The day that I had been waiting for had finally arrived. I woke up at 7AM ready to witness the indescribable majesty of the pyramids, of the Nile, of the most talked about place in all of Egypt. Michelle, Liz, and I hopped on the bus with about 100 other SASer’s and took the 2.5 hour ride to Cairo.
...and there we were. I stared out my window, and eagerly collected my belongings, Michelle, and Liz and practically ran off of the bus in an excited stupor. They were just as magical as I saw in movies, and read about in novels, and heard about from people. I had expectations upon arrival, of course, but they exceeded my expectations. I walked around to the front of the largest pyramid and just stared at it, my mouth agape. The entrance to it was this tiny little hole that guards with guns stood at to make sure the people going in had paid their entrance fees. I climbed up the bottom stones and made my way to the hole in hopes that I could just give the guards cash and go inside. We only had 45 minutes to stay at the pyramids before we had to get back on the bus, and I had no time to run all the way down the hill to purchase a ticket, so I guess I was hoping to just go without one. The guards just looked at me and smiled. The language barrier was too thick and they kept saying “Ticket? Ticket?”. I sadly climbed back down the pyramid that I had so badly wanted to go inside. This Austrian couple had tried to do the same thing, and the woman smiled at me. In broken English, she told me that her boyfriend had been inside before and that there was nothing spectacular to see. This made me feel an itsy bit better about not being able to go. I told her Salzburg was beautiful.
I took a million+ pictures that don’t do the pyramids justice whatsoever, and hopped back on the bus to go see the Sphinx.
I guess I was expecting it to be way bigger than it was. The pictures I’ve seen make it look so incredibly huge that when we walked almost right up to it, I blinked and shook my head, thinking that there must be more. It was amazing, don’t get me wrong, but after being awe-inspired by the pyramids, this Sphinx looked itsy-bitsy. I took a million pictures of it, too, and then proceeded to buy tickets for that night’s performance of the “Sound and Light Show”. Michelle, Liz, and I were not planning on leaving with the other SASer’s to go back to Alexandria because we had other things in mind. So we purchased our tickets for the 8:30pm show and got back on the bus.
The bus stopped at this five-star hotel for lunch, and as we got off, there was an actual marching band playing for us. I felt mortified and honored. I’ve never had a band play while I was walking into a hotel before. It was quite the experience. We ate and ate and left with full stomachs ready for the museum that held King Tut’s famous gold mask.
Our tour guide on the bus led us around the museum for a little while before setting us free to check the place out for ourselves. She showed us the slab of cement where ancient Egyptians used to mummify the bodies of the deceased, and as she was explaining it to us, she pointed out that I had my hands in the bowl where they would drain all of the fluids from the body. I kind of wanted to throw up.
Then we saw the pure golden throne that King Tut and many rulers before him had sat on. We saw the many different kinds of jewelry that the women of the time used to wear, including fifteen pound earrings made out of pure gold. It was so incredible. Then…. then came King Tut’s many sarcophaguses and his famous golden mask. It was unbelievable how well it had been preserved and kept over so many centuries. The mask was beautiful, as were all of his sarcophaguses, the outlines were so intricate and wonderfully crafted.
When we were done with our tour, I made my way to the room filled with the mummies of the less famous kings. King Tut’s actual mummy is in Luxor, which we weren’t going to have time to see, so I really wanted to go into this mummy room to make up for it. Our guide did not mention that we might want to bring some money into the museum because there were special rooms that we had to pay to go into, so I had left everything on the bus for safe keeping. I went through the trouble of borrowing 60 pounds from my professor, who happened to be on the trip, and another girl’s student ID to get a discounted price on the entry fee. I walked up to the desk, and after fifteen minutes of semi-arguing with the guy at the desk, I figured out that my professor had given me 50 Piaistres, which is like 50 cents. Egyptian money has “cents” in the paper and coin form, and my professor and I had no idea about this before he gave me the money. So, I never got to see the actual mummies, but that was okay. I concluded that I have to come back to Cairo to go into the pyramids another time, and I will see the mummies then, too.
Michelle, Liz, and I grabbed our bags from the SAS bus, and waved goodbye as they headed back to Alexandria and we to find a hotel in Cairo. Our plan was to spend the night in Cairo, find a bus the next day that would take us to Mt. Sinai (where Moses received the Ten Commandments from God), and to sleep outside on the top of the mountain. So, off we walked around Cairo with no definite plans or places to sleep or bus tickets in our hands. We were planning as we went.
We ended up staying in this 1950’s hotel called The Windsor, and is actually famous for filming a movie called “Around the World in 80 Days”, as well as for hosting some of the cast members from Monty Python. The elevator that took us to the 4th floor was like the elevator in Titanic. It was rickety and had metal bars that the elevator man pulled shut, and then he proceeded to shut another set of doors manually before we went up. Our room had three single beds that were as hard as cement on our backs. It was quite the place.
A van came to pick us up at 7:30pm to take us back to the Giza pyramids to watch the Sound and Light Show. A bunch of SASer’s were there on a trip, and we prided ourselves in figuring out Cairo for ourselves. It was more fun that way, anyway. We had bought VIP tickets for the show, which meant that we had seats in the very front row and transportation to and from our hotel before and after the show. It was pretty sweet. The show itself was interesting. Different voices thundered over a loud speaker and as we sat in front of the pyramids and the Sphinx, everything was lit up according to what the voices were saying. (Wow, that sounded pretty Schizophrenic). It was a bit cheesy at times, but I am very glad that we got to see the pyramids lit up at night.
Then we proceeded to go back to our hotel and crash. We had no idea where the next day would take us.
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