I slept pretty well, until about midnight. Then, apparently, my body thought that the nap was over and it was time to get up. I lay awake for about an hour or an hour and a half. eventually, around 1:45 a.m. I fell back asleep until the alarm went off at 5:30. Of course, then I was tired. I fell back asleep until 6:30, just before the wakeup call, and then got up and took a shower.

After a couple of tries we found the Garden room, and then found out that breakfast had been moved to the Khan el Khalili. At least we knew where that was! Breakfast was buffet-style, with various fruits, melons, breads, yogurt, cheese, and waffles and omelets on demand.

We decided that we would skip the group tour to Saqqara and book our own tour to Saqqara and Dashur through the hotel. After breakfast we spoke to the concierge and she told us we could get a drive for £299 ($50) and a guide for £150 ($25). The only question was how to fit the four of us and a guide and driver into the car. Eventually she found us a bigger car and we were all set. Not only would we get a private tour to the places we really wanted to see, but it would cost less than the group tour would!

We assembled in the lobby . . . at least some of us did. The four of us got on the bus first and got the front seats. All the better to get off quickly and get pyramid tickets! People continued to trickle on until around 7:45-7:50. Then, the tour director got on and started to collect money for the Saqqara tour. This took until almost 8:00. We asked if we were still going to make it to the pyramids at 8:00 (it was now 8:02), and we were told that we would. Fortunately, the hotel is very close to the pyramids.

We made it to the pyramids just after 8:00 and went past many guards, some mounted on camels. We had no problems getting tickets to go inside the pyramid and we were told that we could go in at any time we liked. Oh, and by-the-way, we had to be back on the bus in 30 minutes. To say the least, this limited our flexibility somewhat.

It was at this point that I found out that my camera was broken. The back panel, that keeps the film in, did not latch properly. The result was that the door would pop open and expose the film. This is, in photographic terms, bad. So I had to hold the door closed at all times, which tends to make taking pictures a bit more of a challenge. It also meant that I could be wasting a lot of time and money if I inadvertently let the door open.

Becca and I walked around the south-east side of Khufu's pyramid. It is the largest of the pyramids, and the only remaining Wonder of the Ancient World. It was originally 460' tall and 460' on each side. With the casing stripped off, it was used to build Cairo by the Calliphs a thousand years ago, it it only 450' tall and 417' on each side. It is built out of approximately 2.3 million blocks, each weighing around 2.2 tons, with the largest weighing up to 30 tons. It took approximately 30 years to build, 10 years for gathering materials and readying the site and 20 to actually construct the pyramid.

As we were walking around one of the guards beckoned us over. Although there are ropes surrounding the pyramids, the guards, for a little baksheesh (tips, normally £0.5 to £2 or 10-25¢), will allow you over the ropes, onto the pyramids, or to take pictures with them. We found this everywhere we went. So we took a couple of pictures and then headed over to the entrance of the pyramid, once the line had died down.

The tourist entrance is about 50' above ground. The blocks that make up the pyramid are around 6-7' tall at the base of the ptramid. The entrance is around the 5th level of blocks. All of the entrances are on the North side of the pyramid. The edges of the pyramid face the compass points, North, South, East, and West. So the faces are NE, NW, SE, and SW. The entrance to Khufu's pyramid was on the NE face. The tourist entrance was cut into the pyramid and, after about 50-70' intersects with the original entry shaft. The ceiling is about 7' high, and the corridor wound around a bit. As we got to the stairs, which intersect with the shaft heading up to the grand gallary, several people were coming back down. It can be both strenuous and claustrophobic, and these people had not made it even to the grand gallary.

Once we got up the stairs, which are not too long, we got into the shaft, which is fairly low and rises at about a 40° angle. There are boards with slats places on the floor to provide footing, and prevent everyone from sliding down to their deaths. There are also hand-rails on the sides. It was a fairly long climb, maybe 80' or so. At the top of the shaft is the grand gallary. There is a three-step metal ladder on each wall at the entrance of the grand gallary. This takes you up either side, with the middle being a corridor to a closed-off chamber. The side passages come back to the center after about 15-20' and the path continues back up the center. There used to be statues on both walls, but they are long gone. the grand gallary continues up for another 40' or so at the same angle as the shaft, but the roof here is quite high, probably 20-30'. The stonework here is excellent, nearly seemless, with extremely smooth surfaces.

At the end of the grand gallary there is another three-step metal ladder that takes you onto a flat platform in front of a three-foot-high corridor, which goes for 6' or so, followed by 6' without a ceiling, apparently three large blocks of stone had been used as a portcullis, followed by another 6' of three-foot-high corrdor. It was here that we ran into mom and Anne, coming the other way. After this last low corridor, we entered the burial chamber. The burial chamber is a large, rectangular room with a high ceiling. The only thing in the room is the remains of a large stone sarcophagus. There are a couple of holes in the walls, one facing North and the other South. These were once thought to be for ventilation, but are now thought to have been to point the Pharoah to the afterlife. The ceiling is made up of nine granite slabs weighing 400 tons. Above the burial chamber are several more chambers used to bear the weight of the structure. We only spent a couple of minutes in the chamber.

We caught up with my mom at the bottom of the grand gallary. Becca and I backed down the shaft, which was a lot easier because you do not have to bend over as far. We got out of the pyramid and were standing near the entrance when one of the guards came up to mom and asked if she had seen the original entrance shaft. We replied that it was gated. He asked if we would like to see it, and we said "Sure." So he took us back in and opened up the gate, which is located at the base of the stairs.

We walked down a half-dozen steps and there was a shaft, similar to the one we had climbed to the grand gallary, heading up to the side of the pyramid. We climbed up it, Becca, then my mom, then me. There is a locked door at the top, so we had to back down. At the bottom the shaft continues on for a long way under the pyramid to intersect with the shaft we climbed earlier and some chambers under the pyramid. We climbed back up the stairs and headed back out. We tipped the guard on the way out and got on the bus. Anne, and one of the other couples, decided to walk to the next stop.

We drove to a parking lot between Khufu's and Khafre's pyramids. Khafre's still has some of the original white limestone casing on it. It appears to be taller than Khufu's, but is actually on a higher base. Each year one of the three pyramids is closed to allow it to recover from the effects of the thousands of visitors. This year it is Khafre's that is closed. We skipped the solar boat museum, and its additional fee, and walked around Khafre's pyramid and temples for a while.

We took some pictures, with and without guards, avoided people riding camels and offering rides or pictures . . . all for baksheesh. We also refused the many vendors who offered free goods, which they would then guilt you into buying. I picked up twenty postcards for $1, then we got back on the bus and headed to the scenic lookout . . . and vendor hangout.

The scenic lookout gives a decent, but not great, view of the pyramids. It is covered with merchants who want to sell you stuff, or take pictures of or with you, or in some other way selflessly help you . . . for a little baksheesh. We looked at a couple of stalls, Becca got a couple of cats (about 8" high and of similar coloring as her kitties) for £100 ($16). I wanted to get a better picture of the pyramids, so we dropped the cats off in the bus and told Waffah we would meet them at the Sphinx at 11:00 (it was 10:20). So Anne, Becca, and I walked around the east side of Menkaure's pyramid. The camel rides just took you back to the parking lot in between Khafre's and Menkaure's pyramids, plus you would smell like camel. So we walked to the Sphinx, taking pictures along the way.

We walked right past the queens' pyramids to the west of Menkaure's pyramid and past a bunch of tombs and other buildings. We avoided the camel riders and their offers of rides and pictures. We had a nice walk and arrived at the Sphinx with about 5-10 minutes to spare. Unfortunately, we did not see anyone from our tour, or our tour bus, and we did not have tickets to go into the little Sphinx complex, which also housed the embalming museum. We could not search very far for the bus because all of the vehicles were parked outside the gate and if we went out there we would not be able to get back in. Eventually, we found mom and she told us where the bus was parked. We were the first ones to get on at 11:10.

We were supposed to get back to the hotel at 11:30 to meet our guide and driver and head to Saqqara and Dashur, but the bus did not leave the Sphinx until almost 11:30 . . . 30 minutes late, again. They were heading to the Papyrus Institute first, but agreed to drop us off at the hotel after everyone else went to the Papyrus Institute. We got back to the hotel around 11:40 and met our driver, Ahmed, and our guide, Mohamed.

We asked to stop some place reasonably cheap and quick on the way to Saqqara and we stopped at an empty restaurant. Apparently, Egyptians eat lunch around 4:00 p.m. and dinner between 9:00 and midnight. They had a buffet and the food was decent, and pretty cheap. After lunch we drove to Saqqara, which is about 15 miles south of Cairo. Saqqara was the funerary complex for Memphis, which was the capital of the united kingdoms during the Old Kingdom (the 1st through 12th dynasties).

Saqqara is home to the first attempt at a pyramid, the step pyramid of Djoser. It is the oldest stone building in the world. The step pyramid is made up of a series of mastabas one on top of the other. Mastabas are large, rectangle-shaped structures, made of stone, which were used as burial places for Pharoahs. In addition to the step pyramid, there are a couple of small pyramids and a bunch of tombs and some of the first columns built in Egypt. The colums are built to resemble bundles of reeds, a common building material at the time.

You could see both the pyramids at Giza and the pyramids at Dashur from Saqqara. We headed off to Dashur next, which was only about 5 miles away to the South. Dashur is where Sneferu built two of his three pyramids, the bent pyramid and the red pyramid. The bent pyramid is so called because it started at a 60° angle but the angle was changed part way up because the pyramid became unstable. The bent pyramid is especially noteworthy because it retains much of its original outer casing of limestone.

The red pyramid, so named because of the color of its building blocks, is the first true pyramid. It rises at a 40° angle, much lower than the Giza pyramids, and is the third tallest pyramid and the second largest at the base. The blocks are placed straight up, while in earlier pyramids the blocks were generally placed at an angle in the mistaken belief that the angle would be more stable.

We got to go inside the red pyramid. It was quite a climb just to get up to the entrance, which was about twice as high as the entrance to Khufu's pyramid. I brought my mom's point-and-shoot camera along and the guard did not mind me bringing it inside. The guard also gave Becca a mag-light flashlight to use. The shaft was similar to the ones in Khufu's pyramid, just longer. Anne, Becca, and I all went in, while mom hung outside and chatted with the guards at the foot of the pyramid.

Becca and I went down backward, and the shaft went on and on. We eventually came out into a room with a high, stepped roof. The ceiling got narrower and narrower as it went up until it came to a point. From this room there was a low corridor to another room with a wooden stircase at the far side. We climbed up the staircase and found out what the flashlight was for. The stairs ended about 15' in the air where a passage was cut into the wall. It was dark in the passage and pitch-black in the room at the far end. The room dropped about 5-10' from where the passage came in and the ceiling was another 10' or more above our heads. I took some pictures with the flash and maybe they will come out as something . . . but then again, maybe they won't. We headed back out and tipped the guard as we emerged back into the sunlight.

When we were done we headed back toward the hotel. On the way we stopped at a rug factory. We watched students making rugs on a couple of different types of looms in the basement and then we were shown upstairs to the showroom. The weaving was interesting, although it was not clear that they were making actual rugs, and not simply demonstrating how it was done.

Anne liked several of the rugs, including some that were made of silk. The silk rugs changed colors depending on which direction you looked at them from. Turns out that they are quite expensive as well! Some of the larger rugs hanging on the wall were quoted at $8000 or more. Granted, these rugs were 6' by 9', but still. Becca saw some little silk mats that she thought would be nice as placemats. We were quoted a price of $130 each. Too bad. Anne did a lot of negotiating on a couple of the rugs but in the end she was not sure where she would put them, so we left empty handed.

Next, we stopped at a papyrus factory. As was the case with all of the shops we entered, they offered us our choice of drinks. Tea, coffee, soda, or water. Having just had a lot of water at the last factory, I declined. They showed us how papyrus was made. The papyrus plant has a triangular stalk. The green outer layer is cut off and then the inner piece is cut into strips. the water is squeezed off and then left to soak for a couple of days. Then the strips are laid across one another to form a sheet. The sheet is then pressed in a vice for three days. If you hold real papyrus up to the light you can see that the fiber runs in two different directions.

We were each assigned our own personal salesperson who followed us around the shop. Mine was particularly annoying. He refused to just let me look around and find things I liked, instead opting to tell me things I either knew or did not care about and show me piece that I did not care for. Mom got a cartouche made and Anne, once again, did a lot of negotiating but no actual buying. While they were making mom's cartouche the main guy started to work on me, much to the annoyance of my personal salesperson. No problem, I didn't feel like buying anything from him either.

Our next, and last, stop was the Hard Rock merchandise store near the Sphinx. I had noticed it on the bus when we were leaving the Sphinx this morning and asked to stop in on the way back to the hotel so I could pick up a shirt. I got my shirt, and a birthday shirt for Becca, all for $28. Pretty sweet! Anne also got a shirt for one of her friends.

We headed back to the hotell and made arrangements for Ahmed to drive us down to the Ramses Hilton, where we were planning to meet my friend Melinda, who was on the same tour as us but who left a week earlier. She and a few friends had done the cruise and were supposed to be returnning from Alexandria that afternoon. We also made arrangements to meet Ahmed at the Bazaar on Friday at 1:00 p.m. to get a tour of a mosque or two. We had decided that doing anything with the tour group would take forever and accomplish very little.

We went to our rooms, changed, and met back in the lobby at 6:45 p.m. Ahmed said that it should only take 30 minutes to get to the Ramses Hilton and we were supposed to meet Melinda at 7:30. We got to the mall across the street from the Hilton a little before 7:30 and Ahmed showed us where he would be parked and how to get to the hotel. We called Melinda's room from the lobby and she came down to meet us. We went up to check out her room, it was pretty nice. A bit more modern than the Mena House and the balcony faced out onto the Nile.

We headed down to the chinese restaurant in the lobby with Melinda and three of her friends. The chef was from China and was spending a few months in Egypt, so Melinda asked to speak with him. He came out and chatted in chinese with Melinda and her friends and then took our order. The food was pretty good and cheap as well. Melinda showed us pictures on her digital camera and we discussed places we had each gone to. They were scheduled for massages at 10:00 p.m., and an early morning flight, so we left the restaurant at around 9:50, another two-hour meal.

Well, it was not the traditional Thanksgiving meal, but it was still a good time. I suggested ice cream on the way back and Ahmed took us to a really good place . . . it was kind of a drive up place. One of the people came out and took our order and then Ahmed and Anne went into the shop with him. The ice cream was quite good. We got back to the hotel a little before 11:00 and went right to sleep.

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