Sakkara is best known for the Step Pyramid, the oldest known of Egypt's 97 pyramids. It was built for King Zoser in 2650 BC by the pharaoh’s architect Imhotep, who designed it and its surrounding complex to be as grand as it was unique and revolutionary. Imhotep was the first to build stone tombs in honor of the king's majesty.

Sakkara is also famous for its private Old Kingdom tombs which contain beautiful and revealing scenes: men force- feeding geese, cattle crossing a canal, men dragging a statue on a sled to the tomb. The best-known tombs are those of Ti, Kagemni, the 'Two Brothers', and Ptahhotep; the most famous is that of Meruruka.

Previously tombs were made of perishable materials. They were underground rooms topped with mud brick mastabas. Imhotep decides to stack up the mastabas to make a step pyramid using hewn stone.

This new pyramid rose 6 stories to a height of 60m and was encased in white limestone. The pyramid is surrounded by a funerary complex. There a re 14 false doors for the pharaoh’s ka to move between the rooms. The ka is the spirit, it is believed the spirit would need food and drink in the after life so there were chambers built to house the offerings to the ka. Later drawings of these offerings were carved/painted on the walls of the tombs. (They probably figured out the spirit could not eat real food.)

You enter the complex through the southern corner, via a vestibule. There are 40 columns that resemble the papyrus, a sacred plant. The great south court is flanked with cobras; which represent the goddess Wadjet, a fire spitting protector of the pharaoh. The cobra always was displayed on the headdress of the pharaoh. You can stand up here and see the entire complex.

The wind today was howling and not the perfect day for a camel ride but Maggie really wanted to ride one. This was going to be her only chance in Egypt. Mike and I ran into some friends and chatted with them for a few minutes and noticed Mary standing near the camel jockeys with one of the jockey’s cloak on and Maggie hiding inside. I laughed and joined them, I asked the jockey how much for a ride and no sooner did I finish asking when he and all is friends started shedding their clothes and placing them on me. ARGH!

The cloak was absolutely disgusting with sand, snot (both human and camel), and I am sure several other nasty things on it. The camel was perfectly content sitting on the ground and did not want to go into the wind any more than I did. Maggie was thrilled. They loaded me on first and then Maggie. I have never been on a camel before and hopefully never will again. The camel got up and you felt like you were going to fly off the back. Maggie wanted to hold the pommel of the saddle leaving me to hold on to her. Nope, not happening, so she put her hands on top of mine. The wind made it impossible to open your eyes so the two of us roamed around with our eyes closed not seeing anything.

I asked her several times if she had enough and she said no, finally I told the jockey, Ramadan, to turn this camel around.

The camels are called “Ships of the Desert”, with my eyes closed I fully understood this, as you all know I get motion sick pretty easily. So as I am swaying back in force, smelling camel, and my body as tense as can be I could not wait to get of this ship.

As I look back at the photos taken it looks like Maggie was not thrilled either. The camel sits back down and I feel like I am going to get thrown over the front. I am desperately trying not to crush Maggie.

I asked Maggie what she learned about camels; Mary suddenly slowed her pace to walk with Mike and said “I learned that if you ride a camel, you smell like a camel. Mike and Mary are having a field day with this little adventure as we can hear them cackling behind us.

Well we cannot get back into the taxi smelling like this so we are forced to keep walking in the sandstorm. In the middle there is a “field” where the pharaoh had to prove his ability to continue to reign. The race was part of the 30th Jubilee Festival or Heb-Sed. You can walk all around the step pyramid and in the back you can see the Serdab, a stone structure that contains two drill wholes. You look inside these holes and can see a statue of Zoser himself. Pretty cool.

We then headed over to the tomb of Teti, he was the 1st pharaoh of the 6th dynasty. You can go inside this one and see the color used to create the hieroglyphics. The scenes range from a funerary ship carrying the dead to ploughing of fields and harvesting crops, as well as children playing.

One of these days Mike and I will learn enough to translate al the scenes we see. For now we rely on the local Egyptians who make baksheesh (tip, money) off the tourists.

The Pyramids of Dahshour

Dahshour is one of the most important cemeteries, which belonged to the vast necropolis of the great Ancient Egyptian capital of Memphis.

Located about 30Km to the south of the Giza Pyramids, and in the southern wing of Saqqara, this area contains Pyramids of the IV and the XII Dynasties.

In fact the great King Snefru (2680-2656 B.C), the founder of the IV Dynasty, was the first to choose the area to build his royal tomb, as it was close to the capital, Memphis.

He first built the southern Pyramid, or what we call today the Bent Pyramid. The architect actually made a mistake when building this Pyramid, not realizing it until the height reached about 48m (with an angle of 54 degrees). He changed his original plans to make it safer and finished it by modifying the angle to just 43 degrees! And that is the reason behind the strange shape of this Pyramid and why, today, it is called the Rhomboid or Bent Pyramid.

This is the Bent pyramid from a distance with a great deal of pollution.


The Southern (Bent) Pyramid of Dashur was built of local limestone and cased with fine, Turah limestone. It is about 101m in height while the length of each side is 188.6m.

About 2Km away to the north of the Southern Pyramid, another Pyramid was built for King Snefru. This time his architect avoided all the previous mistakes by following the same angle from bottom to top - 43 degrees, and in doing so created the first, perfect, complete Pyramid in history. This became the “blueprint” for all the Pyramids, which appeared during the IV, V, and VI Dynasties. It is known as the Northern Pyramid because of its location, and the Red Pyramid, as the builders had used a very special kind of rosette limestone to built the inner burial chamber. It is 99m in height, and each side of the base is 220m in length.


A steep, 60m long, passage leads down to the 1st chamber, which is in turn connected to the 2nd chamber by a low, rectangular passageway. Both of these chambers are about the same size, with high walls, and a corbeled ceiling. At the far end of the 2nd chamber is the entrance to the burial chamber; a wooden ladder takes you up to the entrance, which is about 8m above the floor level, and a wooden bridge spans the burial chamber itself.

So down we climb. We saw was a large dug basement! Maggie kept asking if King Tut lived here. She really is too precious. I told her no and she said she came all the way to Egypt to see where King Tut lived. So up we climb...

It was pretty high.
There was a little walk way that opened up to a chamber that would have held the tomb. It smelled like ammonia trying (and failing miserably) to kill a bodily fluid smell. We need no like the smell at all.
So back up we climbed to get out and have some fresh air.


Headed to Sakkara next but I need to find those photos.

Morning seemed to come to quickly as we were headed to the GREAT PYRAMIDS OF GIZA! We woke around 10, ate breakfast, showered, and headed to catch a cab to the pyramids. Sameh was busy and could not take us. So off we went. We piled into a taxi and headed out.

You can see the pyramids well before you get to them if the pollution level is low enough. Today it was so we were able to see them beckoning us forth.

We took some photos being goofy in front of the pyramids like all tourists do.Isn't she cute. She loved the spinx. We loved hearing her say it.

Off to go play in the entry way. Does it give you a sense of scale?


I don't think she will be able to budge it. Do you?

She is a princess even when she is in a tomb!
Yup that is mom taking any opportunity to shop. Oh and Mike and Maggie looking like the spinx!
We walked all around the pyramid and headed off for ice cream. It was nice not to be in a jeep all day.

We headed back to the flat and hung out playing games, downloading photos of the Safari, and making a deck of playing cards for Maggie's friends at school.

It is only fair after several blogs by Mike that I take a turn. I am the one who narrated our trip from Cairo to Arusha so I will bring us “home” again. Domas dropped us off at the lodge and we asked him if he wanted to work tomorrow, his first of several days off, he could take us to Nairobi. He laughed as he often did on this journey, the laugh of “I know something you do not”. We said our goodbyes, got his address to send him some photos, and checked into the lodge.

The welcome melon juice is the best. We were all anxiously awaiting the french fries from a week ago. (Has it only been a week?!) We checked in and changed and headed to the pub. We played a game with Maggie throughout the trip that amused her and hopefully educated her a little too. I would ask her to name things…..name 5 colors, name 3 cities, name 4 things that are round, name 4 modes of transportation. She is 5 after all and should know how to travel between here and there. She did well once I defined mode and transportation…she named 10 different modes and was still going. So, as we played this game, she decided to play guess whose room key this is. The keys/chain were identical so it was a very unfair game. If she decided you were right you got to have a turn, if wrong her turn again. That morphed into hide the room keys. I should probably tell all of you non-parents that are thinking this kid must have been running around the pub that we were the only ones in there.

Snacks came and we munched on the delicious french fries and garlic dip. Doodlebug ate the green lettuce garnish. We discussed our favorite stories, listened to the stories Maggie would tell and hope she would skip the inaccurate animal identification that her Mom, Aunt, and Uncle failed miserably. Yes it was me that thought the stork looked like a penguin.

A black dog decided to roam over to Mike as Maggie took a potty break. When she came out she wanted to pet the dog as well. Dogs in third world countries are not treated well by adults and worse by children. They are non living entities in their minds. I called the dog over to me and he came happily, I let him get used to me before I attempted to touch him. I coached Maggie as to how to go about petting any dog. She listened and followed the directions; she slowly put her arm down so the dog could smell her. He got a little closer and growled. She pulled back her arm in alarm. She tried again a few times and she continued to be growled at. I explained how the dog must have been treated but she did not understand. The dog went back over to Mike, sat down and rolled over to have his belly rubbed. Maggie burst into tears and could not understand why the dog would not come to her but came to Mike and I. A couple entered the pub and felt bad for Maggie as well. She sobbed for a while, she was tired, as were we all.

We went back to our rooms and Mary and Maggie showered as Mike and I reorganized our luggage. By the time they were done it was time for supper so we headed down.

Oh I digress! This blog is about returning to Nairobi. So we asked Domas to drive us to Nairobi and he left laughing saying we shall see. Mary, the forever optimist, said we will see him tomorrow not another driver.

After breakfast: hotdogs and eggs, we headed to our rooms to collect our luggage and meet Domas at the car. I was so excited to think Mary was right and he was going to take us to Nairobi. Nope he was here to take us to the transport stop for Impala Shuttle.

So off we headed back to Tanzania border control, back through Kenya border control. Again Tanzania took forever but we learned to be more aggressive and shove our passports in the window even though we were third in line. Kenya was a breeze and we scooted by. The amusing part, which I wish I took a photo of, was Mary and her new friends. As we walked across the border she showed a slight interest in some bracelets for Maggie's friends. After we got stamped in Kenya she approached the woman who was haggling with her before. She bought a bunch of trinkets and next thing you know Mary has disappeared in the crowd of woman. Maggie, Mike and I were on the bus, and Maggie kept asking where is Mommy, I replied in the middle of all those women. Mary made a mad dash for the bus and quickly sat down near the windows away from the door. Women were leaning in the door, arms were in the windows, prices of trinkets were being yelled out. Imagine an ant that found a big piece of sugar. He is carrying it away and all of a sudden ten ants are trying to get it away from him. That is Mary with a wad of tshillings burning a hole in her pocket, and the natives trying to get it away from her.

So back on the road. We got to see donkeys, Maaasi, and men relieving themselves on the side of the road. The bus driver warned us to have on our seats belts so no adventure with the police.

We arrived well in advance of our flight and searched for lunch. We found a cafeteria that was selling nasty little pastries...I had 2 of them. We flew home Mary, Mike, and Maggie shared a row and I had one to myself. Unfortunately the lady in front of Mary was a little ripe and caused Mary to get a headache and almost toss her pastry. Luckily she got off in Sudan.

Sameh picked us up and brought us home. Shower, food and bed.

Safari - Day 6

We woke and took showers, well not Mary- she still didn't have water
We loaded the jeep and climbed in
We saw a nice view on the way to Lake Manyara
We saw babboons
We saw more babboons
We saw babboons in the trees
We saw babboons in the road
We saw mongooses, mongeese?
We saw elephants near the road
We saw warthogs cross the road
We saw funny looking birds with long bills
We saw pelicans coming in to land
We saw giraffes grazing on trees
We saw hippos wallowing in a pool
We saw ducks and geese galore
We saw more warthogs with many a baby in tow
We saw more giraffe striding across the fields
We saw more warthogs blocking the road
We saw monkeys frolicing while we were stopped by the warthogs, they had bright blue...
We saw a baby monkey hanging on for dear life to mom's underside
We saw gazelle-a-plenty
We (I mean Nancy) saw elephant near the road
We stopped and they crossed next to our jeep (see Mary's blog) very scary
We saw more elephants cross the road
We stopped and had a picnic lunch
We watched elephants in the distance while we ate
We were headed out of the park when Dumas suggested we see a baby elephant
We saw a baby elephant
But we also saw a lion swallow a gazelle.
We left the park and headed back to Arusha and those heavenly french fries

Animals seen today as described above

Pictures taken today: None- we were out of film

Comment, Comment, Comment Please!

It is so nice to know that people read the blog. It is a great journal for us and hope that people are getting to see unique photos as well as learn about a new culture, religion, and way of life.

We have changed the comment options so that you do not have to create an account in order to compliment us on our excellent writing skills, ask a question, or simply say hi.

All comments have to be approved by Mike in order to actually make the blog. This protects us from those overly glowing comments that are just too embarrassing to post.

At the end of each posting there is a spot that says #Comments (# represents how many comments have been posted. If no one has it shows zero). Click on the word COMMENTS and a screen appears that allows you to type your comment. Please include your name so we know who is commenting. If you do not have an account you need to complete the word verification, which prevents spam on our end. Then PUBLISH YOUR COMMENT. Once Mike approves, it will be posted. If you have a Google/Blogger account you can also login and that skips the word verification section.

Happy praising us for a job well done. No scolding us for long time delays between posts.

Safari Day 6 - (The Remix)

OK so maybe the last post was a little abbreviated. If Mary's reaction was anything like Nancy's (and judging by the comment it probably was) then I probably should elaborate on a few of the major events of the day. Plus put up a few pictures (I know you guys love pictures).


As I said, when we met for breakfast we found out that Mary still didn't have water in her tent so no showers for her and Maggie (before you start feeling bad for them, WE'RE the ones who had to be stuck in a jeep with them all day). To make matters worse when we complained about this during checkout they did absolutely nothing for us, we thought they should at least comp Mary's diet coke she had for breakfast! But nothing doing. Nope, probably wouldn't stay here again.

We made our way toward the park and Dumas pointed off toward the horizon in front of us and said that's where we're going today, Lake Manyara. Nancy and Mary could see a small pond that was between Lake Manyara and us and they were totally confused but didn't really say anything. It was a small pond, "we couldn't possibly be going there..." I'm sure they were thinking. I later found out that they didn't see the lake at all because it took up most of the horizon and it was a little hazy (so I'll give them the benefit here). A little further on we stopped at a very scenic lookout along the road. The view encompassed Lake Manyara and you can see the haze I'm talking about. It does sort of blend into the horizon The area right near Nancy's elbow is part of the park and where we were headed. The lighter bits are grasslands and the dark bits are thick woods.Maggie, the ever-dutiful daughter, was holding onto Mom's hand so Mary didn't accidentally fall down the very steep slope that is only feet in front of them. Driving into the park, as Mary said in her post, was very different from where we had been. This area was densely forested and felt more like a jungle with trees very close on both sides and their canopy blocking out the sun in some areas. Our first encounter with animals here was with these guys. There were a bunch sitting in the road, some were frolicing, some looked like they were bullying others, still others looked like they were taunting others. Must have been babboon school. As we watched, we realized that not only were there about 20 in the road in front of us, but there were many more in the woods to our right, and to our left, and even in the trees right above our heads. I'm just guessing here but there were at least 50 if not more in total. It was quite a sight to watch them interact with each other.

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I am honored….and a bit intimidated, after all we have all been enjoying the witty, comical and informative blogs of Mike and Nancy for the past year! Mike asked me to share some of my stories from our Safari; I agreed to try! Oh this is Mary. So here goes …..

There are so many amazing things that happened on this trip, every day we thought “today can not measure up to yesterday” but every day seemed to be better than the day before. Going into the trip I wanted to see lions! We saw lions: eating, sleeping, playing, walking, and stalking their prey and (yes!) the kill!

So who would believe my favorite encounter would be with an elephant?? Well, when you factor in the fear factor (ok, and the exaggeration factor!) the elephants win hands down.

Maggie’s favorite animal is the elephant. Every day started out with Maggie asking Damas “Will I see any elephants today”. Damas would smile and tell her she would, and he was right, when they were not hiding (or disappearing) we saw elephants. However, they were never close enough for me. By the fourth day I joined Maggie with her morning question to Damas: “Would we see any elephants today?” He must have thought we were crazy since we had seen elephants every day, but he would just smile and say yes. Except the last day when he responded “Wow, you people really like elephants.” He then promised Maggie he would find her a baby elephant up close that day. (Mike will give you details about that later.)

We went to Lake Manyara to begin our Safari drive, it was unlike the other areas we had been in and appeared more like a jungle than what we had experienced so far. We had the roofs off and Nancy and I were sitting on top of the jeep for parts of the drive. We saw many animals (Mike will give you details!) and were driving along when Nancy screamed for Damas to stop the jeep. She said there was a “tribe” (yes, she said tribe!) of elephants back there just off the road. So, Damas backed up to where she indicated, shut off the jeep and we all crawled out onto the roof to watch. Yeaah she is good at spotting elephants. Can you see them?

Is this easier for you. Remember we were driving when she saw them.

We could not tell how many elephants were in the tribe because the trees were thick, but we could see them eating the branches and tearing down whole trees. I was thinking: “This is really cool, but I can’t really see the elephants and they’re not really that close.” A large elephant tore down the tree branches directly parallel to our jeep approximately ten feet from our jeep and began to walk towards our jeep as he made his way out of the trees and onto the road! Damas excitedly stated “get off the roof, get off the roof”; later he explained that the elephants trunk could have reached us and pulled us down quite quickly. Believe it or not – we listened to Damas and got off the roof. Ok, we didn’t exactly get in the jeep, but we did get off the roof! Maggie and Mike got into the jeep and watched from the window with Mike’s mouth pressed against Maggie’s ear ferverently whispering….don’t make a sound, don’t make a sound… Remember these are Maggie’s favorite animals. (FYI: it turns out they are quite skittish, do not like noise and were the only animals on safari who did not seem to want people around!) Nancy and I continued to stand on the seat with our cameras held out in front of us and snapped our pictures!

The matriarch came out of the trees and walked directly behind our jeep

That white at the bottom is the top of the jeep. Nancy I are directly behind the part you can see.

She stared at us.

Her ears were waving back and forth (sign of aggression); her trunk was swaying (not in a happy puppy dog way); and she took two steps forward two steps back. She looked like she was deciding as to whether she would charge or not.

OK- my heart was pounding. I do not know why she did not charge us; she looked like she wanted to. She stood in that stance for about ten minutes while approximately fifteen elephants came out of the trees and passed behind her. Then she switched positions with a smaller female who guarded as the babies made their way out and across. When everyone had crossed the street and reentered the trees on the other side the guard elephants left us and rejoined their group.

As soon as they were gone we all started talking a mile a minute! It was the scariest and most exciting part of the trip for me. Maggie was amazed and thrilled with all of the elephants. And I get to tell everyone that we were almost killed by elephants! How can this NOT be my favorite story!

I’ll let Mike finish the rest of the day, he adds at lot more detail that I want to remember!

I do need to throw one more picture in (because it’s sooo cute!) Maggie and I were fortunate in that our vacation continued when we left Tanzania, we still had Egypt to explore. Maggie had been excited to see the pyramids and absolutely loved the Sphinx.



Egypt was completely different than I expected. I told Mike and Nancy I had a romanticized vision of Egypt from history and stories of the Nile. So I wasn’t quite prepared for the reality of Egypt. The people were nice and very helpful. The shops and the merchandise were amazing. The Khan al-Khalili was amazing; it was like a treasure hunt. There was alley after alley with every imaginable ware you can think of, thousands of people and great deals! You can see ancient Egypt throughout these streets and the architecture is awesome.

The Mosques are beautiful, as are the government buildings and the Citadel is incredible; the overall city is dirty and lacking in technology and modern standards (ie. automobile regulations, laws, emissions etc.) Maggie and I were treated like celebrities because of our blonde hair – Maggie loved having her picture taken (by Egyptians) surrounded by Egyptians! We definitely felt welcome!

Without a doubt this was the best vacation I have ever dreamed of and would highly recommended it too anyone with the slightest interest in going. (Not to mention you get to hang out with Mike and Nancy!!!!) Thanks for showing us Cairo and introducing us to your adventures!