We woke up early because we are still on Beijing time.  Had a leisurely breakfast, exchanged money for Egyptian pounds and got picked up by our guide at 9 AM.  As we drove away from our hotel we were amazed to find that the big pyramids were only a kilometer or so past the hotel.  We had not seen them when we drove up last night.  We drove out into the countryside to the pyramids at Saggara.  Our road parallelled a water canal past green fields of corn, date trees and other vegetables before taking a side road out into the desert.  The Saggara pyramids are important because they predate the bigger Giza pyramids and show the development of pyramid building.  There are a total of 105 pyramids in Egypt and the stepped pyramid of King Zoser at Saggara is the oldest and one of the best preserved dating from 3100 B.C.  The stepped pyramid is 60 meters high (10 meters taller than the Arc de Triomphe we climbed yesterday.)   Here you can see columns and walls from the surrounding temples and the wonderful tomb of Mere-Ruka who was a noble man in the  VI Dynasty (2340 B.C.).  It has several rooms and its walls are richly adorned with well preserved carvings ( photos were not allowed) that depict events from his life and family.  On the way to the big pyramids we stopped at a carpet weaving school.  There had to be a dozen of them along the side road.  Here young people train for 1-2 hours a day weaving silk and wool rugs to keep the heritage of this region.

At Giza we saw the big pyramids, posed for a lot of pictures and got a chance to ride camels.  This place is just a wonder to look at.  The pictures say it all.  Lots of tourist buses, locals dressed up to take photos with and of course souvenir peddlers.  We then drove to the Sphinx side of the pyramids to look at the mummification temple and the Sphinx.  Lunch was at a covered pavilion with that unbelievable view.