Pyramids are extremely cool, but these blogs just take up all of my free time!

Hi, my name is Shia, and this is my blog. (My dad’s idea, I couldn’t think of an introduction.)

Cairo is NOT a very calm and spacious place.  It’s just about as crowded as the wildebeest migration, more even!  Their city grew pretty close to the ancient pyramids and it completely surrounds the Sphinx.  You could take a 5 minute taxi to the nearest pyramid and say “hi” to the Sphinx on your way home from school!  Their 4,000 year old monuments aren’t very well isolated.  But at least we didn’t have to take a 2 hour train and a 45 minute taxi to get to Giza.  The visibility is also pretty bad.  I don’t know if it’s dust, pollution, fog, etc. But it was pretty bad (at least while we were here).  If it’s pollution, I wouldn’t be too surprised, we took a hot air balloon ride (which is AMAZING, as long as you have a jacket to block the heat radiating off the fire).  But to get to our take off site we had to cross the Nile (also AMAZING, but the water is sooo much colder than you might think) and the boat emitted so much gas that I could hardly breathe and it smelled like horse poop.  I couldn’t get away from there fast enough.  Don’t get me wrong, Egypt is amazing.  The people are super nice, but they’re mainly trying to sell you something.  And their art is fascinating!  The salespeople/artists get the colors perfect and you can almost see the sun glinting off the smooth limestone coating the pyramids; and the bright blue and gold stripes on the headdress of the Sphinx, identifying him as a pharaoh.  But they push and push you to buy it until you literally run away or slam a car door in their face.  It’s very rare that you convince them to give up.  The town wasn’t my favorite place, but it is definitely a conversation starter!

The pyramids were cute little things. They could only fit like thousands of elephants (if they were completely hollow) and weigh over 2.5 million tons.  Their shadows could probably reach China!  Ancient Egyptians don’t joke around with this whole pyramid stuff (but I can’t say the same for myself…).  They chose the shape of the pyramid because their beliefs said that the first land form on earth was a triangular mountain, so they copy that with every pyramid.  They start with a perfect square angled very specifically and aligned with the stars to make it easier for the spirit to reach them.  They use chisels and hammers to cut the limestone.  The blocks at the base of the pyramid can weigh up to 15 tons each!  The workers then built a spiral ramp along the pyramid to drag the blocks on wooden sleds.  They chose a spiral ramp because it was easiest for the growing pyramid.  If they built a straight ramp, they would have to rebuild it whenever the pyramid grew in size and it would be over a mile long once they got to the top.  With a spiral ramp, you could just add on to the edge of the ramp, no rebuilding necessary.  Then they used polished limestone to make the outsides of the pyramid smooth and beautiful with a granite top to keep it in place.  Then they cut the granite blocks that sometimes end up being a long way away from the pyramid and ended up boating down the Nile.  In this case, they cut the block, drag it about 1 mile to the boat and then they drag it about 5 miles to the pyramid once they exited the boat.  One pharaoh covered his whole pyramid with granite!  Lots of 500 mile trips down the Nile for Menkaure to make his granite pyramid!

Temples   [tem-puh ls]

1. Things on your skull  (noun)        2.  A bunch of columns under a roof made by a bunch of ancient Egyptians       (Old, impressive, and cool)

Pharaohs weren’t actually buried in their temples, they had hidden tombs for that.  The temples were their memorial, like their version of a headstone.  A pretty big, impressive, headstone. The first temple we visited is a temple called Abu Simbel and it was built by Ramses ll.  It made a pretty strong and confident first impression when we saw four monstrous statues towering over what seemed like all of Egypt.  They were in a sitting position and all but one were intact.  One of the statues had his whole torso broken off and it now lays at his feet.  There were two statues on each side of the doorway and a small picture of the sun god, Ra, right above the doorway with his whole right leg broken off.  Entering the temple was like entering another world.  When you look up at the ceiling you can see a trace of red paint you try to imagine how colorful it was thousands of years ago, it’s nearly impossible to overestimate the color, easy to underestimate.  You can only say it’s small if the top of your head reaches outer space.  It’s hard to get “templed out” but I managed.  Looking at architecture isn’t really what gets me going, thousands of years old or not.  But the first three temples were amazing! Then it all kinda went like this…

                                             *** (Luxor Temple)

                                       /

                                   /

____                     /

        -__            /

             -__   /

Luxor temple was probably my favorite of all the ones we visited.  It wasn’t the biggest or oldest, not even one built by one of the best Pharaoh’s.  But it’s how well preserved it was that struck me.  It has a walkway of perfectly lit up Sphinxes and the columns blew me away.  There were two statues on either side of the entrance that were just about as big as Abu Simbel’s statues.  I also liked it because of its simplicity.  For some reason big, elaborate plans that take 20 years to execute don’t end up being one of my favorites.  I like the simple, well preserved ones, and how they present the temple too.  The lighting was perfect and that definitely added to my amazement. I wish we could’ve stayed longer at Luxor Temple, but it was late and we haven’t eaten dinner yet, so our hunger got the better of us.

I don’t get why everyone is so nervous about us going to Egypt.  Sometimes they will raise the price of something when they find out where we’re from, but for the most part, they’re very welcoming.  They have lots of “checkpoints”, as my parents call them, with police stands to make sure nothing happens to us.  And we’re just normal tourists in their eyes.  Egypt is amazing so far and I do want to visit again.

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