Woke up v early (7am) to join a group of Australian backpackers on a tour round the pyramids of Giza, including the sphinx, the pyramids at Saqara and a couple of other bits along the way. The pyramids at Giza were massive and mystical, the biggest is 137m high and consists of 2.3million blocks, each weighing between 2 and 40 tonnes. I climbed inside the main pyramid to the Pharoahs burial chamber, which was good, it was a 45degree angle up a tunnel which was only about 1.5m high and about 75cm wide with people going up and down, which was fine until you met a fat American going the opposite direction.

The pyramids at Saqara were some of the first pyramids to be built from stone, and so were less impressive but still good to see. The Step Pyramid is the earliest remaining stone monument in the worldand in the distance you could see the bent pyramid, so called because the Egyptians realised as they were building it that the angle of construction was wrong and so had to change it half way up, which causes it to be slightly bent. It took them two hundred years to perfect the art of pyramid buidling, which meant the pyramids at Giza, which were the last to be built, were perfectly mathematically accurate, with the only mistake being one corner is 1degree from pointing West (?)

We then went to a Papyrus making place and saw how it is made (stripping, soaking and pressing Papyrus plants) and onto a perfume making place were showed how it is traditionally made (pressing and distilliting plant petals) and how it is turned into western perfume (by diluting it with alcohol, making it bad for the skin and highly flammable). We them went onto Memphis, the old capital of Egypt to see a few of the relics there, including two massive status of King Ramses, one of which has fallen down.

Once home I went for a walk around Cairo and was walking past the square when someone shouted my name, which I thought quite odd since I was in Egypt. I looked round and it was the old man who had pointed me to my hostel the night before. I told him I was looking for some pasta so he took me to a fruit and veg stall down some dark alleyways. Unfortunately the alleyway stunk of horse s***, had thousands of flies all over the floor and fruit, as well as a few inch long cockroaches and a rat the size of a small kitten. Not wanting to offend by asking for somewhere less filthy, I politely bought some veg he selected for me. He then invited me to join him for tea and sheesha down another dark alleyway which was fun. Being a tourist in a non-tourist area I attracted much interest by the locals.

Once home I bought some pasta and scrubbed peeled and scrubbed my vegetables, not wanting to waste them, and cooked myself a rather nice pasta dish. Unfortunately the smell of the stall still managed to stay around and I was unable to finish the meal, instead cooking some instant noodles I had bought with the pasta.