OUR TRIP TO EGYPT!! The Pyramids and Cairo

Get ready for lots of pictures of pyramids!! 

 On October 19th Kent and I boarded a plane that flew from Virginia to Cairo, via Paris. We had a layover of about three hours in Paris, but the part of the Charles DeGaulle airport we were in was very boring--not even a place to buy a croissant or a baguette- so I didn't take any pictures. We spent most of our time in Paris sleeping, then had a 41/2 hour flight down to Cairo, arriving at 9:30pm.

 

 The good news was that you could see the great pyramid of Giza from our hotel--the bad news was that it was on the opposite side of the city from the airport, so we had quite a drive through crazy city traffic to get to our hotel.

After breakfast at the hotel and meeting up with our travel companions, Lissa and Jason, and Nick and Donna (our friends from Stafford) we met our Egyptian tour guide at 7:30am so we could be at the pyramids when they opened at 8am.

 Seeing them in person after seeing them in pictures for so many years was an AMAZING experience.

 We made lots of stops and took LOTS of pictures. These were taken in front of the stones at the bases of the pyramid of Giza.

                                Jason, Lissa, Nick and I climbed up inside the pyramid. On the left is the view at the top of the stairs looking down. On the right is what the room looked like at the top of the pyramid. We got very sweaty climbing up all those stairs in the airless pyramid.

 
 Next we had the opportunity to take a camel ride.

 Only Lissa and Jason decided to do it, but I regret not taking the camel ride. It would have been awesom to have a picture of Kent and I on camels with the pyramids in the background!!

Kent brought calzador with him to be in some photos with the pyramids.

 We were only about 15 minutes from the city, but these photos make it look like we're out in the middle of nowhere.

 Next we went to see the sphinx.

 Many more photos were taken.....

                              

This is the picture we used on our Christmas card for 2018.

                                          
 I liked this one because some of the original paint is visible on the back of the head.

Our tour guide is explaining about the stonework of the structure next to the sphinx, and how they all fit together.

 The Stinsons and us having some fun peeking out from behind the stones.

After visiting the pyramids we went to the Coptic Christian part of Cairo.

 We visited two old Christian churches and a synagogue.

 One of the Christian churches had some pretty mosaics on the walls outside the entrance.

 Naturally the image of "flight to Egypt" was a popular theme.

 Here's another version that was over a doorway.

 This was the entrance to the church that had the mosaics on the walls.

 The interior was beautiful, too.

This is called the Coptic cross, and it was carved into the walls of the church.

 I'm sure this is like most places in Israel where they don't really know where an event happened, but they want to have a shrine so they choose a place and claim it happened there.

 I really wanted an Egyptian nativity set, and I figured the Christian section of town would be my best bet, but it was not to be. I purchased the "Flight into Egypt" on papyrus below at one of the gift shops inside the church, which was the best I could do.

Speaking of papyrus, we went to a papyrus shop where we we given a demonstration on how to make papyrus. It was interesting, and of course they had lots of prints on papyrus for sale.

A view of some of the city streets as we drove by.

 Many of the areas reminded us of our trip to India several years ago.

The Nile River intersects the city of Cairo, so rode over it on a bridge several times.

We had lunch on a boat in the Nile River. On the left is the exterior of the boat. For lunch we had chicken  and pictured on the right are some of the varieties of hummus we ate with large discs of warm flat bread.

Our second to last stop of the day was the Cairo Museum of Antiquities,

 or the Egyptian Museum.

It was filled with a mind boggling collection of statues and artifacts.

                                                       

Pictured below is one of the gold boxes found in King Tut's tomb. I was glad I'd seen the shiny new replica on display in Portland, Oregon the weekend before!

 No pictures of King Tut's mask were allowed in the special room where it was on display, so I took this photo from the outside. Again, I was glad to have seen a shiny new replica the week before.

 Jason in the museum.

 The photo on the right was pointed out to us because of the difference in the skin tones of the two figures seated right next to each other. The photo on the right shows some of the other statues on display.

The Egyptian Museum was a disappointment because the artifacts were displayed in cases that were dusty and in disrepair. It was built in 1887 so the artifacts aren't displayed to their best advantage. We saw where a fabulous new museum is being built to replace the old one, so I suppose that's why not much effort is being made to keep things clean and repaired. Lissa, Jason, Kent and I paid extra to see the "mummy room" where actual pharaohs and their queens from thousands of years ago are preserved in controlled conditions, but no photos were allowed in there.

Our last stop of the day was the old shopping bazaar area of the city where we could look for souvenirs.
                        
 Again I kept my eyes open for nativity sets, but of course didn't have any luck.

                                  We only lasted about 30 minutes of shopping because we were all pretty tuckered out after a very long day of sight seeing!