Day 3

Day 3 in Egypt – I’m right now going 150km/hr down a desert highway, passing cars right and left; not staying in any lane. We have been escorted by armed police guards for about an hour. Every 15 minutes we stop at a check point and get handed off to another set of 4 or 5 young men that escort us to the next stop. Our guides are giving the escorts money at every point along the way. We have been also handing out fruit and water that we have picked up during the drive so far. I have since found out that there is no speed limit for tourist vans. We can go as fast as we want but everyone else has to follow the speed limit.

Here’s what we’ve done today….We checked out of the hotel in Giza and drove to the necropolis at Saqqara. It’s a large complex that houses the pyramid built by King Djoser (also referenced as Zhoser and Zoser) of the 3rd Dynasty. Surrounding the pyramid are tombs of nobles and workers that are currently being excavated. There is a courtyard area where the Hep-Sed Festival took place. This festival was typically done every 30 years of reign where the king would wrestle a bull to prove he was still strong and able to rule the country. Sometimes the festival would be at other yearly intervals. The Djoser Pyramid is in good shape but the other areas are deeply ruined. You can view this interactive illustration as well as the short video below:



We then drove to Memphis. Memphis used to be the capital of Lower Egypt (which is really the Northern capital). A very large statue of Ramses II was found there by farmers. Other items have been found but basically Memphis is now a farming community. There is a small museum that was built to house the statue of Ramses II. Farmers own the land now in Memphis and some of them have excavated on their land and found gold items and statues that they have sold to build nice homes.

We had lunch at an orange grove. We were served pita bread with hummus, cheese sauce (like queso), cucumber sauce (for Gyros), and spicy, marinated eggplant. This was excellent. We were serenaded by 3 men playing Egyptian music. The rest of the group decided to dance with them.

We then drove to Dashur where the pyramids of Sneferu are located. Sneferu is the father of Cheops, or Khufu. Sneferu is credited as building the first, stable pyramid in Egypt. The first one is the called the bent pyramid because he started building it at a 54 degree angle but realized about ½ way through that the pyramid would be too tall so he changed the angle to 43 degrees. It’s 101 meters tall and 188 meters wide.

Sneferu decided to try again and built the Red Pyramid about ½ mile away. This one was bigger at 220 meters wide and 99 meters high. The angle of the pyramid is 43.7 degrees.

As I said at the beginning of this entry, we are driving south to Minya in order to go to Tel Amarna where Akhenaten ruled. More on him tomorrow.