Cairo

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We started our day as usual with breakfast, though this time Stephen ate little as he wasn’t feeling very well. Our planned tour guide fell through, so we had some time to both let Stephen get back on his feet, drop off some laundry, and line up a taxi to take us around town. By mid morning, we had arranged to have a taxi take us to see the Giza pyramids, followed by the Egyptian National Museum. There are three pyramids in this group on the south side of Cairo. . . the pyramids of Cheops, Chephren, and Mycerinus. All are very large and impressive. Standing guard before them is the sphinx, a creature with the body of a lion and head of a man. The area is adjacent to sand dune on which people ride camels. Though once in a remote area, Cairo has now grown out to, at least, partially encircle these structures.

We then drove to the Egyptian National Museum. This was an exceptionally long trip due to terrible traffic. At one point, we sat at a standstill for probably 15 minutes without moving at all. We finally made it, though. The museum is jammed full of antiquities including hundreds of statues, sarcophagi, animal mummies, and human mummies. There is one whole section of artifacts found in the tomb of King Tut, though his mummy is not located here. It is difficult to adequately describe how much material is in this museum, and honestly to fully appreciate it, one would have to be more seriously into Egyptology than we are.

We met our tax driver again after a couple of hours for the ride back to the hotel. Following a brief rest, we went out to dinner and a bit of a walk. As we were leaving very early in the morning for Luxor, Stephen took a shower and went to be early. I, on the other hand, went out to retrieve our laundry, and then packed up before going to bed. Before crashing, I asked the hotel desk for a wakeup call at 4:45 as our flight to Luxor is scheduled at 7:45 am. Now, off to bed.

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