Day 16 - Sunday, November 9, 2025 – The Great Pyramids of Giza

 

It was a very long day and I’m lying flat on my back at 4 pm and don’t want to move.  We left the hotel at 7 am so that we could beat the crowds at the pyramids.  Our tour director was amazing.  We were the first to arrive at The Great Pyramid of Giza.   I elected not to go inside.  We were told that there was a narrow chamber that you had to get down on your knees and walk through a small section on your knees. Not with these knees. I will not have missed my chance to get inside a pyramid because when we get to Luxor, there is another pyramid that you can enter that doesn’t require you to get down on your knees.

Just being there was absolutely amazing. There are three pyramids grouped near each other and they whole face East. The entrances to the pyramid all face north. The three pyramids, the third one being much smaller than the first two, are lined up with the constellation Orion named after Osiris, the God of resurrection.

The pharaoh Kaden Is buried in the middle Pyramid.  It’s the largest one, the great pyramid of Giza has the pharaoh Khufu buried there.  There was never anyone buried in the small tomb. it was built for symbolic or ritualistic purposes.

Here are a bunch of pictures I shot of the pyramids.

A few mummification temples before the pyramids 

The great pyramid of Giza where pharaoh Khufu is buried

The original entrance towards the top of the picture which is no longer in use and cannot be accessed

Yes, it’s for real. I was there.

So is Wayne. He’s in front of the pyramid.

Someone elected to go inside the pyramid. I did

Can you believe that these stones, are smaller here at the very base and as you get near the top of the pyramid they are larger.

 

Our Egyptian guard for the day, provided by the Egyptian government to make sure that we all remain safe.

This picture shows both the great pyramid of Giza and the middle pyramid.  Oh yeah, Wayne‘s in the forefront of the picture

What looks like the entrance to this pyramid is not. That was caused by vandals stealing some of the blocks.

This is the modification temple. The pharaohs would have been brought here, each one had their own temple for 70 days while their innards were removed and then they were dried with salt and then wrapped up and left for another 40 days.

After we visited the three pyramids, we went directly to see the sphinx. Again, our tour leader got it right and got us there before the real crowds. That’s kind of a misnomer. There are so many people in Cairo and with 22 million people residing in Cairo, I swear they were either at the pyramids in Giza or at the GEM, the great Egyptian museum we went to this afternoon.

In this one, you can see the front legs of the lion, The back legs and possibly even the tail of the lion. The head with the headdress is the pharaoh. All of this was carved out of one block that was right there, and when they got to the head of the pharaoh, there wasn’t much Bloch left that’s why his head is so out of proportion with the rest of a lions body.

Yep, that’s me

It’s a misconception that the sphinx is bigger than the pyramid in the back

That’s better

This just shows that the strengths does not actually sit right in front of one of the pyramids. But it was a good shot with the two pyramids in the sphinx altogether.

Wayne got his dump truck out and played in the sand for a while

This is the Sahara desert. Right beyond the pyramids starts the Sahara.

After The visit to the sphinx, we went to take camel rides. I don’t think Wayne thought I would do it. But when in Egypt…. He says he got some great shots of me trying to get on the camel. Which was definitely interesting. We walked out of ways with the camel driver leading the way, and  my back would swing from Front to back with every step the camel took.

Camel Road cost me US$12 plus an additional two dollars for the driver of the camels who took my picture

It was more than just get up on the camel for a photo shoot they took us for a short ride.

Trick shot with the camera taken by the guy I tipped but lots of fun.

Their instructions on how to move when a camel rose, and when the camel laid down or fascinating. Roll forward, roll backward, it was a really strange feeling when that camel stood up.

From there, we left the pyramids and went to the brand new, just opened three days ago, GEM MUSEUM. There are over 120,000 antiquities now being displayed in this brand new museum, which is definitely state of the Art. In addition on the seventh floor is king touch artifacts which our tour guide made sure we saw.

The building is absolutely beautiful from the outside. All of the elements are in the shape of a pyramid. You can see the structural of steel inside all shaped like triangles, or Pyra

Statue outside is Ramseys II

Is full size boat was never ever put in the water. It was meant to take the pharaoh to the afterlife. It was found in this shape inside the pyramid. It is the oldest boat known to mankind.

Artifacts brought to this new museum as we wrote the escalators up to the seventh floor and the king tut exhibition.

King touch chair, all gold plated

King touch sarcophagus

And his gold plated Sedan chair

This is the 100% gold Head dress of king tut

One of his gold boxes

Here says gold chariot

These are statues of some of the workers. Our guide swears there is absolutely no evidence that the workers on the pyramids for slaves. His research shows that they were all voluntary workers and expert tradesmen who are proud of their work. These statues of the workers show evidence of how highly they were thought

A modification bed. This one is in the shape of a lion.

King touched dress, again, all gold

This was king tut, all gold coffin

And these are the sarcophagus that went inside the Coffin

This is the masterpiece, all gold

It was a very long day. 12,744 steps and we leave tomorrow morning at 2:30 AM to get to the Cairo airport and take a flight to Aswan. We will see a temple after we land and then onto the boat for some relaxation tomorrow afternoon.