The dizzying array of archeological sites and tourists in Aswan and Luxor really just lead to the grandaddy of world historical sites: The Pyramids.
A couple of police on camel watch the pyramids in the distance. It was pretty hazy with smog so I did mostly b&w:
Camel and horse riding touts head off to intercept tourists. Looks idyllic if you didn't know what was going on:
I had heard so many negative comments about them that my expectations were buried six feet under, and actually found myself surprised by how few tourists were there. Granted, "few tourists" is a relative concept, but I had truly been expecting a lemming experience.
Lemming lite -- only about 50-60 busses were at this parking area:
I was pleased to find that I could actually throw rocks in some instances and not hit a tourist -- maybe one of the 4,586 touts pushing camel rides, but not a tourist.
Camel rider tout not quite in rock range: 
Duncan and Mike warily watch the camel rider tout. Oh yeah, that's Pyramid #2:
The Pyramids are 1) huge, 
2) a pretty damn impressive testament to human power, as well as willpower, and 3) rather boring. Not that I was hoping to take part in a game of Hide and Seek inside Pyramid #1 (although that would be a blast), but there really is only so much oohing and aahing one can do while walking around the outside of a massive, blocky pyramid. And, since climbing on them is out of the question,
Like a moth to the flame... I can't resist:
we bought a ticket to go inside one and crouch walked/crawled through a tunnel into a large-ish room that presumably held something in the past. Much more interesting were all the mystery tunnels that branched off the main tunnel, apparently used for continued excavation. Perhaps one day they will be open to the public and everyone can play Find the Mummy.
I must admit that it was mildly disconcerting, however, to literally saunter along a paved road down the hill to see the Sphinx (if that was too much effort, it was possible to hail a horse drawn carriage). I rather liked the Sphinx, even though it was a bit smaller than I had thought it would be.
Awaiting the ultimate nose job:
Then again, the artists probably would have felt a bit ridiculous refusing to carve an enormous sandstone monolith on the grounds that it was too small. "No, no, no! We refuse to work on anything less than a 500 million ton block of sandstone you impertinent imbecile!" At least there were a few more tourists clamoring to take the exact same photographs.
Apparently 8 gazillion tourists a year aren't enough to pay for a proper exit sign:
One of the other "musts" in Cairo is the National Museum. I went one day with Phil and have never seen a more amusing museum. There are so many pieces, any one of which would be the pride and joy of other museums in the world, that they are haphazardly stacked under stairwells, cast off in corners where they fight for space with piles of broken chairs, and huddle in dark hallways as though waiting to pounce on hapless museum visitors. I got the impression that, despite all the security, the staff might actually encourage people to walk off with whatever they could carry to reduce the number of antiquities clogging the corridors. It was almost a relief to stumble upon a random room that inexplicably contained a number of pieces from Hellenic Greece. Although clearly earning a healthy sum from entrance fees, the museum hasn't bothered to modernize even simple things like display descriptions. Half of the painstakingly manually typewritten descriptions have been crossed out and amended in handwritten ink to announce that "Priceless piece X is now on loan to museum Y." I figure most of the staff doesn't have the time to print proper description updates because they are busy performing search and rescue mission looking for weary tourists that decided to lay down and rest in a sarcophagus.
