Christmas at the Pyramids

A time for silly hats.

All day Egyptians wished us a ‘Merry Christmas!”.

In the morning we went to Memphis and Sakhara, seeing the mud huts and irrigated fields of rural Egypt for the first time.
 

irrigation canal

The most-photographed donkey in Egypt

The water-damaged alabaster Sphinx at Memphis

Restoration work at Memphis

I was trying to get a sense of the desert

 

More restoration work - the technology being used hadn't moved far from 3100 BC

 

I loved Sakhara and inevitably lapsed into school teacher tour guide mode, as when I raced around Djoser’s step pyramid to find his serdab. The stop at the rug-weaving workshop on the way to lunch was confronting. Seeing little kids hard at work didn’t inspire us to cough up $500 for something for the living room floor.

We saw some fine mastabas. Here is the deceased at his offering table.

Unas' causeway

Djoser's Step Pyramid complex

Djoser's serdab.

The remnant of Unas' pyramid

At Giza walking into the Great Pyramid was never an option for claustrophobic Lyn. She also, more reluctantly, decided that pregnancy and camel rides were not compatible. This meant we got to spend time walking around instead.

Lyn is probably running away from yet another ancient history lecture from me.

Our fellow tourists take advantage of the opportunity to ride camels.

Along the way we took the usual shots and then went to see Cheops’ reconstructed boat in its purpose-built museum. To see something so old, so beautiful and so neglected by the hordes, was a highlight of the trip for me.

Pharoah's boat

On the way back to the hotel we stopped at the papyrus workshop where we bought three souvenirs. Our favourite was a reproduction of the Meidum geese.

We had only a short rest before being taken to the railway station for our overnight train trip to Luxor. The train was French, which might explain why the coffee was excellent.