Day 11

Breakfast at the Hilton was OK, typical of a Hilton standard. I think we were spoiled by the Semiramis where the food was exceptional. After breakfast we ventured out on the streets. Did I say it was peak hour traffic, well its always peak hour traffic. We spotted a pedestrian crossing, but that doesn’t mean anything here, only that we can see the straight line across the road. Well 3 roads of traffic and 1 minibus depot later we were on the museum side of the road. We reached the front entrance and found a shady spot in the front gardens to wait for our tour group. While waiting we struck up a conversation with a young man, Aziz, who is also a tour guide (French speaking) and we chatted about his country and ours. He was very helpful in answering a lot of questions that we had in regards to Egypt and Muslims in general.

Our tour group finally arrived, well worn, but happy to see us. We have become somewhat of a family with some couples feeling quite relaxed and friendly. We entered the museum, which houses most of Egypt’s antiquities, including King Tutankhamen. Mohamed, our tour guide was as ever very knowledgeable about his Egyptology and showed us various exhibits that he thought would be interesting to us, with some pieces dating back to 3,900BC. Its always amazing to see these stone art pieces / carvings and to think how gifted these artisans were, given the type of tools that they had. King Tutankhamen’s exhibits has an end section of the building allocated to it and it is amazing. Especially the sarcophagus and mask which is solid gold and very, very beautiful.

After our time wandering the corridors of this amazing museum it was time to rest and meet under the shade of the trees at the front garden again.



Back to the bus and Ramses Hotel. Anne wasn’t feeling well and was starting to get a migraine, probably from the walking and the heat and traffic and other stresses like concentrating on the information at hand, so she went to rest while the rest of us ventured down the street in search of McDonalds. Walking down the busy side street in the middle of Cairo a young couple with their 2 kids heard me yell out “Penny”, they turned around and were awestruck to see that they knew this Penny. It turns out that the couple are Canadians who spent a year in Coffs Harbour on a teacher exchange and she had worked with Penny for the last 6 months of last year. They had been travelling ever since with their kids around the world on their way back home to Canada. Travelling through places such as Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Russia (across Siberia on a train), Greece and now Egypt. Well it’s a small world sometimes.

We eventually found McDonalds just across the road on level 7 and had a McArabia Meal. Just a couple of meat patties in Lebanese bread. It might be a hit in Bankstown or Auburn, but not for everyone.

Tonight we revisited the pyramids at Giza for the Light & Sound “Spectacular”. The pyramids are always unbelievable, however the Light & Sound Show is a bit outdated with the English “toffee” accent and the less than spectacular laser lights. The lighting of the pyramids and sphinx is nice and more could be done in that vein.





With the show finished we returned to our hotel. The last 100m took more than 20mins. The traffic is unbelievably congested. As the bus driver cut across multi lanes of traffic to turn into our hotel road we all burst out in applause at the skill and nerve that he had displayed.
Tomorrow we return to Giza and Sakkara / Memphis. The pyramids at Giza I don’t think anyone could get tired of.