Day 12: Cairo

/ alliwanders
Lol, not the best portrait but accurate of what it’s like in Giza

We docked at 2am in Safaga which is the closest port to Cairo. And when I say port I mean massive container and raw materials port. Although we managed to bully our way off the ship at 6:45am, hoping to get to our private tour bus and set off early, we were held back until everyone departed the ship and all the buses left together in a convoy – at 8am!

It took 20 minutes just to exit the port, with 3 police check points in that time. Then 1.5 hours on the highway through barren desert with even more police stops to Cairo. Since the tourist attacks in 1997 they take security very seriously here, we even had an armed guard on the bus for the whole trip. He was very good at taking pictures of people at the pyramids 🙂

And the pyramids at Giza was our first stop. Sam, our guide, had 24 tourists to wrangle so at times he was rather strict with our staying in line but otherwise very sweet and knowledgeable.

Crowds of people, many climbing up to enter the Great Pyramid
The size of the limestone building blocks and me for scale
The armed guard’s handiwork
Hate it when a dromedary takes a better picture than you

Just below the pyramids lies the Sphinx. It’s not sure who it’s supposed to resemble or even when it was built (our guide kept trying to convince us 10,000 years ago = humbug); regardless, it’s amazing to see it in person.

After Giza we stopped at a restaurant by the Nile for lunch. As we in a bit of a time crunch we preordered while still on the bus and they had it ready when we arrived. I tried the mixed grill of chicken, lamb something and mystery meat, rice, fries. Various dips and pita bread too. It was…fine. Included in the tour so no complaints.

We hopped back in the bus and threaded our way thru the thick Cairo traffic to the Egyptian Museum to especially see King Tuts Treasures. Some fellow travelers were rather concerned with the time and asked Sam to truncate our visit, much to my chagrin as I’m quite the Ancient Egyptian fan but as a serious Historian I believe Sam rushed us through all the highlights.

The museum is massive. Only the 2nd & 3rd floor open to tourists. 1&4 are for scholars & scientists.
From Tut’s Tomb – outer, outer box for canopic jars
Closeup of box detail
Canopic jars which held Tut’s nicely preserved innards for his use in the afterlife
One of Tut’s golden thrones
All Tut’s smaller treasures including his famous death mask are all displayed in a “no photography allowed” room so this is the next best thing
Tut’s mom, Kiya, just recently confirmed by DNA
Tut’s great-grandmother Thuya’s golden coffin, circa 1400 B.C. Quite unusual as she was a commoner and it was not a done thing for a Royal to marry down, even back then!

We finished our whirlwind tour of the museum by 4:37pm, whizzing thru the gift shop with blinders on in our hurry to return to the bus. With 28 million people Cairo’s traffic is legendary. They drive with one hand on the wheel and one on the horn so the noise is ear-splitting and they consider the painted lines on the road purely decoration. If there’s a space, they’ll squeeze into it.

Three cars in two lanes. Mostly it was five cars in three lanes (one being our large bus!)

The sun sets early here too, 4:45pm so we barreled home in the darkening sky which made us all quite sleepy & weary. We made good time, getting back to the ship at 6:45pm where we had a 7pm curfew. In fact, we were apparently one of the first buses back. Nonetheless, it was a quick trip to the buffet then calling it a night for almost all of us.

Tomorrow: Sharm-El-Sheikh