Cairo, Egypt

We were up early to catch the start of breakfast at 6am and be on the way to the pyramids by 7:30am. We had booked a guide through the hotel cause we weren’t sure of how bad the hassling would be. (It wasn’t bad at all so it’ll be independent travel for the rest of Egypt).

We got our first view of the pyramids in the distance on the drive. The clean lines of the pyramids poke out of the jumble of the city buildings which makes a cool contrast.

We arrived at the entrance gates around 8:30. Our guide got our tickets and then we entered the grounds.

The whole Giza pyramid experience has been disneyfied since I first saw them almost 25 years ago. The pyramids sit on a plateau and there’s a set circuit that guides whisk their clients through. You get dropped off and picked up between the three main locations on the circuit (entrance, lookout point, Sphinx), ensuring everyone gets the exact same pictures. I went off-menu and walked around a bit to get better camera angles.

It was really cool to see the pyramids, but we would have been better off just getting a taxi to the entrance and then walking the whole circuit which would have taken maybe 90 minutes.

After the obligatory stop at a ‘papyrus museum’ and ‘perfume shop’ for tea or coffee, we were driven back to our hotel in time for lunch. We actually asked to get dropped off at a nearby restaurant, Felfela, which is a pretty good tourist option. Had a bunch of grilled meats and vegetables, and a artichoke filled with ground beef and topped with bechamel which was really tasty.

We went back to the hotel to wash up before walking down to the museum. We became pretty good at crossing the streets, five lanes of non-stop traffic. Otherwise it’s a bit difficult to walk to the museum even though it’s less than five minutes.

We navigated the unofficial tour guides and bought our tickets (it’s extra to see the mummies and cheaper if you buy the joint ticket up front).

We had timed our visit well, arriving at 1:30 when the tour bus folks are having lunch. Went straight to the 2nd floor where they have the key things we wanted to see.

I was amazed at the quality of the many sarcophagus (sarcophagi?) and other relics from the tombs, all thousands of years old. The sun was streaming through the museum windows onto the artefacts which I’m sure is not best practise for museums. They don’t allow flash photography, but direct sunlight is okay. There is a new museum building under construction close to the pyramids, hopefully it will be completed before everything fades away.

The mummies were really interesting to see, I had no idea how well the bodies were preserved, including hair, teeth and fingernails. The former royalty were also much taller and lived longer than I had thought. Some were almost 6’ tall and most lived to their 60’s.

There’s actually two rooms displaying mummies, on opposite sides of the 2nd floor beside identical staircases. That’s our excuse for not realizing there were two rooms until we got back to the hotel.

The biggest highlight is the room for King Tutankhamen. We saw this last, around 3:30pm, and had the whole room to ourselves. It was really amazing to see one of the most famous museum pieces in the world all on our ownsome.

Went down to the 1st floor but by this time we were out-sarcophagused, and so called it a day.

The weather was gorgeous - about 24C and sunny. If only it could stay like this but we’re in a cold snap here right now (it’s all relative) and it’s going to get stinking hot in a couple days.

Went back to the same restaurant as lunch. It was a dry day (no alcohol served) so went back to the hotel for a beer.