Travel and day 2 in Egypt

Hello, I am back from my 4-day tour trip in Egypt with Mom! It was really cool there, even though I did get sick the first night there :( Day 1 was spent traveling on a bus from Tel Aviv to Cairo for 14 hours. The place I got sick at was the really filthy place they stopped for dinner at. And I ate the food there and as a result got a bad 4-day stomachache.

The second day was a lot of fun! Mom and I went on a tour on our trip. It was nice having the guide take care of everything for you. We went to see Memphis (Memphis, Egypt- not Memphis Tennessee.), the 3 pyramids of Giza (!) and the Sphinx.

Memphis was OK, being only a museum-like place with lots of statues of stuff evacuated from the pyramids. There was a really huge statue of King Ramses II, (as you can see in the picture) with the false beard and traditional headdress and everything.

Next we went to the pyramids! Yay! There are 3 pyramids, the biggest one being Khufu. The next-biggest is Khafre, and the smallest is Menkaure. I have always wanted to see the pyramids. Heck, I have always wanted to see Egypt, the land of the cat-worshipers! You know, when you first see the pyramids you think "Oh, it's just a pile of rubble. Who cares?" But you're wrong. That "pile of rubble" has about 2 million (one million in the case of Menkaure) limestone blocks, each weighing about 1/2 to 1 ton. The pyramids were all built in around 20 years, by 100,000 slaves each. The pyramids are so cool, when you see-them even from a distance, it is "wow". And then we saw the Guardian.

The Sphinx has always been thought to be the "guardian" of the pyramids. I think they're right. It was carved out of a single limestone block left over from the building of Khufu, the Sphinx is a marvelous creature with the body of a lying lion and King Ramses II 's face. It has been on silent watch for millenniums.

I bought something that day, too! Our tour stopped off at a carpet school, where children go to learn how to make carpets for 3-4 hours per day. And I bought a little wool carpet! It is of a river, and on the far bank is a man sitting on some red sand with his camels. The sky is orange, and it has white tassels on the top and bottom. It came with a miniature carpet-for free-picturing a river with a hut on the far side, also with white tassels that I am going to give to a friend. It cost me $10 US dollars. I had $6 US dollars left.

My first full day in Cairo was a good one.

above: kids in the carpet school.