The OTHER Pyramids

As our first day approaches (finally!?!) we took one last opportunity to go exploring around our area. Instead of hitting up the more famous, and far more crowded pyramids of Giza, we decided to go a little further south and see some the lesser known, but still very impressive, tombs. Admittedly, we are now even more excited about seeing The Great Pyramids of Giza, because these were pretty great, and it makes me appreciate how grand they must be to be termed 'great'.

Our first stop was to Saqqara, Egypt's largest archeological site, covering nearly seven square kilometres - one French archeologist spent an astonishing 75 years here!! What Saqqara is, is a massive grave yard of ancient Memphis, once thought to be the capital of ancient Egypt for a time.

The centre piece of Saqqara is the Step Pyramid. It is considered to be the earliest stone built monument in the world - it is thought to have been constructed in 2650 BC!!

The Step Pyramid

From just north of the Step Pyramid, the Great Pyramids of Giza (the famous ones) can be seen in the distance.

As part of the funeral complex, we were able to go into one of the crypts where we came across these hyroglyphics which I am pretty sure say, "Learning to read is fun so we can read to learn!"

From Saqqara, we drove a little further south to Memphis, the ancient capital. Not much remains of the place, but the open air museum is built around the huge fallen statue of Ramses II, one of the most ruthless and successful(?) leaders of antiquity.

Massive limestone statue of Ramses II.

From Memphis, it was a short drive a little further south to the sites of the Red Pyramid and the Bent Pyramid. Building upon the success of the Step Pyramid, ancient architects wanted to build a smooth faced pyramid. Their first attempt was the Bent Pyramid, which given away by its name, didn't quite live up to their hopes as they had to change the angle to get it finished. Their next attempt was far more successful, and the huge Red Pyramid is considered the oldest 'true' pyramid.

The Red Pyramid - too big even to fit in the picture!


Inside the Red Pyramid - hard to see, but truly something to experience. Staring up into, and standing underneath, thousands of pounds of ancient rock carved perfectly to right angles. How'd they do that?

Looking back over the desert at The Red Pyramid.

The tiny Bent Pyramid!!

Kidding, it is huge!

The interesting thing about this Bent Pyramid, is not only its shape, but that it is one of the last remaining pyramids with it's some of its smoothness intact. At just about everywhere else, including The Great Pyramids, the limestone used to create these smooth sides was removed for the building of ancient Cairo!

Next up - SCHOOL!!!

With more time, you get PICTURES!!

The incredibly busy summer that has just passed still seems as though it was just yesterday. But with so much having happened, it also seems like it was years ago I was saying good-bye to the students of St. Andrew's and the family and friends I love so much!

So with this little added time before I begin my school year, here are just a few of the thousands of pictures from the amazing wedding right up until the diving trip in the Red Sea over the weekend - get out those atlases, find the Red Sea, and it will be easy to figure out this is a great area for diving for many reasons!

Husband and wife!!

Taking a little time to ourselves in our getaway boat!!

Honeymoon travels!

Gone - 4 years in the making, 15 minutes of shaving!!

Sunset on the Nile!

Front gate of my new school - Canadian International School of Cairo

Our street.

Headed out into the desert to get to the Red Sea

There it is!! The Red Sea!

Not too shabby! Beautiful dive spot with coral reaching up 30 metres to get to the surface!

There were some pictures being taken under water, and hopefully I can get my hands on them to share with you. They won't do the diving experience any justice, but they are fun to share at least.

Take care. Peace.

The first of many as we wait!

The whirlwind that was my summer - getting married, a honeymoon, watching my brother get married, packing, cutting my hair (!?!) and then lifting off to Cairo - has slowed considerably since arriving in Egypt. Which is probably a good thing, actually it is definitely a good thing, as we adjust to life in an ancient culture very different from ours at home.

The big slowdown has been as a result of Ramadan - a very important time in the lives of Muslims around the world as they fast from sun-up to sun-down and reflect on a year that has passed. We were originally supposed to start August 29 and then take a short break around now, as the end of Ramadan approached - a time of feasting and celebrating, as I am sure you could imagine after a month without food or water during daylight hours!! However, the Education ministry decided that school should not take place during Ramadan, and therefore pushed the start date back to the 13th. But again, the ministry thought about it, and has now decided that the date for school to begin should be the 19th of September to allow families adequate time to return from holidays and prepare for the start of a new school year.

I wonder how that would go over in Canada?

To those of you who are so inclined, you may notice the start dates I mentioned are Sundays - the work week in most of the Muslim world is Sunday to Thursday, with Friday and Saturday serving as the weekend. It is something all the new folks are still trying to figure out, and we've been told that as soon as we start refering to the days correctly, we are finally at home in our new country - it is a strange thing to wake up on a Tuesday, think it is Wednesday, find out it is Tuesday, and then realise, no big deal, still only two days of work left!!

The time so far has included a lot of rest, a lot of water (it is hot here even apparently by Egyptian standards) and a couple of adventures. One of the first things we did was take a fellucca (an ancient sailboat) ride on the Nile for a sunset cruise. It was really quite something to be on the historical waters of the Nile - so much of life in Egypt is determined by the Nile and here we are, a group of Canadian teachers just cruising along as if it was anywhere in the world. But it wasn't anywhere, it was the Nile! And it was pretty awe-inspiring. For the next adventure we headed out on was a diving expedition to the Red Sea. A truly remarkable experience where we got to swim with so many sea creatures and even down to a couple of sunken ships. Awesome! Pictures just could never do justice to the experience.

Speaking of pictures....

As this is my first post from Egypt, it is rather bare, but I hope to spruce things up as the days and weeks go by with pictures (inlcuding that awesome wedding!!) and more stories from my time here. Thanks for reading and following along, I hope it is something you enjoy reading as much as I enjoy writing about!

Until next time - PEACE.