Just for a change I am up early because this is gong to be a busy day......
My hotel is not far from the Egyptian Museum so when Jesus comes to collect me we are going there first. He already has the entry tickets but I want to take my camera in with me so I have to pay a bit extra.
The Egyptian Museum is not huge by European standards, and by those standards it is not the ''best'' museum either. Indeed it all seems a bit haphazard and not very well kept. Everybody apologises for it and says it will be so much better when they open the New Museum ''next year''. But this is Egypt and things
And then finally we get to the Tutankhamen display, so many glass cabinets, and a small army of women armed with a bottle of Windex and a yellow duster, except that the dust is on the inside of the glass not the outside, but somehow it does not detract from what you are looking at. Up to this point my guide stays with me, and then we get to the holy of holies, the room where you are not allowed to take photos, and guides are not allowed because they take up to much space and make too much noise although he gives me some advice on the layout before I go in, except there is something I have not told him yet.
Inside THE room we find King Tut's sarcophagus,
But I am here in Egypt looking at King Tut's death mask in its rightful place... In Egypt.
Absolutely choked. I am having a moment. The last time I felt like this was walking into St Peter's in Rome, where I had to have a tall Italian to hold me up.
I leave the room after a few minutes in deep thought, my guide meets me and starts to speak to me , and then asks if I am OK.
''No. I am fine but I want to go now....''
Sitting outside in the sun while we wait for the driver he asks me again what I thought of it all. Blase as ever, I reply ''Well I have seen it before but somehow it is completely different seeing it here, in Egypt''
''You have seen it before?''
''Yes. In London in 1972. I queued for hours.... But this is his home''
Lunchtime... And we go to a restaurant that has a view of The Sphinx. Not many restaurants can boast that. Somewhat surprised as I think the only pictures I have seen of The Sphinx it is miles from anywhere. But of course like any city Giza has grown and now borders right on to the Pyramids and Sphinx.
But first the Pyramids which are way over the other side of the hill..... You can see as many pictures as you like of something but seeing the real thing is completely different because you never quite get the scale of things right.
And the Great Pyramid of Khufu, (it is the Greeks that called him Cheops), is indeed awe inspiring, and truly deserves its place as one of the 7 Wonders of The Ancient World, indeed it is the only
Which says quite a lot about the builders!
I just know I am going to get the statistics any moment now.... As Jesus starts I complete the sentence..... ''built by Khufu who was the second Pharoah of the Fourth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom''.
Silence.... Then
''You have been doing some reading have you?''
''Yes''...... ''And earlier we saw the only statue of him in the museum.''
The subject of slavery rears its ugly head. Hollywood would have us believe that everything in Egypt was built by slaves, probably with Charleton Heston leading them, but current thinking is that they did not use ''slaves'' in the way that we use the term. Indeed fairly recent research concludes that the workforce building the Great Pyramid were well treated and were probably peasants who were unable to farm their land during the Nile flood periods. Wherever they came from they had their work cut out building the Great Pyramid.
We can but marvel at man's ingenuity.
Of course there are other pyramids at Giza and although we get time to look at them we have a timetable which includes a camel ride....
Tim's Tip of The Day... Never, under any circumstances, try riding a camel...
But you are going to do it anyway so why am I wasting my breath?
It is possibly the most uncomfortable and nerve wracking experience known to mankind, unless of course you are Arab in which case it is second nature to walking, and why walk when you have a camel?
It is nothing like riding a horse, or even a donkey, and they can be a bit uncooperative at times. But on the plus side the camel will kneel down to let you mount it. And the best way that I can describe the ''ride'' is that it is a bit like a bicycle where the spokes have been adjusted so that the wheels are oval instead of round, except that the ''ovality'' seems to vary at random.
All the time you're expecting to get used to the motion but it doesn't happen. The sole saving grace is that the camel driver has the most stunning eyes, which is the only bit of him that you can see because he is wearing the full ''Lawrence'' costume.
Returning to base after an interminable 30 minute trek around the Pyramids, Jesus is waiting for me. And he is smiling, but I am about to get my own back because as he approaches the camel which is sitting down to let me get off, the camel sticks its nose straight into his crotch. While we are trying to get a ''group photo'' the camel is constantly fascinated by him and his crotch. Jesus maintains that it's because he sometimes has food in his ''fanny bag''.
When I start to say ''Well it is quite a good looking camel'' Jesus replies, ''Do not do any camel jokes.''
See, I told you they had a sense of humour.
The last event for the daylight hours is, of course, the Sphinx, and the ultimate photo call that you only do once in a lifetime.
The Sphinx is a mystery. It is carved directly out of of the bedrock, (which was also used to build the Pyramids), but some of it is now made from blocks of stone to replace the parts that have been eroded away, you can make up your own story if you wish.
The buildings nearby are fascinating, the interlocking of the blocks of stone is incredible if you look closely enough.
Time for a trip back to the hotel and a wash and brush up before the evenings activities. No piece for the wicked when you are in Egypt!
On the schedule for the evening is a felucca ride on the Nile followed by an evening of entertainment on a cruise boat that doesn't go anywhere with ''a show''.
Cairo in January is not the warmest place in the world, especially at night, and there is no way I am going sailing in the dark even though the lights of Cairo look very nice from my upgraded Nile view suite at the Novotel El Borg with the heating on.
Jesus knows this so he is taking me from my hotel direct to the ''cabaret'' show, which will be a novelty in as much as they serve alcohol on the boat (that doesn't go anywhere).
The entertainment is a ''whirling dervish'' and a belly dancer..... I ask Jesus to join me for dinner, (he gets his free anyway but usually eats apart from his guests, but as I point out, I am a sole traveller), it was a good move on my part because he is now thawing out a bit.
I will not say too much about the cabaret except that the belly dancer is, apparently, world class, and comes from the USA... The whirling dervish is, well, a whirling dervish.... It is impressive in its own way, and of course very energetic..... But if, during your visit to Egypt, you manage to miss either show then I wouldn't worry to much!!
A final note on The Pyramids and The Sphinx.....
There is a ''sound and light show'' (used to be called Son et Lumiere when I was a boy, but it seems nobody can speak French anymore), done in front of the Sphinx. It is worth attending even if it a bit fanciful at times, the commentary is excellent and there is some excellent music played through a very good sound system. Somebody did make the comment that it made it look like Las Vegas, and in a way it did, but my dream would be to see Aida staged at the Pyramids. It has been done once but is unlikely to ever be done again!
And there's me on that bloody camel again, in the middle of nowhere expecting any minute that Omar Sharif will arrive to rescue me from the clutches of white slave traders........
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