We met our tour guide, Yasir and driver, Mustafa today. They drove us to the capitol city, Memphis. Yasir invited us to have Egyptian tea with him. It is loose tea at the bottom of the glass, and you add mint and sugar.
Within the first hour we were in Memphis, I spotted my friend Rachelle's parents who were also in Egypt! What are the chances of that?
Seeing these beautiful Egyptian hieroglyphics was so cool! Memphis was one of the ancient Egyptian Capitols until around 2,200 BC which was a cult center for God Ptah, God of Creation and artwork. There were many temples and monuments dedicated to him.
This huge statue of a pharaoh was found in a deep river.
This was a pyramid in Saqqara. It was surrounded by an ancient city. This temple belonged to King Zoser and is called the step pyramid and is considered the first pyramid in Egypt and the first rock cut building in the history.
This was the temple of the priests.
We went down into the pyramid and saw these beautiful writings on the walls. Going down deep into the pyramid was so amazing. We had to duck once we were all the way in some of the time.
Our tour guide, Yasir was so great about teaching us the history of each place we went to.
We ate our lunch of pita bread, tahini, baba ganoush and yogurt with stuffed grape leaves and kebab.
In Egypt, they ask if you want Chicken or Meat. They don't really distinguish the difference of meat...I always got the chicken.
We then went to a papyrus maker and were taught how papyrus is made. Pretty amazing.
We bought a papyrus with cartouches. We had the lady draw our names with hieroglyphics of each family member.
From there, we went to Giza where the most famous pyramids are. Of course our tour guide had us take popular touristy pictures.
Giza has 3 pyramids that belonged to 3 Kings; King Cheops, King Chephren, and King Menkaure which are guarded by the rock cut statue of The Sphinx. The great Pyramid of King Cheops is the only wonder of the seven wonders of the ancient world that is still standing today, although it is 2,000 years older than any other wonder on the list.
Here is a good view of the King's Pyramid with his wives smaller pyramids on the side.
We took a camel ride right by the pyramids of Giza and I wanted to pinch myself since it didn't seem real. WOW, such an amazing memory. We even looked like Egyptians, haha!
I could not stop laughing watching Regan's camel go up and down. SO amazing.
We then went to see the Sphinx.
We ended our first night in Cairo with a Nile Dinner Cruise. We ate delicious food, drank amazing Egyptian Lemonade and sailed on the Nile. We even got to watch a belly dancer and a guy who span around at least 1,000 times without falling.
What a magical first day in EGYPT!!!
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