August 3, 2012 Retrospective in 2024
I knew we were in for a different experience when we arrived in Alexandria, Egypt. While I would have loved to spend time in that ancient city, it would have been criminal to have skipped Cairo and the pyramids if we were in Egypt. Speaking of criminals, an armed escort joined our buses and escorted us to the hotel in Cairo. What an introduction!
We stopped at the Saladin Citadel, built to protect the city from the Crusaders in 1176, but it was the seat of government for 700 years, including the reign of Mohammed Ali in the 19th century, who threw off the Ottoman yoke. Ali reconquered Egypt from the French, and founded a dynasty that ended with the overthrow of King Farouk’s son in 1953.
Cairo is a city of 22 million, but it’s really third world. Perhaps my view was colored by the garbage strike that occurred when we were there, but we were quartered in a five star hotel in sight of the pyramids. The swimming pool afforded great shots of the nearby pyramids.
We also went on a Nile cruise in the city, but the true piece de resistance is of course the pyramids of Giza. Once the tallest buildings in the world, the Pyramids have withstood weather and looting for 4,500 years. Built by slave labor to house the remains of the Pharaohs, the Pyramids have over 6 
million bricks, each about 2.5 tons each, moved without much technology. In front of the Pyramid sits the enigmatic Sphinx, human head, lion body. It apparently predates the Pyramids, but supposedly looks like one of the pharaohs buried at Giza.
What was most impressive to me was that, while close to Giza (Egypt’s third largest city, behind Cairo and Alexandria), if you look West, there’s almost nothing you can see until you get to the Atlantic Ocean.