Saturday 16 December 2023

Tutankhamen


Today we went on the longest day trip ever. The rep sold it as an easy way to get back from the cruise in Luxor to our hotel on the Red Sea.

He said it would be one hour at the airport, one hour flight, a tour of the Egyptian Museum and the pyramids then a quick flight to Hurghada and back in time for dinner.

Did it happen like that? Well we are in Egypt, land of over promises and surprise deliveries.

In reality, the pick up was 7am, three hours before our flight, but we were in Cairo by 11.30am and raring to go. Of course, we had to wait for some reason and then there was a mutiny on the coach when he said that lunch would be at 5pm. He averted a mini crisis by buying felafels for breakfast for everyone, and then we got to the museum.


It was quite empty and we saw all of Tutankhamen's treasures. 

The incredible gold sarcophagus and death mask are in a separate room where no photos are allowed, but we took photos of everything else.

The photo above is of the jars that store his lungs, stomach, intestines and liver, ready for him to use again in the afterlife.

His heart was put back in to his body and is in his mummy which is still in his burial chamber in the Valley of the Kings, and his brain was thrown away. (This is all standard practice for dead Pharaoh's)

This is his gold chair with a beautiful footstool painted with pictures of his enemies, so that he was crushing them under his feet.

So many other amazing things filled this crumbling and run down building, but this was a favourite - 4,500 year old life size models of the brother and sister in law of Pharaoh Khufu who built the biggest and first pyramid in Giza.

Speaking of Giza, that is where we went next. It is a only a few miles from the museum and right on the edge of the city, but since we last visited they appear to have put a new road in so that you arrive from the direction of the desert, and it gives the effect of them being a away from modern civilisation.

There are also camels everywhere, but get on them at your peril.

We were all desperate to get closer, but the tour guide was also desperate for us to go on horse and carriage rides to an even better viewpoint! He managed to get a couple of people to do this (probably disappointed about his lack of commission), and then he took the rest of us down for some free time.



For such a long day, we didn't get much time, but we have been here twice before and there are only so many photos that you can take of unbelievably enormous triangles in the sand.

By this time the tour guide was getting frantic as the whole pyramid site closes at 5pm and we hadn't got to the sphinx yet. Another new road has been built past the side of it and no one is allowed to park on it. However everyone did, and the police were constantly blowing whistles to try to move everyone on.

Our guide also said that the police try to close the site early every day, and actually we had to leave at 4.30pm.

It was a shame as the sun was going down and we could hardly see the magnificent creature because of the glare.

After that we had a late lunch followed by a trip to a papyrus workshop. Our guide had then run out of things to do, so he took us to the airport where our flight wasn't until 11pm, and not 6pm as promised.

We eventually got to our hotel at 1am, but what we saw the only remaining Wonder of the World, and Tutankhamen, and experienced Egyptian organisational skills.

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