Eternal Nile Day 2
Eternal Nile
DAY 2 - Sunday, November 28, 2004 - Visit Egyptian Museum
Our alarm went off at 6:45 and we had breakfast in the dining room meeting the other half of the OAT group who had come in from JFK yesterday afternoon. We also picked up a new member to our group - should be interesting as the other 14 had bonded.
He is tall, goes by C. Edward, and is an Shahinaz in the lobby and she took us to a quiet room for an orientation meeting. She gave us many hints as far as tipping, exchanging dollars, and hotel procedures that we will need in the next few days.
She told us that there should be internet connection in all areas with the exception of the three days we are on the Nile cruise so we should be in communication. She also gave us hints on shopping (yuck), bargaining, and warnings about buying gold, papyrus, and other antiquities.
Most of these in the market are fake reproductions. We also went over health suggestions, the most important being to drink a lot of bottled water.
As there are two groups of OAT travelers, we are know as the Seti group and gave us suggestions on being always ready, patient, and strong like Seti I and ready to push through crowds. As there are changes in the itinerary, she went through every day so we would know what was in store.
At 9 AM we had a few minutes to go back to our room and then we met in the lobby to greet our bus driver, Mr. Fathy and our security guard Mustasfa. We were on our way to the Egyptian Museum through our first experience of Cairo traffic. We have seen many public buses that are way overcrowded but are cheap for the local people.
The population of Egypt is over 70 million with 17 million in Cairo alone. It is said that the population increases by 1 million every 9 months. Now there are health clinics that do encourage birth control. The city streets are very crowded today, Sunday. The weekend is Friday and Saturday with only a few shops and businesses closed on Sunday.
It is the first day of the school week so we saw a lot of students about. Taxis are used to get around in the city by everyone, because of extensive traffic and minimal parking facilities. Traffic is incredible, we see many mini-vans holding as many 15 people. There are officially three lanes but as many as 5 cars squeezed abreast along the main highway. There are limited white dividing lines except around curves and intersections.
Cairo is the site of the main ancient temple to Ra, the supreme god, so it is called the city of the sun. Egypt is a military state and the presence of soldiers in the street are everywhere. Soccer is the main sport and we have seen many huge stadiums.
There are many monuments, bridges, and streets named to commemorate the Israeli-Egyptian War in 1973. A huge bridge, the 6th of October Bridge, was named in memorial for President Anwar Sadat who was assassinated on that date. We also passed the grandstand where he was shot and his tomb directly across the avenue.
We finally arrived at the Egyptian Museum of Phaeronic Antiquities where we were told we cold not use our cameras. We had to go through two sets of security screenings before we could enter the museum. This is a relatively small building that houses literally millions of ancient Egyptian artifacts. The museum's collections are arranged chronologically, so we felt as though we were walking through time.
We appreciated the fact that our guide, Shahinaz is a fully qualified Egyptologist and cultural specialist. She helped us to see the highlights of each historical period, including the glittering treasures of King Tutankhamun, which included stunningly preserved funerary relics such as the sculpted Alabaster bust of the young prince.
There were so many thousands of people and so many things to see, it was truly a sensory overload. At 12:15 our guide gave us one hour to explore the museum on our own. We saw a group of school boys and their teachers - each of the boys stopped to greet us and welcome us to Egypt, wanting to know our names, where we were from, and to shake our hands. WOW! Gennie spent a few minutes in the gift shop before meeting our group, guide, and driver.
We wound our way to the city center where we had lunch on the 4th floor at a Lebanese restaurant serving Lebanese/Egyptian food. The meal was in several courses and very tasty. We had fresh fruit for dessert. Just as we were ready to leave, Gennie saw a man on a scooter be hit by a taxi on the major avenue in front of the restaurant. The guy was OK, but the taxi left.
We got back on the bus and wound our way back to the hotel through the heart of Cairo and the building afternoon traffic. We saw people selling tissues to cars in these avenues, beggars wandering at intersections, and horse drawn produce carts. We got back to the hotel with information that we will have our wake-up call at 4 AM to catch our flight to Luxor.
The rest of the afternoon was at leisure - to rest up, and dinner was on our own. The way we have been eating, missing a meal will not be detrimental to our waistline.
Movenpick Heliopolis Hotel - - - Meals: B, L
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