Day 4: Tuesday, the Giza Plateau

Up at 5:00 AM because my CPAP cut off (so I couldn't breathe), because the power in our room was out, because the government unexpectedly cut power to the area. Sheesh! I was able to doze by propping up my head with my airplane pillow.

Up (for real this time) at 7 and on the bus at 8, so we could drive out to the -

PYRAMIDS!

On the drive over, Ihab gave us some backstory about the pharaohs who built the Pyramids, and then warned us about the vendors. This was the first day we went to a big outdoor tourist attraction, and we were in no way ready for the vendors. They were on us like plaid on a Scotsman.

When we arrived at the plateau, we ran around like fools taking pictures in every direction. It was impossible to fit the whole Great Pyramid into the frame of my camera!





They don't let you climb up it anymore, but you can go right up to it. Each block is almost as tall as me,



and there are around 2 million of them in this enormous, pointy pile.

We were on a tight schedule at this point, so we didn't have the opportunity to go in the pyramid right then, but we were coming back later in the morning. However, there were already lots of people waiting to go in:





The thing I think is interesting is that tourists today don't go in the original entrance - that's the one higher up on the side, with the pretty pointed framing stones. It has actually never been opened. Tourists go in an entrance that thieves knocked in the side sometime in the ninth century AD.

While taking pictures around the plateau, I saw a tourist cop on his camel:


Sometimes folks get weird about having their picture taken, so I was a long way back. Later, I saw the same fellow and he encouraged me to take his picture.



Then he hit me up for a tip. I must have "Sucker" printed across my forehead!