Pics: Pyramids are Huge...

In Egypt!

So i've arrived in Egypt... beautiful flight from London... got there at night; dear friend, Salma, picked me up at airport!! such an amazing blessing from God. Took me to the PYRAMIDS my 1st day here!!! We rode a camel (when that camel gets up you rock crazily to the right, then to the left, or front/back - but i was sitting side-saddle, so it was right/left for me... i was wearing a skirt; i wouldn't recommend that. i was given a marriage proposal; offered 20 camels, and he said he was a good man who would be happy with lots of wives. ha!! :) i declined, in case you're wondering. [Pyramid 'spelunking' adventure below:]



Then we went to a family meal/reunion... its ramadan here for the month, so fasting (no food/water/gum/anything) from sunrise to sunset... then you can feast! i fasted w/ them for a day; it was hard not to drink anything, esp water when we were out in the desert!) They broke their fast at 6pm with cool water!!!! a yummy grape-juice looking flower hybiscus(?) drink, and dates... then some great food.

My wish list for Egypt includes: 1) see the pyramids (check!) 2) float down the Nile like baby Moses 3) go camping out in the desert/see a sunset/starts/sunrise/ride a camel thru desert for a little to get out to where we camp... i don't know if i'm making that up/like if they have that as a tourist attraction here, but we'll see. 4) go snorkeling/scuba in the Red Sea... hmm, we'll see if i can get out there. i've heard the fish are BEAUTIFUL. 5) Go to a market and try to bargain in Arabic (ha!! i think my friends here will help me with that!!)
Egypt is kind of what i expected; hot, dry weather, sun is WARM on skin, good to have a hat!! Amazing surprise - they drive on the same side of the road as the U.S.; so i saw the steering wheel back on the left!!!! I haven't seen that since i traveled to New Zealand back in March!!! (NZ, Austral, India, HongK, S.Africa, Moz, Kenya... all drive on the other side; with steering wheels over on the right! I drove in 3 of those countries - lots of fun!!!) The buildings here are what you would maybe picture in the Middle East; square buildings, all tanish color; nice roads, crazy driving (but the driver's are talented at what they do); the pyramids are RIGHT outside of town!!! You can see them from the major highway!! 


Camels are better for the desert than horses (we rode in a carriage attached to a poor horse, whipped along by its 'master', even thru the sand! i felt really bad for it, we were heavy!!! it reminded me of the israelites in slavery as we drove around the pyramids). Does anyone know if the israelites built or helped build the pyramids? It says in Exodus 1:11 that "they built Pithom and Ramses as store cities for Pharaoh." so i don't know if they built the pyramids. My egyptian friend said egyptian slaves did.

At any rate, the pyramids are HUGE, and i sure wouldn't want to build them... the stones are up to my hip, and that long, and 3 feet (or a meter) deep!!! i tried to push one. it didn't budge. :) We paid a few Egyptian pounds (1:5 ratio for US $) to go down inside of one of the big ones... that was a scary experience. 


I've never been clostraphobic before (i've been belly-crawling thru tight spaces in caves) but there was something different about this one... maybe the thought that there is NO OTHER OPENING inside of this thing, and that TONS AND TONS and MORE TONS of really heavy rock are built up on top of me, and i have a nice imagination. 


We walked down 90 steps at an angle in a long small tunnel; you had to bend over in half to fit, and when you reached your hands out to either side, you hit the HARD granite (?) walls.... Down Down Down you go, and the air! It gets hotter and damper and stinkier as you go; imagine going into a ski rental shop; and renting some boots... do you know that nasty mildewy smell in EVERY rental boot? That's what the WHOLE cavern smelled like. I thought, this air is so already-breathed, nasty, CO2, i'm probably going to pass out and someone will have to carry me out. God, please keep me not passed out!!! 


We got down to an area where you could stand up, but i had to tell myself DO NOT PANIC, KEEP BREATHING, THE AIR IS FINE, IT HAS ENOUGH OXYGEN FOR YOUR BODY to live and keep functioning!! (that's when it stinks to be a biology teacher, b/c you know about cellular respiration & why you need O2 to live) then we had to bend over again and head UP an incline this time, maybe 90 more steps and then it opened up into a big TOMB. 


It had the stone casket where the Pharoah was buried and was just a big, empty room. (probably 30 ft high, by 50 ft long, by 20 ft deep) I could just imagine Indiana Jones movies, or childhood book "Adventures of the Tombs of Anak" by Frank Peretti... and the thoughts of what would i do if i was stuck in here, with the door sealed off??? i don't think Magyver (how do you spell his name?) could get out of here. There's a lot of pyramid on top of it. Sheesh.

Well, we got safely back out. Whew!!! I know you were wondering. :) And boy did breathing in that SWEET FRESH AIR sure TASTE yummy. Yes, it did taste! It was like drinking some wonderful wonderful pure sweet delightful drink!!! My whole body was happy!
Ok, that's all for the pyramids. They're really cool. And so big! Check out the picture w/ people standing next to them. See how big they are? Oh, and there's a sign on them that says, 'No climbing.' I wonder if anyone has? Like at night, or something, with a headlamp. Wouldn't that be something? Not that i would try it, i think i would be chicken, unless i was harnessed into a helicopter up above. Then, maybe i would try it. :)