Day 43 Cairo
Thursday January 17th, 2008
We hired a driver from the hotel 250 EP for six hours. It was a little tight fitting 6 in the car but we managed.
First stop the Museum – there was a line but we made it inside by 9:45am. The whole time in Egypt I have been trying to imagine what it must be like in summer – I am very glad we visited in winter. We spent a few hours exploring the museum – it was amazing. We paid extra to see the mummy exhibit which we had skipped yesterday and I am glad we did – it was very interesting and stirred many emotions and ideas. I especially liked the mummified cobra *which you can see as part of the regular entry fee and some of the fake mummified animals – a scam thousands of years old). So much to see – I actually bought a guide book and glad I did.
We could not locate our driver at the designated spot and time – fortunately I saw where he had parked and headed into the garage – he was asleep. We loaded up and headed out.
Next stop an overseas carrier TNT - it is time to sip some stuff home – the girls bought a lot in Egypt. It was strange – you enter and sit in chairs a row of 5 and then eventually you are invited to the counter. It turned out it would cost 500 dollars to ship our 100 dollars of stuff home – even on the cheapest slowest mechanism. Yikes – we decided to pursue other options.
Back in the cab we headed back towards Giza. Jen wanted to stop at the Hard rock by the sphinx – we figured it would be a great place to get lunch. Turns out the one near the Sphinx is only a t-shirt shop. We ate next door with a view of the Sphinx – food was ok – pricey and the order was messed up so Kathy did not get her meal – we left and headed for the Plateau. We were already over the six hours. We paid for entry into the plateau and again to enter the middle pyramid. A small tip inside as the attendant "helped us get pictures". This pyramid was quite stuffy – probably as it was late in the afternoon and had seen thousands of visitors today. I actually felt a little claustrophobic. The burial chamber actually seemed larger than in the large pyramid. The view was awesome – many picture we had seen of the pyramids now made sense from this perspective – I am glad we did not miss it. A few minutes for pictures and we were herded off the plateau, but could not find the guard on the way out – oh well.
Back to the hotel – paid the driver an extra 50 EB for the added hour and another 50 for the tip. Well worth it – I am glad we had the time to go back to the sites.
During lunch Kathy and Jen had offered to take our extra bag back with them and ship it to CA. A very magnanimous offer which we accepted. Pam packed the materials in an extra bag for them to take – it was quite heavy and I hope they had no trouble or inconvenience. We were quite relieved as I could not think of any other way to get the stuff back home and I cannot imagine us travelling with the extra weight for another month.
