Cairo and Giza
Trip Start
May 13, 2008
1
7
16
Trip End
Jun 26, 2008
Giza,
Egypt
Sunday, May 18, 2008
We first made a stop at the Egyptian Museum and got to see most of the amazing treasures of Tutankahmen, the boy pharoah. It was so amazing seeing so much gold and treasure that was made for the tomb of a king that died when he was a young as 19. What really got to us was how much more would he have if we would have died old? There where rooms upon rooms of King Tuts treasure. It was the only tomb found in the Valley of Kings that had not been robbed by tomb robbers. He had one of the smallest tombs in the Valley of Kings and was located below another tomb so the tomb robbers thought there was nothing below the one that was already robbed. There was just massive amounts of treasure and you just can't imagine the wealth of the other tombs that were larger and more important and destoryed.
The museum was huge with many more rooms with egyptian statues and mummies. The way it was laid out it looked like an antique shop with most things just lying about and 75% of the collection was in storage due to no floor space to display it. Jill had been to London and saw the Rosetta Stone there and there was a place in the Egyptian museum set aside to display the stone once they could get it back...just like in Greece where the Acropolis wanted the freize off the Parthenon back. Oh the British museum and everyone wanting their stuff back! After we had had enough of the museum, we got some cash out of the cash machine and got to sneak into the Hilton to use the bathroom. This was quite exciting because there were Egyptian bathroom attendents guarding the door to the one in the museum making you pay to use toilet paper and not letting you leave without giving a tip!! Scary! We got back on the bus with Egyptian pounds in hand heading off to the pyramids!
Stepping out of the bus in the dessert sun and seeing the great pyramids stare you down was a pretty intense experience. They really did blow us away even though we had seen pictures and in history books numewrous times. They were sitting up high and we could see all of Cairo in the opposite direction behind us. There were egyptian men walking around trying to get in our photos with us then asking for money. We had been warned the night before by Shariff that there are lots of things that can make you sick in Egypt and not just the water but more likely is handling of dirty money (all Egyptian money is filthy) and touching the people who are out all the day and can't wash up after "using the bathroom." I promise...we definitley didn't touch them but they had no problem coming up to us and trying to shake our hand or touch our arm to get our attention. This all added to the experience. Egypt is a pretty dirty place and its all part of being there. We went through about 2 bottles of hand sanitiser and still always felt dirty.
At the great pyramid we had the chance to climb around the base of the pyramid. You could climb up about 15 rocks high to even with the entrance before you were yelled at to come down. The blocks were much bigger than we imagined and we took some pictures standing next to them to show how tall they were. We bought tickets to enter the great pyramid and see the inner tomb. We had to almost crawl through the narrowist of passages to get to the center large room. The ait inside was thick and it was very dimly lit. It was hard to imagine how the first people to enter must have felt cuz even though our path was lit and marked, it passage had an errie feel to it and Jill especially began to feel claustrophobic deep inside the pyramid.
After the ascent into the deep tomb of the great pyramid we met back at the bus to drive to our camel ride. Jill saw her first real life camel at the pyramids and was very excited to get on one! Up close they are so big that they are a bit intimitating but they are really awesome! They are alll so nice a friendly and if they do spit, we didn't see any do it. We did see many of the Egyptian owners kiss their camels a few times tho! To get us on the camel, the owners would get the camel to sit all the way down. Then, once we were helped on, they would hit the camel and it would stand right up again! We just had to hold on all the way up and down as you are pulled all the way forward and all the way back on the way up!
Once on our camels we had a fantastic ride through the Sahara desert to the best view of the pyramids not accessible by road or any other way but camel. We took some great pictures and Jill took a video. They are pretty awesome and will be posted soon. After our camel ride it was about 4:30pm and we got to have a late lunch of traditional Egyptian falaffels and other dips. It was a long day and we thought the food was alright. It was family style dining and we had a fun time. Our bus then headed to the train station where we waited to board our overnight train to Aswan.
At the station we bought some snacks and saw some of the local trains go by. They were pretty dilapadated and scary looking and we were VERY pleased to see our own overnight "tourist" train in much better condition. We got our own room with two beds that came out of the cabin wall. The bathrooms were gross and we made the health conscious decision to avoid the train "dinner" on the advice of our guide. We got to drink some beers in the train club car and Jill pulled out catch phrase which was a huge hit. After a few hours of the greaest game in the world we went to bed on the rocky sleeper train.
