Camels, Michael Jackson, Pyramids, and the Sphinx!

Due to a storm that was headed our way, the captain chose to skip Cyprus so that there wouldn't be any danger of our not getting into port in Alexandria. That gave us an extra day at sea before our really long day in Egypt. For this one, we opted to go on the Royal Caribbean tour rather than getting one of our own...

Up early and eager, we got our number (19) and got on our bus.

Only to discover we had all been put on the wrong bus. This one wasn't going on the Nile cruise -- it was going to the City of the Dead in Cairo instead. Oops.

It was a long drive from Alexandria to Cairo. Our tour guide was hot into selling things -- T-shirts and cartouches which she promised if we only ordered Right Now we could get it at the end of the trip.

First stop was an old mosque. It wasn't terribly impressive, but it did have 365 lights in it! Poor February 29 gets left out again.





Next stop was lunch on a cruise on the Nile. Wasn't exactly what I expected. Evidently Moses wasn't born near Cairo -- there wasn't a bulrush to be seen. There were, however, lots and lots of buildings. Looked just like any old city anywhere. We even waved at TGI Fridays! The Nile is brown, in case you needed to know...




Tim looks thrilled with the food, doesn't he? It wasn't the best -- though I LOVED the ice cream!!



Now here is the kind of boat I thought we would be on...



I think I was expecting the Egypt of the old Agatha Christie mysteries, or Elizabeth Peters Amelia Peabody books....not the Egypt of 2009....

In fact, seeing the pyramids behind the city was a shock. I'm not sure what I expected, but it wasn't this:



The pyramids were surrounded by lots of um -- sales people and camel vendors. Will and Bob (Peterson) think they could market the place a lot better and perhaps do an Egyptian Disneyworld -- perhaps "Sphinx R Us" or "Pyramidic Planet". I do think they need help...

I digress.

I wanted to ride a camel. Another one of the 101 things to do before I die is now crossed off the list....Tim was an unenthusiastic passenger with me -- I didn't want to do it on my own, and there was no way I was going to get Bob to go! So Tim graciously decided he would accompany his old mother...






Our little camel boy spoke lovely English -- told us the camel's name was Michael Jackson. I told him Michael Jordan would have been a much better fit....which brought on a lovely discussion of basketball. He was quite impressed with Tim's command of Arabic....I too, am very impressed with Tim's command of Arabic. Despite having learned several phrases in Morocco, I'm left with la shukran. (No thank you).







The Great Pyramid -- the one the three of us are standing in front of -- is the only one of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World that is still standing. The pyramids, however, are not the oldest man-made structure on the earth. That honor is given to a stone gate in Malta. (This took up a full breakfast discussion the next day...) And you can't get into the pyramids -- Evidently you can if you go to Luxor, but maybe on another trip....

Then on to the Sphinx... This guy -- well, you can't get up close and personal with him. He is surrounded by a fence which is probably just as well. That way the only thing that will make him crumble a bit faster is the acid rain and pollution from the 15,000,000 folks that live in Cairo and its environs.







The last stop of the day was one of the many "Papyrus Institutes" where we were treated to a lecture on how papyrus is made, and then encouraged to spend many euros on beautiful pictures painted on the papyrus. I opted to take pictures of the pictures instead....much to our tour guide's disgust because we are quite sure she gets a commission on all that is sold. Maybe Royal Caribbean does too....hmmm....







We finally headed back -- sleepy -- a bit disgruntled at spending so much time in the last shop rather than more time exploring the wonders of Egypt, and hungry....

The line was LONG to get back on the ship. And it was COLD.



The next time I go back to Egypt, I'm going to Luxor, and I'm going to find some bulrushes. I think I'm going to go with Agatha Christie, because I want to visit the Egypt of the past. I think it's much more romantic than the Egypt of the present.