See the Pyramids Along the Nile.....

We spent day two in Cairo visiting the Pyramids of Giza. Probably the most famous of all Egyptian antiquities, people come from all over the world to see them, just like us. There are actually over 130 pyramid complexes in Egypt, but the most famous are in Giza. The three pyramids of Giza are called Cheops, Chephren, and Mykerinos. Cheops is the only remaining structure of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The rest have been lost to history. They were constructed as elaborate tombs for Egyptian kings.

Cheops, or the Great Pyramid, is believed to have been constructed around 2540BC. One possible construction theory is that stone was cut from a quarry and brought to the site, where huge ramps were used to position them in place. As many as 35,000 people were involved in it's construction, which took about 20 years to complete.

The day that we visited the site happened to coincide with the Susan G. Komen Race For the Cure, so the place was packed beyond even it's normal high number of tourists. As a result, the traffic was brutal and trying to get anywhere was a major process and very frustrating.

Stuart and Marty entered into the Pyramid, but I don't do so well in closed spaces, so I waited with Nabil outside. They came out hunched over and sweaty so I think I made the right decision.

Each Pyramid has various chambers that served as part of the tomb, and were filled with everything the Egyptian royals would need to take with them to the afterlife. Today all the contents of the chambers sit empty, either from being raided, or because the contents were

removed and placed in museums.

The Pyramids were originally encased in limestone to provide a glossy and smooth finish, but over time that has all but eroded. Chephren still has a few remnants of limestone at it's apex.

Because of all the traffic associated with the race, moving from Pyramid to Pyramid was very difficult. There is a sit at the southern plateau where you can get a panoramic view of all three, but it was impossible to get there given the race, so we had to blow that off and make our way down to the Sphinx.

The Sphinx has a lion's body and a human head. The statue at Giza is the largest monolith in the world and is 240 feet long. It is only about 66 feet high and I was not expecting it to look so small.

The nose and beard are missing. The two theories most popular suggest that Muslim soldiers destroyed it when they arrived in the country (we saw this a lot at various sites.... they were bothered by the Egyptian practice of polytheism, so they destroyed statues). Another is that Napoleon shot it off when he invaded Egypt. I have my own third theory... his nose fell off when he sneezed.