Mimi and Kari's Egyptian Adventure - Day 3

Day 3 (Tuesday) was PYRAMID DAY!! We got there early - maybe 8:30 or so (?) so we could be sure to get tickets to go inside the Great Pyramid. We had been there maybe 2 minutes when Luke tripped and fell and bumped his head on a big ol' rock.

It took about 15 minutes to get him from this point:

To this one:

It was definitely a situation that called for ice and a bandaid, and I had neither... Oh well.

Luke, Jason, Mom, and Kari decided to go inside the pyramid. I have already done that once, and also went inside the red pyramid last fall, so I didn't go.

They got about halfway to the entrance before Luke got super-whiney about his head. Jason brought him back down to me, and the three of them went in alone.

I was worried about the lack of moving air inside the pyramid and the claustrophobic feeling I had when we went in the first time, but Mom and Kari both made it in and out just fine and were glad they did it.

Luke and I kept ourselves amused by taking self-portraits.

We had a snack and Luke played in the sand with his front loader.

Here are Jason and Kari sitting outside the entrance to the pyramid after they'd climbed out. You can see Mom on the left taking their picture just before the guard shooed them away.

And I happened to be taking this picture of Luke playing in the sand right at the time the three of them came out of the pyramid. So you can see Luke in the foreground and Jason's white shirt halfway up.
Near the pyramid is a vizier's tomb. We went inside and saw some neat heiroglyphics.

I'd never been in that one before. It was pretty cool.

Then we walked over to the next pyramid.

Luke is a big Bugs Bunny fan right now - this is him doing his Bugs Bunny "I'm the winner" pose with his hands clasped in the air.

The Great Pyramid is just so massive you sort of have to just stand there and stare awhile.

One of Mom's Egypt goals was to ride a camel with Luke. Jason found this camel man and negotiated a fair price for a 10-minute camel ride.

Most camel rides are at least an hour, and we knew we didn't want that! We had hoped to get Kari on a camel, too, but the guy didn't have 2 camels handy. He did have a horse, though, so rather than wait for a camel, Kari hopped on the horse and rode a horse around the pyramids instead.

I used to think camels were noble-looking, with their serene, smiling faces and long graceful eyelashes. After living here, that misconception has gone out the window! I have learned that most camels are very opinionated, and Mom and Luke's camel was no exception. He was quite the talker!

If you open up the picture of the camel in another window, you'll be able to see the patterns shaved into his neck. The camel man explained that this is the camel's "name." I guess they all have different patterns.

While we waited to see if there would be another camel for Kari, Luke just walked right on up to the camel, within a foot of him! Thankfully the camel remained quiet at that point, or we might have needed a change of clothes for Luke! He has come a long way from his day at the Gainesville Zoo when he adamantly said, "NO CAMELS!" after the camel there growled at him. And a long way from last fall, when he cried when our driver put him on a camel!

We had a little trouble convincing the camel man to stop after a few minutes and let them off the animals. They couldn't understand why we'd only want to go such a short way and tried to convinces us to go farther for a really cool picture. Leery of being taken too far away from where we started and wary of being ripped off for more money than we agreed on, we insisted that they let everyone off.

After they all got down, the camel man decided Luke should dress up like an Arab and sit back down on the camel. At first, Luke liked the idea.

When he got up on the camel all by himself, I think he got a little scared. He wanted down right after this picture.

The other camel man kissed the camel. Now, I used to kiss my cat, but THIS is just GROSS.

We started down the hill toward the sphinx and decided to stop in the tomb of the pharoah's doctor. First, we let Mom the Yoga Girl take a picture doing her pyramid pose in front of the pyramids.

More cool hieroglyphics inside the tomb:

And, this is the tomb where you can crawl down a little passageway to the room with the sarcophagus.

Then, on to the Sphinx!

I love how it looks like the sphinx is part of the family in this picture. Not intentional, and so funny!

Luke doing his Sphinx pose:


It's hard to believe that we spent nearly 5 hours at the pyramids and sphinx, but we did. We were EXHAUSTED by the time we were through there. We walked over to Barry's restaurant and had lunch. This was the only real Middle Eastern/Egyptian food we ate while Mom and Kari were here. I don't love the food at Barry's (mostly because I don't like most Egyptian food), but you can't beat the view, and we had a very sweet, friendly waitress from Romania.

After lunch, we were supposed to go to the museum, but we were all so wiped out that we opted for plan B - to just go home and crash! As we drove away from the pyramids, Mom snapped this cool picture of a camel caravan ready to depart.