Thursday, June 9—Egypt

I take it back…today was the best day of my life!! I got to see my third of the Seven Wonders of the World! I’ve been to the Grand Canyon, the Great Wall, and now the Egyptian Pyramids of Giza! Enduring the Sahara Desert’s 105 degree weather we visited the three most famous and most intact of the 110 pyramids still standing in Egypt. They were magnificent! The Great Pyramid was built as the tomb for Pharaoh Khufu. It’s big enough to fit 6 Empire State buildings inside it, and it was the tallest structure until the Eiffel Tower surpassed it in height. The second largest pyramid was built for Pharaoh Khafre. The famous sphinx, meaning the image of in Greek, was built in front of the second pyramid for the same pharaoh. The last and smallest of the three was built for Pharaoh Menkaure. All of them were built 4500 years ago! It is believed that the Great Flood from Genesis was 100 years after the building of the pyramids. Abraham lived another four hundred years later and likely saw these same pyramids when he and Sarai came to Egypt in Genesis 12. Joseph was sold into slavery 3700 years ago, and then the story of Moses was probably around 1200 BC. Each stone on the pyramid is between 3 and 12 tons in weight, and many were taller than me. It is suspected that they were brought to the pyramids by boat from 25 miles away.

Crazy Right?!

When we first got out of the bus to start looking around we were bombarded by camel riders and souvenir vendors. They were all very friendly, and awfully persistent. They would ask us to take a picture of them with their camels or to take a picture for us and then charge us for their service. Some of our group got suckered into their money making schemes, but others of us were just as persistent as they were!

The pyramids were built in a triangular shape to represent their god Rah, the sun god. Just as the sun will rise to the middle of the sky each day and then fall into the ground, the pyramid rose to a point and then fell back to the ground. Then they believed that the sun would go underground throughout the night in the same pattern, to a point in the earth and back up again to be ready to rise the next day. So if they buried the pharaoh in the center of the pyramid beneath the earth then he would be given his afterlife.

Ya...I'm that strong!!

The pyramid on the back of our dollar bill is how the Egyptian pyramids used to look. They were far smoother than they are today, and the top section was gold plated so it would shine in the sun as though it were the sun god itself. Unfortunately, the gold was stolen thousands of years ago, and one of Cairo’s rulers in the 19^th Century had many of the stones taken from the pyramid to be used for his mosque and his palace. The treasuries in these pyramids were likely looted even before Abraham came to Egypt, which is why finding King Tutankhamen’s tomb completely intact was such an important historical find to understand how the tombs were furnished.



Alabaster Mosque



Enough about the pyramids. We went from there to ride camels!! What a super fun experience! Our group rode camels from one particular family, so we had small children up to old men as our guides. A precious 14 year old boy named Matsuphma skillfully led my camel through the desert. The best feeling was when the camel stood up for the first time and I towered over everyone and everything…loved it! The rest of the ride was just like riding a horse. This was definitely a highlight of mine!



So after the camel rides we made one more memory of the pyramids by going down inside the smallest one! We saw where the sarcophagus was and other storage for all the burial treasures, but otherwise it was pretty empty. We didn’t realize we weren’t supposed to take pictures down there…oops.



I hope we didn't offend anyone!



After a lovely lunch on the Nile River we went to Saint Sargius Church that which is believed to be the place where Jesus and his family lived after fleeing to Egypt to escape Herod’s baby massacre. We couldn’t go down to see it, but the church was one of the first used in Egypt, so it was set up with a Holy of Holies, just like the Old Testament had instructed for a house of God. About 100 yards from there was Ben Ezra Synagogue which could have been the place where Jesus would have worshipped for the first few years of his life. We then went to the Alabaster Mosque that was built by and for Egypt’s leader from 1805-1849, Muhammad Ali. As we were entering they required that I use one of their prayer robes because my knees were showing. For $1, or 5 Egyptian pounds, Joanna and I were able to get some pretty awesome looking pictures inside!



Our final stop for the day was a Papyrus Museum to see how it was made. Again we were completely exhausted from another packed day. Believe it or not, I went to sleep at 8:30!! That’s unheard of!