{"id":39,"date":"2009-03-31T03:48:39","date_gmt":"2009-03-30T18:18:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.konyagi.org\/blog\/?p=39"},"modified":"2009-03-31T03:56:47","modified_gmt":"2009-03-30T18:26:47","slug":"i-was-full-of-dreams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.konyagi.org\/blog\/uncategorized\/i-was-full-of-dreams","title":{"rendered":"“I was full of dreams”"},"content":{"rendered":"

said Napoleon, “I saw myself founding a new Religion, Marching into Asia, Riding an Elephant, a Turban on my head and in my hand, the new Qu’ran.<\/em>”<\/p>\n

I want what he’s having! Egypt hasn’t quite grabbed me like that yet, though I’ve only been here a few days so maybe it creeps up on you. Anyway boys and girls, I’ve finally made it to the pyramid post.<\/p>\n

Against my better judgement, and it seems the advice of the Rough Guide, I booked a tour through the Mayfair Hotel. As the Rough Guide says (paraphrased): Great place to stay, don’t book a tour there. In my defence, I’d just landed and had just been driven through Cairo traffic for nearly two hours.<\/p>\n

And anyway, it wasn’t quite as dire as I was dreading so no harm done really. Up early to head off at about 8am, I arrived in the foyer to find my driver asleep, a state he was in for most of the remainder of the day.<\/p>\n

He woke up long enough to rive me down to Giza. We hadn’t gone far when I got my first glimpse of pyramids in the distance. When we got a bit closer I stopped the driver so I could take this shot:<\/p>\n

\"Giza<\/a>
Giza Pyramids from road<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Then the driver took me to some stables near the pyrmiofds here the hard sell was put on for a camel or horse trip. I started with a camel…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Awesome<\/a>
Awesome Bloke on Camel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

but I wasn’t really up for all the bouncing so I switched to a horse. Go on with your wisecracks, the horse was plenty big enough to carry me. A wild stallion it was! Well she’d go a bit beyond walking pace if you kicked her real hard anyway.<\/p>\n

\"Awesome<\/a>
Awesome Bloke on Horse in front of Khafres Pyramid<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The first thing we did was ride up a hill where we could look over all the pyramids. Once I saw the view from up there I forgave both the hotel and the horse blokes for all their scheming. I wouldn’t have seen this view otherwise, and as the only person “stupid” enough that morning to be on horseback, I had it to myself as you can see.<\/p>\n

\"All<\/a>
All Nine Giza Pyramids<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

From there we rode down to Menkaure’s Pyramid. A note here. I’m mxing my spelling and terminology between what I heard on the day and what I found later on the net. Apologies to any Egyptologists professional and amateur for butchering your chosen field. His is the smallest of the three but it has loads of granite so it might just outlive the other two. Here’s a photo of me after a quick jog to the top:<\/p>\n

\"Awesome<\/a>
Awesome Bloke climbing back down from Menkaures Pyramid<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

and here’s another one which I think shows just how solidly and accurately it is put together. The modest size of Menkaures Tomb and its longevity got me wondering whether one couldn’t try and sell pyramids to the ludicrously wealthy as a way of achieving eartly immortality.<\/p>\n

\"Menkaures<\/a>
Menkaures Pyramid<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ladies and Gentlemen, the large pyramid in the foreground with the round ball at the apex is the PoshnBecks Pyramid, built here on the outskirts of Las Vegas in the early 21st century…<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Menkaures<\/a>
Menkaures Pyramid from Khafres Pyramid<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Menkaure’s Pyramid was probably my favourite, probably due to the lack of attention by other tourists. But, bigger is better they say, so off we rode to Khafre’s Pyramid, which had a few more people wandering around but was still mostly quiet. I climbed up a few steps and took this shot up the East face:<\/p>\n

\"Looking<\/a>
Looking up the East Face of Khafres Pyramid<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Limestone<\/a>
Limestone Hood of Khafres Pyramid<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It’s really hard to get a sense of scale without being there. For those of you in Adelaide, Khufu’s pyramid is 12 metres taller than Westpac House (the old State Bank Building for Luddites like me). The next picture is of some buses in front of Khafre’s Pyramid, which at 144m is only 8 metres taller.<\/p>\n

\"Buses<\/a>
Buses in front of Khafres Pyramid<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And finally you get to the big one.. It rises at a gentler angle so despite only being a few metres taller, it’s significantly bigger than Khafre’s<\/p>\n

\"Cheops<\/a>
Cheops Pyramid and box and bus<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There’s a boat in that box by the way. The big one also has loads of minor tombs and stuff around that are worth a look. Unfortunately, they’re not much good for photos as they are full of people. So this is the last Giza pyramid photo.<\/p>\n

\"Columns<\/a>
Columns in front of Cheops Pyramid<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Still to come, the Sphinx, Memphis, the Light ansd Soundd show and the Egyptian Museum.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

said Napoleon, “I saw myself founding a new Religion, Marching into Asia, Riding an Elephant, a Turban on my head and in my hand, the new Qu’ran.” I want what he’s having! Egypt hasn’t quite grabbed me like that yet, though I’ve only been here a few days so maybe it creeps up on you. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.konyagi.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.konyagi.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.konyagi.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.konyagi.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.konyagi.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.konyagi.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43,"href":"http:\/\/www.konyagi.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions\/43"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.konyagi.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.konyagi.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.konyagi.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}