Prayer Time In Cairo

Here's 1 of the 5 prayers they do a day. Pretty crazy thing to hear the whole city do it at once.

Going Inside The Great Pyramid

Well the big day of going inside the Great Pyramid has happened. I thought we'd be the only ones, but apparently this one is open to the public. We're going to some later that where the public isn't allowed. But this was still a great experience. So amazing to think they built these 4500 years ago with such precision and strength. Getting our equipment in was an incredible challenge. Good thing we had a bunch of porters with us.

Shot of one of the shafts going into the pyramid. The picture is deceiving, This tunnel is going at about a 35 degree angle for about 300 feet, and it's only about 4' high. The wood planks and railings were added to help get in.

Light at the end of the tunnel. This was the opening into one of the chambers. We put the lights in.

The Grand Gallery. The ceiling is about 40' high. No idea what it was used for. It opens to the Kings Chamber.

This was it. This was the Pharraoh Khufu's burial chamber. The walls were made of Granite and about 25' high x 40 long x 25' wide. You can see the Sarcofficus, also made of Granite but from one solied piece. They estimate it at about 7 tons.

Some Pics To Catch Up In Cairo

This is their Starbucks. Everyone drinks out of the same glass!!!! No joke!

Here's Old Town Cairo. Very neat area, but typical tourist attraction with all the shops selling all the same junk.

Not something you see drive down the street everyday…unless you live over here.

Some of the crew in an old quarry they used for the pyramids.

L to Rt: uh Me!, Director, a local worker, Stereographer, Production Manager

Our lunch spot in the old quarry.

Couple Of Days Shooting In The Can

So we're a couple of days into the shoot. It's been long tiring hours with very little sleep because we've been trying to deal with small problems with the gear. But all is going well, and looks great. It's also really fun seeing all the sites and meeting lots of people. All the locals have been really nice. We have about 6 Egyptians with us to help with the gear around the different locations. 

The 1st day we started with the old town market area. Very cool buildings with small cobblestone streets. Lots of trinkets to buy. Then we went to Tahrir Square were the revolution just took place a few months ago. You'd actually never now it accept for the burned out government building off in the distance. Otherwise it's just a really busy traffic circle/park area.

Today we started out shooting on a barge cruising down the Nile. It was really cool to see, but nothing like what I expected. The river is really dirty (DON'T SWIM IN OR DRINK THE WATER!), and the banks of the river where we were had the beat up buildings and trash everywhere like most of Cairo. 

Later was a visit to a limestone quarry to get a glimpse of what it was like to get the stone for the pryamids. A very dusty place, but neat to check out. 

My computer is running slow and taking too long to upload recent pics, so I'll try to do some tomorrow. We get to go inside the Great Pyramid tomorrow and have to be out by 4PM. Time to pass out now. 

Cheers!