Our first two days to relax and day 1 we headed for the sandy slopes of the Giza plateau and the last remaining of the original Seven Wonders of the World.  It’s amazing and a little worrisome to see just how close Cairo has encroached upon one of the world’s greatest historic sites.  Even more impressive than the pyramids themselves are the uncanny ability of the locals to separate educated MBAs from their money at almost every opportunity.  What can we say….it’s the cost of doing business.

Seeing the pyramids up-close for the first time is a great experience.  It’s hard to imagine these monuments were the tallest man-made structures on Earth until the Lincoln Cathedral was completed almost 3800 years later.  We found an “official” guide almost immediately who walked us around the Great Pyramid and over to the tombs of the Pyramid engineers.  Many of the heiro-glyphs on the walls still had the original coloring.

Our tribute to one the worst ever 80’s music videos.

So not to be one-upped now or in the future by any of the other BOTFL teams, we decided to rent a caravan of camels for a treck into the desert to view the necropolis from a distance. Bets were made on who would be the first to fall off their trusted steeds, but sadly, no one did, despite a few close calls.

Joe, Manasi, Ed, Meg, Cory. Up front we got Poncho (Rob) and Lefty (Joe).

We spent Friday evening with one of our CRS colleagues and a few of her friends, enjoying dinner and drinks at one of the few bars this country has to offer.

Saturday was a full tourist day.  We spent the morning at the Egyptian museum – which houses over 120,000 items, including a number from King Tut’s tomb.  Despite the lack of organization and little description on each item, we were all in awe of the detail and thought taken in each piece dating all the way back to 1300 BC!  Next, we visited both the Hanging Church and Saint Sergius Church in Coptic Cairo which is a stronghold for Christianity in Egypt and spent the afternoon haggling with Egyptians at Khan el-Khalili, the great market of Cairo.  We are all back relaxing this evening before our team splits up tomorrow – with half of us remaining in Cairo while the others head to Upper Egypt to visit some local farmers…