The plateau of Giza is home to one of the seven wonders of the ancient world: the Great Pyramid of Khufu (Cheops) and the Sphinx. They are the only remaining wonder left. The rest were either destroyed, broken up for scrap or sued into oblivion for copyright infringement.

Coming here to see this was always one of my big "to do"s. I can remember doing social studies projects comparing Khufu's Pyramid to the Pyramid of the Sun in Mexico, way back when. Now that I've seen them both in real life, I can honestly say there's no real comparison. Except for the souvenir hawkers, of course...

I wish I could have spent more time just walking around the Great Pyramid. We were rather quickly bundled along from Khufu to Menkaure (Mycerinus -- the smaller pyramid of the three) and then down to the Sphinx, where we got to slow down and enjoy the sight for a time.

And then it was back in the bus to give the local economy one hell of a boost. The amusing story on that is...