Dying palm trees, everything is relatively cheap, lots of poverty that relies on tourism. Pollution here is wild, there is almost a constant haze over the city.
We embarked on our 5 hour long camel walk towards the three great pyramids of Giza. The biggest of the pyramids of Cheops one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world was the only one remotely in tact. Still they were awe inspiring pieces of work but I was surprised at how damaged the other two pyramids were.
The weather was about 105* but a dry heat. We paid 60 usd after negotiating down a bit to have a tour guide and two other children take us around the pyramids and teach us how to ride the camels. We took some great pictures at VIP hill where u can see all 3 pyramids. According to the Locals the pyramids were built by having the large stone blocks brought in and raking sand up to the top and placing wood boards over it so they could drag the next stone up. The pyramids were made for each king in the family so that their people could worship them even after their death and the entrances were extremely small so people could focus on them and bow down to them. It is unsure when the sphinx was made because they found a script on the second sphinx saying that the king was fixing the sphinx, before they had found the script they believed he was the one who actually built it. The sphinx was destroyed, both the nose and goatee and fallen off, leaving it's face with a mangled appearance. There are many different stories to why this happened but the most logical was because they had to carve away from the cheeks to bring the nose out so during a storm it was easier for the nose to break off without the strength of the stone around it.
Ps: Do not get caught up in the tourist trap of buying papyrus art because they charge outrageous amounts for art that is printed on this paper that they make for about 2 Egyptian pounds a piece and sell to tourist for hundreds of dollars.
