On our last day in Cairo (or the Giza Plateau to be more exact), we had a free day to do whatever we wanted to do. Five of our group, including Vicky and I, decided that we wanted to go back to the Great Pyramid and crawl inside it. Now that was difficult. I have been quite claustrophobic now for several years. Knowing that I was going inside the pyramid the next morning gave me plenty of anxiety attacks that night. I also knew that the passageway was only about 42 inches square and solid rock. I also knew that we had to go in something like 350 feet. They told us not to go into the Great Pyramid if we were even just a little tiny bit claustrophobic. But as my wife Vicky said, “I’d like to see them try and keep Bill out of there.”

We hustled up the hill from our hotel, bought our tickets, and hustled over to the opening to the Great Pyramid. I was the first person to go inside that day, and Vicky was right behind me. We did sort of a squat step crawl into the passageway. It’s a long ways in and the small passageway is on something like a 25 degree angle. First we were crawling downwards and then later we were crawling upwards. We couldn’t take any pictures inside the Pyramid. We eventually came to a large room, called the Grand Gallery. It was still quite narrow, like 4-5 feet wide, but it had a high ceiling (like 30 feet) and it was a long room (over 150 feet) with a corbelled ceiling. At the end, we had to climb up a ladder. Then we had to crawl into another small passageway. By the end of that passageway, we were in about 350 feet and close to the center of the Great Pyramid. The King’s Chamber is about 35 feet by 20 feet and about 20 feet high. It’s all red granite and the stones are huge (like 30-80 tons). I’ve read where the roof over this chamber only has about 6-8 stones and together they weigh something like 400 tons. Of course, it has to support about two-thirds or more of the pyramid still above it. The room also has a sarcophagus in it which is open. The sarcophagus is also made of one piece of red granite. It’s quite large and it would definitely not fit through the passageway, so it had to be inside the chamber before the room was completed. The red granite blocks were very smooth and fit together so tightly that you couldn’t have put a pin in between the stones. It was hot as heck inside and very humid too – even at 8:00 in the morning.

In the three photos below, you can first see me with my ticket. Next are four of the five people from our group of travelers that made the trek. Vicky took the picture. And last, you can see three of us about to go up the steps, some 59 feet up to get to the entrance to the pyramid.

It was exciting going into the Great Pyramid. Even though many people have been inside before, it felt extremely adventurous. We stayed inside quite a long time before the next people showed up. When it started to get crowded, we went back out. We passed a solid line of people coming in. The whole length of the small passageway was crowded with people which we had to squeeze past. In the space of about 42 inches square, we had to squeeze past over 90 people going back out of the pyramid.

In the next photo, you can see some of the few remaining “facing” stones on the Great Pyramid. It gives you some idea of what the pyramid looked like when first completed. The whole pyramid would have had these stones facing the whole outside of it.

In the last photo, you can see a piece of rock that we found when wandering around the Great Pyramid. I have no idea why it is shaped somewhat rounded, but it’s a red granite stone, just like in the King’s Chamber inside the Great Pyramid. The Red Granite is from Aswan, where we will go to next on our trip. The only difference with this stone is that it is not polished, like the stones in the King’s Chamber. They were absolutely smooth.