Day #236 - Cairo, Egypt

A view of the Nile River from the Hard Rock

Coptic Cairo

Inside the Mosque in Islamic Cairo

Mosque in the Citadel

Egyptian Museum (couldn't take pictures inside)

Friday, November 5th

Today we spent the entire day on the Cairo side of the Nile River. We headed into downtown around 9:30am with a new driver.

Our first target - the Egyptian Museum. Besides the pyramids, this is other place I wanted to visit while in Egypt. We toured around for 2 hours. Extremely interesting. We first headed to the second floor to look at the King Tut exhibit. King Tut is one of the most famous kings from the Egyptian past. His tomb was largely preserved. They had exhibit after exhibit - with all the items laid out. These included: jewels, statues, artistically-carved vases, jewelry, etc. The only thing not found in Cairo is the actual mummy of King Tut - this is found in the city of Luxor (in southern Egypt).

We next paid an additional 100 African pound ($20) to go into the 2 Royal Mummy rooms. Wow! We saw about 20 mummies of famous kings and queens. The one thing that amazed me the most was how well they were preserved. The heads, shoulders, feet, and hands were exposed. (This was surprising to me -- I always had the picture of mummies completely wrapped from head to toe in my mind). The mummification process took 70 days. First, all the internal organs were taken out of the body except for the heart. The brain was removed through the nostrils by breaking the ethmoid bone. The organs were placed in a jar and often times set beside the mummy. They first put on a chemical called "natron". This was a combination of salt and baking soda. It drew out the liquid in the body and helped with preservation. This process took 40 days. Then, the "natron" was removed and oils were placed on the body. This portion of the process took 30 additional days.

We spent the rest of our visit in the museum hitting the high points. Tons os caskets, statues, jewelry, etc. There is no longer anything located below the Great Pyramids of Giza. All the items are now in the Egyptian Museum.

Next, we drove through Islamic Cairo. We went to the Citadel. This place was amazing. It was an enclosed area that held a mosque, a couple museums, and had great views of the city. We took our shoes off and went inside the mosque. Very similar to those I visited while in Istanbul. I wish I understood the Muslim culture better - it's unique.

We next drove over to Coptic Cairo. We visted a couple churches in this area. It's believed that the Holy Family came here during the Flight into Egypt - seeking refuge from Herod.

During our tranport through the city today, we were exposed to just how poor this area is. People filtered the streets and buildings were shoddy. As mentioned yesterday, the area right along the Nile River is impressive - large hotels, nice views. Getting further into the city is a different story. I thought maybe Cairo would be similar to other European cities - but it was more like Tanzania - just with alot of buildings. Certainly a neat place to visit - just for a short period of time however.

We ended the day at the Hard Rock Cafe. Greg & I completed our goal of visiting 1 Hard Rock on every continent (none in Antartica). We toasted our trip and had a great meal.

Back to the hotel for an early evening. Greg leaves at 4:40am for the states. I fly back to Athens and continue on with my journey.

Here's to Egypt - one of the most unique places on the planet.