We arrived in Cairo at 3am, tired, hungry, but washed. We had a 7 hour layover in Istanbul, so we went into town and had dinner and a Turkish bath. Ahhh, the pause that refreshes.
Our first view of the Pyramids of Giza was as dawn broke and these gigantic structures came into view. The Great Pyramid is to me one of those things you just have to see to believe. But today we didn't visit them, that's for another day. Today we saw the pyramid of Meidum, south of Cairo about 50 miles. Along with about 35 of our fellow travelers, a guide named Ahmed and a guard named Ahmed we drove to Meidum.
This is a pyramid of the Old Kingdom, about 2600 BC. It's unique because in antiquity, maybe as it was being built, the entire outer part collapsed and only the limestone core remained. So it was abandoned. This was obviously a major screw up by the builders and who knows how many immediately joined prior pharoahs in the here-after. But the tunnels in the pyramid still exist so you can go all the way to the burial chamber, a couple hundred meters inside.
The more interesting experience was going in Tomb 17. This was probably a tomb of a noble, but it is quite difficult to get into. The passageway is about 3 feet high, so you have to crawl on your hands and knees, in the dirt, in the dark, for a good 100 meters or more. Then you go down this rickety wooden ladder, crawl in more dirt, and eventually come out in a big room with a huge granite sarcophagus and a bunch of bats. Then of course, you have to come back out...more dirt and dust. Afterwards, Amy and I looked like a couple of true explorers.
Down, down, down...
Next stop was the Hawara pyramid. This was built much later, around 2000 BC, and is made of mostly mud bricks. These were much cheaper tha n limestone, but they erode quickly, so Hawara is just fraction of its original size. Apparently, this Pharoah was a skin flint compared to the earlier Pharoahs
Ahmed, our guide....
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