Cairo, the Egyptian Museum, the Pyramids and Don't Forget the Sphinx!

Makes for a busy day,  considering it's a two hour drive across the desert from the port at Sohkna.   I was on a private tour, arranged through contacts made prior on a website, cruisecritic.com,  but all the buses from the ship travelled in a convoy,  with armed escorts at the front and back.  On each bus is an armed guard as well--all due of course to the murder of tourists a few years ago in the valley of the kings.   The road is a six lane toll road-- police with AK47s and clipboards check you in and then they check you out at Cairo, it's all very organized!      Every maybe twenty kilometers there's a checkpoint with a guard tower and the business end of an AK47 sticking out., police milling about below.      All very friendly mind you, they wave and smile.    The convoy was stopped once for a bit while they did who knows what.     And then Cairo--huge city, 22 million people, mostly poor and full of all you might expect of such a city. The traffic is crazy--two lanes become three, three become four, pedestrians crossing even the freeway (the ring road), police with (yes) AK47s manning guard booths at street corners, barricades on streets here and there manned by (what else?) police with AK47s.   The really crazy thing is that buildings (except where the wealthy live and office buildings, hotel etc.) in Cairo are rarely ever finished (can you imagine that, Paul?).    Two reasons:   taxes don't kick in until the building is done,  and, when a son marries, dad just adds a storey for the new family.   By the way,  arranged marriages are still very much the norm still,  the mothers hook things up, and men can have up to four wives.    Well that's for the Muslims,  Egypt is 15% Christian, and our guide said there are 250 Jews as well, living in Alexandria.    The city is all sort of a version of controlled chaos.  People are friendly enough, but want money (baksheesh) if you so much as ask a question, and are constantly trying to sell you something, heaven forbid you do fork over money because you'll be swarmed.   I really can't imagine enjoying spending any amount of time there.      

All that aside, it's amazing!   The Egyptian Museum is a wonderland filled to the rafters.  What I loved about it is character,  it feels inside just what you think it should, windows flung open to the breeze,  modern museum standards blatantly ignored, one priceless object after another and another,  each with a little hand typed note card.    The crowning glory is of coarse the trove of treasure found at the tomb of King Tutahnkamen in the Valley of the Kings.   His was the only tomb not robbed in ancient times and was discovered intact by Indiana Jones in 1920.   If you've seen the collection that Egypt has occasionally loaned out,  you've barely scratched the surface, and out of context of the entirety you just don't understand.  Over 1700 items we're pulled from the tomb, most famous the death mask and the solid gold casket, all encrusted with this and that, in perfect condition--four life size chariots, tiny little things, four enormous gold covered boxes that fit within each other that held the coffin,  on and on.   No photography permitted.    Just amazing!     More to come.