If I lift my arms I'm sure I will pass out from the smell, let alone my fellow passengers. Djalma and I are sitting in a first class compartment, which smells of stale smoke, waiting for our train to depart for Luxor, which is even hotter than Cairo at present, ouch.
It was a busy day after a slow start, we had breakfast at Felfella again, this time trying different things on the menu and as usual we ordered more than we needed. We stopped at the same internet café we used all the time we were in Cairo, checking couch-surfing (very time consuming but worth it) and booking a cruise – very difficult to find prices which weren't outrageous but I think we did it. We didn't get out of there soon enough as far as I was concerned – it felt like we spent so much time there, but we slowly made our way to the Egyptian Museum where we used our student cards.
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| From Cairo, Mother of all Cities, Egypt |
The Museum was amazing, rows upon rows of sarcophagi, jewellery, pots and statues engraved with hieroglyphics, it was stunning but that didn't prevent us from doing the museum shuffle – I noticed quite a few other tourists doing it as well, the half arsed dragging of feet slowly propelling tired sagging bodies in crooked lines.
The museum, old and without air conditioning, was so stuffy that I had to re-wet my scarf, which was now not smelling too fresh after two days of being constantly drenched. I was expecting something much more disorganised from what the guidebook had said but despite intermittent labelling in English, some times no labels at all and unlit displays shoved wonkily in cabinets, it was pretty damn good. It was amazing to think that I could reach out and touch artefacts, pieces of art, that were thousands of years old – only a small portion of the displays were behind glass. We visited Tut Ankh Amun's room which was very well taken care of by the frigid air conditioning, it was cold enough to preserve a person should he be in there long enough (but I think that was only my opinion wearing a T-Shirt damp from the wet scarf round my neck). The caskets were mind blowing in terms of detail, workmanship and the materials used. The inner sarcophagus was a bright gold and covered with perfectly engraved hieroglyphics and minutely detailed pictures. There were three in total and got bigger, each one fitting into the other like Matryoshka, all covered with writing, studded with stones and beautiful engravings. I had to see a bit of gore and went, by myself, top the royal Mummy Rooms where the air conditioning blasted out over the partially wrapped shrunken bodies of Phaeronic royalty. It felt very much like an invasion of privacy, viewing a dead person's face, some of them so well preserved and with fake eyes (made from stone and put in at the time of embalming) that it felt quite plausible (in a horror film setting) that they might turn and open their eyes while you were getting a good look at their blackened shrunken desiccated faces and skinny little black toes (some of which were missing the tips, others with all nails still attached).
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| From Cairo, Mother of all Cities, Egypt |
After two hours of shuffling round the Museum we were Egypted out and decided to catch a taxi to Khal el-Khalil where there is a massive market sprawled in the narrow lanes which meander and connect to endless other lanes so that it was quite easy to get lost. In getting lost we found a small vendor and got some tasty falafel sandwiches packed with tomatoes, cheese, potato and other tasty things, all for two egyptian bounds. We ignored all the sellers in the market, even the man with the kinky jewellery shop
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| From Cairo, Mother of all Cities, Egypt |
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| From Cairo, Mother of all Cities, Egypt |
We then wandered back in the general direction of our hostel, stopping off at the café we had our first sheesha in and tried the cantaloupe flavour quickly followed by apple because it wasn't that nice. We sat there for a while, relaxing, feeling dizzy from trying to outdo each other blowing smoke rings and drinking delicious mango juice, the juiciest, tangiest, freshest and tastiest mango juice I have ever tasted (since the other one we had there).
Feeling refreshed and relaxed we decided to head over to the Island in the Nile and take a look round there. There were beautiful green parks manned by lazy ticket men who shouted after us, mister, hey, you, MISTER! They were trying to get us to buy tickets for the park but because we hadn't seen them charge any of the people who walked in before us we kicked up a big stink and in the end walked out, but not until they started charging everyone else. We strolled round the island eventually returning to the same park, buying our tickets (they were now systematically charging everyone who came through the gate) and walking among the young couples and families with small children to get to the bridge and back over into Down town Cairo. Crossing the roads at the end of the bridge an adventure in itself.
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| From Cairo, Mother of all Cities, Egypt |
We got some dinner from the usual place, followed by some ice-ream at the outdoor stand we visited last night, this time cantaloupe melon and mango, it was either the creamiest, thickest sorbet I've ever had or the smoothest, fruitiest ice-cream, either way it was damn good.
Getting our bags from the hostel we spoke to the guy in reception who, upon seeing Djalma attach the trainers to our backpacks, tutted and insisted that it was womans work, I couldn't stop myself from replying that it was the biggest load of crap I'd heard (feeling really quite angry) and was very pleased when I heard Djalma disagree with him when he asked if D agreed with him or not. What an outrageous turd, I was glad to leave without saying goodbye and I was thankful that I'd married such a wonderful man while his poor wife was stuck with such a pig.
We got a taxi to the train station but not until we'd been over quoted by at least three other taxis wanting three times more than the price it should have been. Greedy bastards. We are now on the train to Luxor and my back is hurting something awful, a man is singing from the Koran and D is talking to two Spanish ladies, almost time for bed.
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