Cairo, Part 1

On the last cruise, when we docked in Alexandria, the cast all went on a crew tour to Cairo. Here we got to go inside pyramids, tour the Cairo museum, visit the Giza Plateau (with and without laser light show), and ride a camel. I will attempt to recount it.

Our day started at 7 am when we boarded the bus that would take us to Cairo. We were introduced to our tour guide, driver, and armed escort. Our tour guide was Hannah, our driver’s name was Ahmed, and I never caught our armed escort’s name because I was too distracted by the submachine gun poking out from the back of his suit jacket. Let me repeat that last part: a submachine gun poking out from the back of his suit jacket.

The ride took about two and a half hours, and Hannah spent most of the time on the microphone telling us the history of Cairo and a brief rundown on the major Egyptian dynasties. It was a little dry, and I admit that I kind of drifted in and out of it. She spent a lot of time stressing the difference between Neferiri and Nefertiti, as well as the fact that Ramses had 35 wives and 150 children, a fact to which the rest of the crew responded to maturely and appropriately.

The big stop of the morning was the Archaeological Museum of Cairo. Here we got to see everything that you associate with mummies and Egypt: Tutankhamun’s burial mask, his sarcophagus, figurines left in the tombs, jewelry, and of course, actual mummies. I feel like from my two visits to Capuchin Crypts and the mummies we saw in the Vatican Museum, I’ve seen my fair share of preserved corpses this summer. But the Cairo Museum pulls out all the stops and refuses to let you walk through its cavernous rooms jaded, as if you’re somehow too good for a mummy exhibit. My favorite was the room devoted to animal mummies. They had cats, dogs, gibbons, and a gigantic crocodile that was pretty terrifying (and made me rethink Tomi DePaola’s depiction of Bill in his “Bill and Pete” series).

Later that evening we were taken to the Papyrus Institute. Hannah told us that since it was government-run, it was one of the few places where you could buy actual papyrus paper. Apparently a lot of the street vendors try to pass of banana leaf paper as papyrus (if you have bought papyrus paper in Egypt and it has turned brown and you can not see the cross-hatchings of the leaves, you have been swindled). While papyrus paper is something I have never had an opinion about, after being told that I was at its epicenter and seeing a halfhearted demonstration of how to make it, I had Paper-Fever. I bought a couple of gifts and Beth bought a small picture for our apartment. It’s of a goat and a bull playing chess. When I asked her what its mythological significance was, she said, “Who cares? It’s a goat and a bull playing chess.” Paper-Fever had infected us all.

From there we went to a laser lightshow at the Great Pyramids. I remember somewhere else in this blog saying something was one of the best shows I had ever seen, but the light show easily supplants that other, now forgotten, show. It was narrated by a number of British actors. I was never able to figure out who they were, but it was as if the cast of “Clash of the Titans” was genetically spliced with the cast of the Harry Potter movies to create an elite race of Uber-British Actors. I’m not exactly sure what “stentorian” means, but I know it perfectly describes the voices that narrated this show.

The best part of the show was that it projected a face onto the Sphinx, so that you could see what it looked like thousands of years ago, when his face was intact and painted. They also projected animated depictions of how the pyramids were built, burial ceremonies, and wedding ceremonies. I loved every minute of it.

From there we went to a dinner cruise on the Nile. This spring, in preparation for going to Egypt, I reread one of my favorite books from childhood, “Death on the Nile.” Therefore when I stepped on our barge, I was kind of expecting that our fellow dinner guests would include a glamorous heiress, a jilted lover, and an American insurance agent posing as a hapless tourist. Not only were none of those people in attendance, but also the riverboat was parked next to a paintball court and our scenic views included a TGI Fridays. The captain did wave me down at one point and let me sit behind the steering wheel and wear a captain’s hat, so that made up a little for the lack of international intrigue. But since I had a hard time dealing with the reality of an armed escort with a submachine gun poking out of his suit jacket, perhaps I should be grateful for an uneventful evening.