Egypt: THERE IS SO MUCH TO SEE HERE
Apologies for the ALL-CAPS title, but there really is so much to see in Egypt. Every day is a series of superlatives: oldest tomb discovered!* largest religious complex!** greatest building in the Islamic world!*** etc. etc. etc.
Egypt has so much amazing old stuff that sometimes I feel like they don’t know what to do with it all. Our first morning in Cairo we went to the Egyptian Museum, as all tourists do. It was very different from what I’ve come to expect from museums of such prestige; there were no “exhibits” per se, minimal explanatory plaques or really labels at all, no interactive anything, and not a QR code in sight (so hot these days in the museum world). I think there was some chronological organization to some artifacts in some cases, but mostly it felt like your grandma’s garage of ancient Egyptian history. Stacks on stacks of mummies (who are they? who knows!), statues galore, cases of jewelry and pots and tools and carvings. It was basically just, “Here’s stuff! You see?” I guess we “should” have hired a guide, but it was a fun few hours poking around and gleaning what information we could.
The one room that was very clearly labeled was that of King Tut’s treasures. Guys, we saw The Mask. You know the one—solid gold, two feet tall—possibly the greatest archeological discovery of the 20th century and one of the most famous works of art in the world. We also saw his gold coffins (inner, outer, and sarcophagus) and other jewelry and things he was buried with. Tutankhamun was the last king of the 18th dynasty. He ruled for only nine years and died in his teens (most likely due to poor health; incest is bad), seemingly destined to be forgotten by history. BUT a later king built his tomb on top of Tut’s (apparently the forgetting started early, sorry Tut), leaving the latter’s tomb undiscovered and untouched until 1922. For inexplicable reasons no photos are allowed in the King Tut room, but we are very sneaky shhh don’t tell.
I think the biggest surprise of our Egypt time thus far is how much we liked Cairo. I knew relatively little about it before a week ago (Tahrir Square, Arab Spring, etc), and expected it to be a megacity with very few tourist to-do’s—the kind of place you see because you fly into it before heading out to see the real stuff you came to see.
Oh how wrong I was! It definitely is a megacity (second largest metropolitan area in Africa after Lagos), and it definitely has the usual museums and mosques and churches. But the scale of those things is epic. And it has a castle and ancient gates and walls and really cool old walking streets and also did I mention how cool the mosques were? We spent three days walking a million miles (~15 per day according to my Garmin) to see all the things.
After Cairo our next stop was Giza. Giza is the city next to Cairo (basically an extension) but uniquely famous because that’s where THE PYRAMIDS are!
Just like the Taj Mahal, this A-list world attraction does not disappoint. We spent one day at the pyramids, taking in the Great Pyramid of Giza, Pyramid of Khartoum, Pyramid of Menkaure, and the Sphinx. There were people but it wasn’t too crowded — the second you get off the main road it’s just you and the camels! (Pro tip: do not under any circumstances go to the Pyramids on a Friday.)
We picked a guesthouse with a rooftop view and spent the next couple days regularly interrupting each others’ reading to say hey look! pyramids!
But the Giza pyramids are not all there is to see! We shared a car for the day with a Russian couple to see more older different pyramids at Saqqara and Dahshur. These ones you can go into (included with your normal admission ticket), which was truly wild. The insides of pyramids are hot, more spacious than expected, smell like bats, and are ~4,500 years old. What an experience — I say this regularly, but I cannot believe this is our life.
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* Step Pyramid (Djosser) at Saqqara
** Karnak Temple Complex at Luxor
*** Mosque-Madrassa of Sultan Hassan