Temples, Tombs, Museums & Pyramids

A panoramic view of the Giza Plateau. Click image for a closer look.

I'm back in NYC. Here's how I spent my last 3 days in Egypt:

Day 1 - Luxor, East Bank
- Karnak Temple
- Luxor Museum
- Luxor Temple
- Mummification Museum

Day 2 - Luxor, West Bank
Rented a bicycle and visited:
- Colossi of Memnon
- Medinat Habu
- Valley of the Kings
- Tombs of the Nobles

Day 3 - Cairo
- Pyramids of Giza
- The Great Sphinx
- Step Pyramid of Zoser

Everything was amazing, but the Mummification Museum was a waste of time and I should have skipped the Tombs of the Nobles because I was too burned out by the time I got there. Last week, when I was at the dig site at Abydos, I imagined I would post lots of pictures of all the sites I visited, but now that I'm going through my 1000+ pictures, I'm realizing that some serious editing is called for. It's already tedious enough to look at someone else's vacation photos.

There are simply too many pictures of the temples, and they are almost entirely details. If I posted any of those pictures, I wouldn't be able to adequately explain exactly what you're looking at. Both the Karnak and Luxor temples are too large to be captured on the ground with a point and shoot camera. I didn't take any photos inside any of the tombs or museums. That just leaves the pyramids, and everybody has already seen pictures of those. So here's a very small sample of some of my more interesting photographs of the Pyramids at Giza and Saqqara:

Details of the Great Pyramid of Khufu

Pyramid of Khafre
Detail of Khafre's original glistening limestone exterior which would have once covered the entire pyramid.

Pyramid of Mankaure

The Great Sphinx with the Pyramid of Khufu in the background.

Step Pyramid of Zoser, as seen during a violent dust storm in Saqqara.

Walk like an Egyptian

My work in Egypt is done, so I've left Abydos. But I'm not leaving yet. I still have 3 days to see the sights: Thursday & Friday in Luxor and Saturday in Cairo, before my return home to NYC on Sunday if I make it home alive. It really seems as if there is no law enforcement here with regards to traffic regulation. You can drive at night with no headlights, pedestrians routinely walk in the street instead of the sidewalk, EVERYONE honks their horns ALL THE TIME, and it's not completely uncommon to see a car going the wrong way down a one way street.

I shot this short little video while standing on the corner of a busy intersection in Cairo on my first day in Egypt. I was exploring the city by foot, and when I got to this highway, that was the boundary of my exploration since I was scared to cross the street. If you watch, you'll see a couple of Egyptian pedestrians walking through the heavy traffic with seemingly little regard for their safety. Now, after being here for a week and a half and having seen much worse in that time, this seems pretty tame.



I've since found much better examples of how crazy the traffic is, and I'll post a couple of those videos here, but I realize that none of these videos do any justice to the experience of actually trying to cross these streets in real life.





While in Luxor & Cairo, I have a lot on my agenda: the temples and museums of East Luxor, the tombs of West Luxor, and the Pyramids of Giza in Cairo. I will no longer have Internet access, so updates on the final part of my trip will be postponed until either Monday or Tuesday next week after I return home.

In Cairo

NOTE: I had trouble posting this when I first tried, but I got it to work a day later.  So the post date reflects the time I originally intended to publish it.

I arrived in Cairo late last night. We had some trouble at customs; we had a couple of 2-way radios which we weren't allowed to bring into the country, resulting in a 3 hour delay. I didn't get to my hotel room until nearly 3:30 AM.

After a short night's sleep, the plan was to rise early and head out to Giza to see the pyramids. We hired a van, which ended up being delayed by a very unfortunate hour. During that delay, I received a phone call which required me to stay at the hotel and await further instructions regarding the retrieval of our confiscated radios. The rest of the team continued with their trip, but since the baggage was all registered under my name, I got stuck with the responsibility of staying behind to help sort it all out.

So, instead of pictures of the Sphinx and the Great Pyramids, I present to you the view of Cairo from my hotel:


I especially like the large satellite dishes perched atop the crumbling brick.

P.S. I will still get to see the pyramids on my final day in Egypt, when I return to Cairo.