A trip to Africa would not be complete without seeing the pyramids….the ONLY surviving testament to the 7 Ancient Wonders of the World. So we headed north to Egypt….

I just knew the trip had run too smooth… and my intuition proved true. After landing in Cairo and spending 3 hours searching for our luggage … and then filing “lost”reports, we headed for the hotel. The drive there was CRAZY! I’ve survived Bali, Paris, and even Rio, but this traffic was horrendous. In addition, the streets are full of trash, most buildings look like ruins, and everything is dirty, old and dusty from the Sahara desert sand in the air. BUT you gotta remember …there’s lots of treasures here up to 5,000 years old… that’s 3,000 years Before Christ. Today, 90% of the 23 million people living in Cairo are Muslim…so you see lots of men wearing flip flops and robes (that’s their casual wear… like our jogging suits) and women totally covered in black except their eyes. With over 90,000 mosques, there’s one on every corner. 10% of the population is Christian with 2,200 churches, and there are only a couple of hundred Jewish folks with 22 synagogues.

A high level of security is everywhere. Dogs sniffed all around the car every time we entered the hotel. We never left the hotel without Omar, our local escort and guide. We stayed at the Marriott Mena at the foot of the 2 largest pyramids and and our room had a fabulous view. The first thing Omar did upon arrival was give us three brochures to read as “homework”… the first was the life story of Mohammed, 2nd was a comparison of Islam to Christianity, and the 3rd one was VERY interesting. It stated that it’s a “media” myth that Muslim woman are treated inferior to man… in fact it goes into great detail as to why that is NOT true. Didn’t convince me, especially after a few days of watching the culture first hand, but I’m a strong believer in freedom of religion…so to each, his own.

Ancient Egyptians adamantly believed that afterlife was more important than their first life on earth- and everything they did during their lifetime was based on their dream of immortality. They believed it was more important to preserve their tombs than their palaces, so palaces were built of mud bricks and the tombs were made with limestones. They thought the king was equal to a God.

The Egyptians were brilliant people…for example, they invented the first calendar…and amazingly it lists not only the horoscope signs, but month, days and time that we still live by today. There were 31 dynasties over a period of the 2800 years BC. The first 500 years are referred to as the Old Kingdom and included 6 dynasties. The idea of a pyramid shape tomb (to reflect the way the suns rays shine down on earth) didn’t come along until Pharaoh (King) Sakkara in the 3rd dynasty saw a vision. We traveled outside of Cairo several miles into the desert to see his and his son’s attempts at building a “pyramid” shaped tomb. The first attempt is referred to as the Step pyramid. Now remember to put this in prospective… this was the 3rd dynasty 2800 BC ….almost 5,000 years ago. It has several levels of stone, each level smaller than the first, thus the name “step” pyramid. There were 10 people of royalty buried here, whereas all the other 150 tombs that have been discover as of today, only had one body. This first one had a maze of tunnels and rooms inside, as well as 40,000 jars made of stone inside. This Pharaoh’s son built a slightly smaller one next to his fathers . Remember from the beginning, the Egyptian people believed you must “mummify” the body (a process that took over 2 months and left only the heart and kidneys inside) AND put everything you used in your “real” life (jewels, beer, wine, furniture, clothes, chariots, etc) in the tombs with you to help you cross over into your immortal life. We saw several mummies and even the hair was still intact.😝

The Great Pyramids of Giza that you see on postcards today were built in 2500 BC by the 4th Dynasty of Cheops (or Khufu). These are a truly remarkable site to see! It’s so hard to imagine how they were ever built. The largest is

455 ft high. It took 20,000 men over 30 years to build and it consists of 3 million stones, weighing 2-1/2 tons each on the average, but some up to 30 tons. The second pyramid was smaller built by the son, and third even smaller, built by the grandson. The Sphinx was carved from a huge limestone, with the body of a lion and head of man and is the Guardian of all the kings’ tombs.

After the 500 years and 6 dynasties, the economy collapsed and for the next 200 years (the Middle Kingdom 2300-2100 BC which included dynasties 7-17), there were multiple civil wars and starvation was wide spread ….and most of the tombs were robbed. Finally, around 2000 BC, the New Kingdom began and lasted thru the 20th dynasty. Luxor became the capital of New Kingdom and no more pyramids were built.

We went to see the “solar” boat which is said to be the oldest boat in the world…estimated to have been built in 2600 BC. When it was discovered in 1952, it was in 42 pieces. It took them 28 years from 1954-1982 to reconstruct it. The Solar Boat was originally constructed with ropes only…no glue, nails, etc and they had hauled the cedar all the way from Lebanon… remember this is a desert!

It was simply a “picnic” boat, (but has the chair for the King) …not designed to sail the Nile … was only to be used for go from death to immortality…that’s why it was buried next to the pyramid.

Another visit we made was to a papyrus shop, where we learned how the first paper in the world was made. I didn’t realize all those reeds we had seen growing in the Delta were the Papyrus plant. And, since I’m not a big National

Geographic tv watcher, I also learned for the first time about the amazing discovery in 2013 of the papyrus papers that show in great detail exactly how the pyramids were built 4800 years ago…and dispelled the myth that the pyramids were built by slaves . Over 20,000 workers’ names and payroll journals document that they were paid partly in cash and partly in wheat, ducks, bread, etc.

As history continued…after Cleopatra ruled in 30 BC .. and the Romans invaded Egypt… they became a part of the Roman Empire. We visited the “”Hanging Church” in Coptic City where Baby Jesus and Holy family hid. After 313 AD, the Christians were no longer prosecuted by Romans. While in this area, we also went inside the oldest Synagogue in Egypt…

Located in the area where Moses was picked up from the basket in the water and also came later to pray… originally it was a church and later converted to synagogue.

You might not be familiar with Egypt’s more recent history, and why there are not more Jews and Christians living there. In 1956 all foreigners including Jews were ordered to leave the country… the companies were nationalized… the government took over the land too and divided it among the farmers. This led to economic crisis. Then in

1966, Israel defeated Egypt and several other Arabic countries and took their land. It wasn’t until 1982 when they signed a Peace Treaty at Camp David with Jimmy Carter present that they got their land back.

We were privilege to be 2 of the 50 “tourists” per day allowed to visit the restoration center for the new museum (and the construction site) that was started in 2002 and us scheduled to open late next year. The security was VERY tight and we were required to wear hard hats. The new museum will only cover up to Roman times and will have 17 galleries showing over 50,000 pieces (30,000 never seen by the public). It will be 90,000 sq ft and twice the size of The Louvre. The cost is well over &2 billion. It will house all of the pieces found in the King Tut tomb. You probably remember King Tut … the boy who became king at 9 and died of a rare bone disease combined with malaria …and may have even fallen from his chariot. There are 17 different restoration labs, and we were only allowed in 3 of them. We saw items never shown in public! Hard to wrap your mind around something that old.

And of course there was belly dancing during our cruise in the Nile….

Well if you’re still with me and I haven’t bored you to death, I’ll end the journal of my trip to Africa by saying… yes, our bags showed up the 3rd day in Egypt…yes, we had another amazing adventure, seeing and learning a lot, and yes, I’m glad to be home with my loved ones whom I missed dearly.

Here’s to eating some Mexican food real soon😜