Pyramids, The Sphinx, and Mummies...oh my!

(by Annie) I feel like a character from a storybook right now. I am sitting next to the window of our seventh floor hotel feeling the wind gusts from the Nile River. I could make many stupid analogies or corny phrases to sum it up. But, instead I’ll just say we are here, we are doing it, and this trip rocks.

Today was a day filled with what the outside world sees and thinks of Egypt – Pyramids, The Sphinx, and Mummies…oh my. We got up fairly early – around 6:30 and had a wonderful breakfast received wonderful directions and skipped off into the streets of Cairo again. The difference of Cairo at 7:15 and later in the day is remarkable. I guess the closest comparison would be how a college town gets in the summer. Perhaps some of that is due to the fasting of Ramadan, and perhaps it’s also just that so many people must first get to Cairo.

We hopped on the metro – well organized, easily navigated, and cheap ($0.25) – and then grabbed a taxi to the Giza Pyramids. Here we were dodging in and out of traffic madly, seeing signs indicating we were indeed going the right way. All the sudden, bam, pyramids amidst the hustle and bustle of Cairo erupted a wonder of the world. We fairly easily received tickets opting only to see the outsides and not the inside. It was hot enough and frankly I have been in my own crawl space enough to have an idea of what it feels like. We spent a good hour taking pictures and climbing the peaks and valleys. Cairo is obviously an oasis in the dessert and the pyramids aptly sit on the top of one of the largest hills overlooking all of Cairo. In between taking in the scenes we just sat in the shade and made fun of the other tourists. I know, I know, we too are tourists, but I still maintain that we are totally cooler than some half naked German asking if the pyramids really are ancient. Enough said.

After the pyramids we took our same route home and found a lovely hole in the wall place to have some heavenly humus, veggies, and chicken. Perhaps this has been the only real chore. Little mini-restaurants do not abound and there is not a makeshift restaurant with a bench to sit on under every shady tree. Oh Benin, how we miss you.

We paid and then went off to the Egyptian Museum. It’s a wonderfully outdated museum. I know an oxymoran, but that is the simplest way to describe it. There was Egyptian artifact after artifact, you could even see the tons of storage they had. Just too small a space or a museum that maybe just simply needs to have a yard sale. Hey, there are other museums, right? I loved looking at the ancient manuscripts, the statues, and even the mummies. Pretty much the Egyptians figured out how to do it all and proudly displayed it for all to see. Good news is hopefully by 2013 a HUGE 500 million dollar museum will be built near the pyramids. Allowing more space and greater care to be given to some of worlds most precious treasures. Good Luck, Egypt.

After a long day, we came back, put our feet up and then grabbed dinner. We ate fruit and liver sandwiches, wonderful, only made better that we had them on the roof of our hotel.

Pictures are up, enjoy, and we have three days down and 100 left to go. Tomorrow we are off to Alexandria and then back down to Cairo.