It’s such an iconic view.
I think I had a book when I was a child with pictures of the pyramids, probably an encyclopaedia or something like that. And then there’s the documentaries and the movies, but nothing really fully prepared me for seeing them for the first time. That was actually from the cab on the way to our hotel at about 2am.
One poked out through the city skyline for about 30seconds and I spent the rest of the journey looking for it again. I chose our hotel based on the view from the rooftop terrace. Just in case we were too exhausted to actually do anything when we got there, at least we could drink coffee and sit and stare at the pyramids.
We did do this a lot in the short time we had there. So we’d seen them from a distance, and experienced beautiful things like the evening call to prayer over them in the darkness when the main complex is closed.
I knew that the city was build right up to the pyramids, but the complex itself still has 3 bus stations around it so you can see everything without hiking for days or travelling by camel.
The entrance hall was chaos tbh and Mohammad showed us a few of the artefacts one of which was the tools used to move the stones around to build the structures.
We got on the first bus to the first stop.
This is where everyone was taking photos, jumping, holding the pyramids, doing all the optical illusion photos you can get from a distance.
The view from here was breathtaking and you can see the 3 main pyramids, the same ones we could see from our terrace, but in a timeless desert panorama, peppered with lines of camels moving slowly through the dunes in the distance, the city on the horizon.
I would have liked more time to just sit and stare here, but we did all the photo things and then got back on the bus to the next station.
They’re incredibly old, remarkable and everywhere you turn there are iconic views. I don’t remember much of the detail (any of the detail) about the different kings etc. Only one of them you can still go inside, but there wasn’t time. We sat by one of them, The Great Pyramid I think and just took it in for a while. There’s a ‘little palace for the king’ where the last king of Egypt used to hang out.
It was nice to just sit and drink it in for a minute before heading down to the sphinx.
We got on the bus down to the Sphinx Station and then walked back down into the sandy valley, which was lined with shops selling silks and carvings, genie lamps and papyrus, incense and Coca-Cola. We wound through the people to a series of tall antechambers at the foot of the sphinx. We couldn’t see it from there and Mohammad told us that this was the area that the bodies were prepared for mummification, various body parts put in various jars etc.
The sphinx faces the New Kingdom Sphinx Temple, which was used primarily for funeral rites. Most of it has gone now and what remains is a series of chambers similar to the body parts bit. We walked round the corner and up the hill and all of a sudden were right next to the shpinx.
Apparently there are images dating back to the 1500s with the nose already missing. It’s suggested Pharoah Khufu or one of his sons was the face of the sphinx, on the body of a lion, representing strength.
How the face got damaged isn’t really known but it’s believed it was possible invaders of Egypt attacking the monuments. Not Aladdin and Jasmin distracting the sculptor, although no one really knows to be fair.
By this time the sun was setting and the light on the back of the statue was stunning. People all around
were queuing to get photos, near and far in every direction.
The last thing we did before leaving the complex was walk back round to the front of the sphinx the other side of the temple and look back up the valley, with the pyramids behind the statue. Such an iconic view it’s hard to believe you’re really there sometimes.
All in all an amazing day.
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