Egypt Day 5: The Pyramids

On the morning of our first day in Cairo we headed to Sakkara to see the step pyramid and surrounding artifacts. This was a spine tingling and exciting start to the mystery of ancient Egypt. Our first passage into the tomb of Teti was a great start to the day.Following this we stopped at a carpet weaving school and a papyrus shop en route to the main event – The pyramids of Giza. The carpet school and papyrus factory proved to be the usual tourist trap that we have encountered before – there is some useful explanation of technique but for the larger part you are shown around a shop and subtly pressured to buy. We now own a piece of papyrus with a typical Egyptian print upon it – I’m sure this won’t be the last useless souvenir.
Next was lunch in a restaurant that overlooked the pyramids – we enjoyed our lunch and savoured some remarkably good Babaganoush – but with the pyramids so close we were eager to get up close.
Finally at about 2pm we stood in awe below the pyramid of Cheops and tried to comprehend the sheer scale and age of these wonders. Unfortunately the rest of the afternoon was a blur between being rushed between each pyramid, boat museum and the sphinx. We are already making plans in our schedule to revisit with more time on our hands.
After a bad experience or two with the hotel food we headed out via taxi to Farafella ( local Egyptian restaurant) for a better taste of the local cuisine for dinner. We ended up ordering what must have been everything on the menu and barely made a dent on the mass of food at our table – all very tasty (excluding the Kofta which was still barely edible)

step pyramid at Sakkara

Giza Plateau

Necropolis of Saqqara