2 p.m. Sunday: A camel! I am sitting astride a camel, about to ride from the Great Pyramid down to the Sphinx. My camel's name is Whiskey and Soda and he does not seem to like me, although I think he'll come around.
2:15 p.m.: The camel definitely does not like me.
2:20 p.m.: Whiskey and Soda mercifully drops me off at the entrance to the Sphinx.
Wow. People are thronging the entrance and there's a KFC and a Pizza Hut across the street, but that doesn't take away from the sight (
photo).
Khafre (who also built the second pyramid at Giza) had the enormous Sphinx built in his image around 2500 B.C. Visitors from all over the world are here, clamoring for the best angle for photos.
People have been coming here for more than 4,000 years to pay homage to Khafre in one way or another.
4 p.m.: From the Sphinx it's a short way south to the recently discovered workers' village (
photo), where the people who built the Pyramids and the Sphinx lived and died.
National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Zahi Hawass, head of Egypt's antiquities program, and fellow Egyptologist Mark Lehner have partially excavated this area. They've uncovered
part of a vast royal complex that contained bakeries, paved streets, and what may be a huge dormitory for the rotating force of temporary workers. An estimated 20,000 to 30,000 workers took 80 years to build the Pyramids at Giza, and they had to live and die (
photo) somewhere.
Looking around now,
it's hard to imagine the workers here. A soccer field covers part of the area, and backfilled sand covers much that's been excavated, at least until the next archaeological field season gets under way this winter.
8 p.m.: Tonight, after yet another shower, dinner is on a ship plying the Nile—the same river that Egyptians used as their highway more than 4,000 years ago.
They certainly wouldn't recognize it now. Bridges span the water, houses and hotels line the shores, and a floating T.G.I. Friday's and other restaurants light up the banks with neon signs.
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