Egyptian Museum

Monday I got back on the city bus and took it down to the Egyptian Museum. This place is huge! The museum houses over 100,000 antiquities, including such famous relics and King Tut's mask and coffin. As with the day before, I decided to explore on my own instead of joining a tour. This allowed me to move at my own pace and scour the Lonely Planet book for information when I wanted it, but instead of being part of the hordes of people I was battling against them. It seemed as though whenever I found a peaceful corner and was inspecting an exhibit I would be surrounded by a group of German tourists, with their tour leader yelling in my ear and cameras going off in my face. Despite these complaints the shear number and size of the displays in the museum overwhelmed me. The 8-meter high granite statue of Ramses II seated next to his wife particularly impressed me.

In the afternoon I took a taxi back to Heliopolis and met up with Rob. We were planning on going to the Citadel, but unfortunately we did not have enough time before sunset. Instead we just went to the Nile to watch the sunset. As with the previous days, once the sun went down the streets became empty and quiet. Rob and I walked around the empty streets and tried to avoid being harassed by the con men who had no place to go. We walked down to the souqs, not nearly as busy as they had been earlier in the week. As time went on though people returned from their dinners and once again inhabited the stores.

Rob and I stopped to drink tea in a narrow alley and spent the whole time fending off children trying to sell us pencils and tissue. The children left us though when a young woman asked if she could join us. I didn't think much of it, but Rob was immediately suspicious. She spoke good English and asked where we were from (I said New Zealand) and she informed us that she was from Brazil. Like hell she was! Not only did she not look remotely Brazilian, but also she couldn't speak Portuguese to save her life (we tested her). I was curious about what she wanted but Rob's suspicion got the best of him so we left. From the café we continued through the dingy streets before entering a small mosque. There was a dance presentation called whirling Dervishes that we just happened upon. The presentation consisted of eight musicians playing drums and strings while the dancers (all male) spun around in circles. I am not sure how to better describe the event, but it was amazing! Following that Rob and I continued walking around the souqs, marveling at men riding bicycles with bread stacked on their heads and old men roasting sweet potatoes in cast iron stoves on the back of carts.

To Luxor...