and Abu Simbel temple (via military escort) the following day!

In Alexandria yesterday.... this is small biccies compared to the above pics, but it was great to see the Mediterranean sparkle - and it was a great day out. All of the fun spots like the underground tombs have banned photos, so it's a dry blog in that respect...

The view of the Alexandria bay and shoreline from the Quitabey Fort - I was surprised that Alexandria was half as big again as Melbourne - I was expecting a quant, Greco-Roman style old town with hints of Antony and Cleopatra still oozing from it's pores (ahhh, no).

Quitabey fort....

Here's Isabella on the steps of the Library... a great building on the waterfront...

The Mosque in Alexandria (well, the grandest of many, and my first published Mosque shot, which isn't bad considering I've been in the heart of Islam for nearly three weeks).....