After visiting the Sphinx, we followed the roadway up to the three large Pyramids. All along the walk we were hounded by people saying we needed to get a ride and couldn’t possibly walk the distance to the pyramid. 

We stopped by the Great Pyramid, off to the side so that Jives could film a rap take. You really are able to get a lot of areas to yourself if you run away from the camel and horse touts fast enough, however on our way to the Great Pyramid we were confronted by the most aggressive salesman we would encounter on the entire trip. The man wanted us to ride on his camel and we politely said no quite a few times, but he continued to follow us. The man grabbed Jives by the wrist and would not let go until I took a photo of him and the camel. I refused to photograph him with my camera because I had read about how they then demand money for the photo of their camel. The man finally gave me HIS camera and demanded I take a photo, which I did. As I was handing him back his phone, he grabbed my wrist and started twisting it, demanding Jives take a photo of me before he would let me go. I pulled my arm away as hard as I could, but could not get free. Jives reluctantly took a photo of me and the camel man (which I am certain is a photo of me looking angry and scared and in pain), and then I was able to pull away my wrist, which hurt quite a lot. The man followed us a long way after that demanding we pay him. I was furious. 

We then went into the Great Pyramid, something I never thought I’d do! To get into the pyramid you first climb up a few rows of the pyramid bricks and enter about 12 feet above ground level. We showed our ticket to the entrance guard and went in. The tunnel initially felt cool and welcoming but it got hot quickly! The second tunnel, the one that leads to the burial chamber was half my (Holly- 5’7” Jives 6’5”) height and you climb it at a 45 degree angle hunched over. Once you hold this painful pose and climb for about 5 minutes, you arrive in a tunnel with welcomingly high ceilings. After climbing in relative comfort for another 5 minutes you crouch down again under a very low doorway that felt very Indiana on the way to the grail (only the penitent man shall pass), and then you are in. 

In the room with the tomb of Khufu a nice guard told us to take a photo of the tomb and then we sat on the floor of the tomb to regain our energy to get back out of the pyramid.  The nice guard joked about turning the lights off in the Pyramid because it was closing, or we thought he was joking… We then climbed back down the passages after regaining our energy and taking in the fact that we were in the middle of the Great Pyramid of Giza!!! 

Climbing out of the pyramid was much harder than getting in. Once we entered the last chamber all of the lights went out. I was standing in the Great Pyramid of Giza in the complete dark! We hurried to climb the rest of the way out of the Pyramid and noticed that the exit was blocked. It was lunch time, but thankfully a guard showed up and let us out. 

We then continued to walk around the Great Pyramid. Jives filmed another rap video take, but a guard came up and said “your camera has been captured”. I said sorry, but he reached to take my camera, which was not going to happen! I knew this was all to extract money from us because it is not illegal to take photos and video of the Pyramids. We walked away from the guard as he repeatedly tried to call us over to him. 

After this second interaction we decided to head back to our room to rest. The heat was well over 42 Celsius and we had run out of water.