Cairo – Egyptian Museum

Our first full day in Cairo got off to an early start (for one of us anyway). Still adjusting to the time zone, I found myself wide awake at 4:00 in the morning, and rather than stare at the ceiling for a few hours, made my way up to the business center to get on to the Internet and catch up on things. While it was good to have a bit of time to deal with emails (sadly, the needs of PDA Verticals go on even when I’m on vacation), by late in the afternoon, I am the walking dead.

We set out for the Egyptian Museum after breakfast, which is back in the center of the city (our hotel in Giza is out on the western side). Rather than fight the relentless traffic, we make our way to the subway, which proves to be extremely efficient. I note while riding that the people that design subways must not really ride them, as even a short trip here would quickly reinforce that handles hanging from the ceiling are a bad idea since they force people to raise their arms to hold them. Where it it routinely 90 degrees plus, that can be a very, very bad idea.

Once downtown, we make a quite stop at a travel agent to book our Nile cruise. We did a bit of research while still in Redmond, but didn’t reserve anything figuring we could get something here once we were sure what days we wanted to be on the river. That may turn out to be a good thing as the price we paid here was about half what we were quoted earlier, but of course, the proof in that will be when we actually show up for the boat and see if our names are actually on the list (and if they are, whether we are sharing a room with two other Egyptian families). Since reservations here are paid in cash and by the time we get to the boat we will be 600 miles from the travel agent’s office, the arrangements are not without some risk.

The rest of the afternoon we spend in the museum itself, which is crammed full of all kinds of amazing pieces. After walking through about 10%, using our guidebook to point out the highlights, we realize we will be far better off with a guide to tell us about what we are seeing. For about $40, he spends the next 2 hours walking us through the history of Egypt, and while the general overview is pretty well known, there is a lot of detail I never knew and find quite interesting. In retrospect, I think going to the museum first will help put a lot of the other things we see from here on out into better context, so while we didn’t plan it that way, should definitely benefit from it.

The big draw for the Egyptian Museum is the collection of items from the tomb of King Tut. Unfortunately, cameras are not allowed in the museum or we would have a ton of pictures as the exhibit goes on forever. The death mask and gold sarcophagus are a couple of the most well known pieces and it is great to actually see those in person, but they are only a few of the thousands of items found in the tomb that are on display. Even more amazing is that King Tut is only really famous because his tomb was found complete and not because he was a particularly noteworthy pharaoh. With some of the longer reigning pharaohs having burial chambers ten times the size of King Tut’s, it is hard to imagine what those would have originally held before they were robbed.

We wrap up our museum visit checking out the mummy room. There is an extra charge to see the mummies and guides aren’t allowed in those rooms, so we leave them for last. Like the King Tut artifacts, we have seen plenty of pictures of mummies, but seeing them up close is definitely a whole different experience. Keeping in mind they are over 3,000 years old, seeing fingernails, teeth and hair is a little surreal.

Following the museum, our plan is to grab a quick snack to tide us over while we get back to the hotel and a restaurant we want to eat at near there. We pick out a few items by pointing at them, and quickly find our table full of the things we selected plus a whole host of other associated things like salads and bread. Not really sure whether they come with what we asked for (and not able to speak the language) we just dig into what has quickly become a full meal. The food is pretty good, but we find when we get the bill that we need to be far more specific as every item has its own charge.

No longer in need of dinner, by the time we get back to the hotel, I am ready for a nap, so while Angela catches up on her email, I study the inside of my eyelids.

Tomorrow we are heading out to the pyramids with the same guide we used at the museum. He is going to take us to Giza and then down to Saqqara (the burial grounds from when the capital f Egypt was Memphis), after which we will head off to the train station for our trip down the Aswan (where we will find out just how trustworthy Egyptian travel agents are). I suspect Internet access will be pretty limited between now and when we check in to our next hotel in Luxor on Tuesday, so may have very little opportunity to post between now and then.