Saturday 18 February 2012

Today's temperature is going to be around 15 degrees so we'll be taking a jumper and jackets for our tour today.

We woke around 5am - not really sure why it's supposed to be a relaxing holiday. Ah well, never mind, we casually got ready for breakfast and took the long walk to the breakfast room. Seriously, you need a horse and a cut lunch to get there! The buffet breakfast was wonderful and we had so many choices it was hard to know where to start, then with our tummies full we made our way to the lobby to meet our guide who introduced us to our Egyptologist, Lamia. Lamia took us on a tour through 7,000 years of history at the Egyptian museum which houses the largest collection of ancient Egyptian art in the world including the treasures of Tutankhamun. It was open mouthed amazing! So much attention to detail and the richness of it all was breathtaking. We went into the royal mummies room to see the mummies of ancient Egyptian kings and queens….it was fascinating looking at people that are thousands of years old, all perfectly preserved. I bet none of them ever thought that far, far into the future they would be looked at by millions of people. On one particular mummy l could even see their eyelashes!!! To tour the whole museum l reckon you'd need a couple of days but we saw enough to satisfy ourselves. Tutankamuns treasures were amazing with most things made of wood then dipped in gold. There is the jewelry which was wrapped in each layer of the cloth around him on display and some of it's so intricate you wonder how they made it all those years ago. One of the things that l found particularly interesting was a gold and jeweled corset that he would have worn while fighting. His famous mask was also on display which is about 11 kilos of gold! I'll just take one of those thanks!

Right next to the museum is a government building which was burned during the uprising of the January 28th attacks last year. We also drive around Tahiri Square where the rebels camped out and even today there are still tents set up with the protesters sitting around although nowhere near as many as last year. Our guide said that the square was filled with people and no room to move let alone drive around it, so that was pretty interesting. Also, at the museum we didn't have any queues as tourist have stayed away from Egypt so it was really good for us in that respect.

After the museum we travelled to the Sultan Hassan Mosque, apparently one of the finest mosques in Egypt because of it's grand soaring architecture and rich decoration. Most of it is open air which l thought was quite interesting. In the past, as well as being a mosque it was a religious school and it housed children - sort of like an orphanage.

By the time we finished looking at the mosque it was time for lunch. We drove back to the old walled city of Cairo and had an Arabian style lunch at Naguib Mahfouz restaurant which lies in the heart of the Khan El-Khalili Bazaar, then afterwards we walked down the main street on the bazaar where l stopped and bought a few touristy things after some pretty hard bargaining. 1 Egyptian pound converts to about .15 cents, so l paid 50 pounds for the things l bought which is really about 8 dollars. Not bad really. Last night a glass of wine cost me 120 pounds which is pretty expensive (18 dollars). We also have to learn to tip everyone who serves us which was a bit confusing at first but once we learned the conversion rate it wasn't too bad. The wages are very low so the locals rely on the tips to get them by.

We arrived back at our hotel around 3pm and the rest of the day is at our leisure. Craig's gone to sleep so l've taken the opportunity to upload photos and write the blog. Tonight we'll stay close to the hotel which, by the way, is above a shopping mall which stays open until 10pm - yaaay….guess what l'll be doing!!!