Day 2: Pyramids, Sphinx & Papyrus

The second day of our trip was probably one of the most experience-filled days of my life. We went to see the pyramids. Not only were the pyramids huge, enormous, gigantic, humungous, ginormous, mammoth, but we got to ride over to them on camels. That might have been one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. Riding across the desert approaching the pyramids on camels as a group of 40 people was one of the most surreal things that I’ve ever done. The camels were really fun to ride, and once I got the hang of it I felt like a pro; I even got to steer one myself.

I’m not too sure what was wrong with my camel though, he was burping a lot he must’ve had indigestion or something. His stomach was pretty much coming out of his mouth. Anyways, riding the camels was so much fun; sometimes we would be in a line, with one camel connected to the back of another by a rope. At one point one of the boys pulling the camels asked me if I would like a picture with my wife (Megan). Apparently wearing the same shirt means that you are a couple. Denis had us all wear our Northeastern Dialogue shirts, so Megan and I were both wearing the red Northeastern shirts that Karim made for us. Abdu is our leader and pretty much takes care of us while we are over here. Karim is his son, who helps us out too.

While we were at the pyramids we also saw the sphinx. I could not get over how huge the sphinx was. I got an awesome picture comparing the sphinx to the pyramid. It really puts it in perspective how big these pyramids are. The sphinx in the picture is 22 meters tall, and it is much less than a quarter of the size of the pyramids.

I got some great pictures of me and my friends near the pyramids that I’ll post online at some point. One of my favorite pictures is one where we make a pyramid, next to the pyramids.

Another picture I wanted to show though was of my friend Megan, who was standing about a quarter mile away from the pyramid at the time it was taken, so the pyramid is actually even bigger than it seems in the picture.

(Picture of Meg in front of pyramids... will update)

Seeing the pyramids was like something out of a textbook. I remember growing up as a kid, we’d always see pictures of the pyramids whenever we talked about Egypt. I never thought that I’d be the one taking that picture. They are the most amazing structures, and I can’t even fathom how they were built. It was said that it took 25 years to build the first pyramid (all the way to the right), 20 years to build the second large pyramid (middle large pyramid), and 15 years to build the third large pyramid (large pyramid to the left). All of these pyramids have over 1.5 million blocks in EACH of them. The middle pyramid is the largest at 14

2 meters tall. It used to be smooth, like the top triangle of it (which looks like snow on a mountain from far), but over the years it has worn away.

After going to see the pyramids and the sphinx, we went to the Egypt Papyrus Museum. Here they showed us the process of making papyrus that had been passed down from their ancestors. It was really awesome to see how a plant can become paper on which the colors will never fade over time. As we were waiting outside of the

Egypt Papyrus Museum for our rides, we saw another building under construction that had a ton of scaffolding in front. Doing masonry once, it really caught my attention that the scaffolding is just a bunch of wood tied together by some rope. I would never go up on it. I took a few pictures so hopefully I’ll get to show my old boss at some point and show him the way they build up the scaffolding in Egypt.

After the Papyrus Museum, we went to a buffet for a late lunch and then did our own thing for the rest of the day. On the way, we witnessed one of the times of prayer for the Muslims. As we were driving away, a huge group of people congregated to one spot on the side of the road, and just dropped to their knees at the same time. This prayer happens 5 times a day, including at dawn, dusk, and a couple other times. It was weird to see this as it happened because I’ve never seen anything like it. At the buffet we really experienced eating a lot of Egyptian food for the first time. It was good - better than I was expecting. At night we walked around and explored some more, and got to know the area.

Today I got accustomed to a lot more of the Egyptian culture that I wasn’t expecting. We saw the same things as on Day 1, but we were also in a lot of different places today, so we saw even more. When going to our lunch I saw a ton of people fishing in a river that had garbage all down the side. Either the garbage was just collecting there, or some people were burning it, but either way it didn’t seem exactly sanitary. It really shows how dirty the people of Egypt live and how dirty the whole city of Cairo is. I also got accustomed to everyone trying to help me and ask me for tips. It seemed like everywhere you went, someone was trying to sell you something, or they would help you out and expect a tip. Even though we were tipping the group of boys that led the camels to the pyramids at the end of the trip, they insisted on asking for money.