Crossing the nile with the Cairo Tower in the distance.

When we arrived to the Egyptian Museum I could see Tahrir Square. I knew it was nearby but didn’t realize how close it was. It was just full of cars and construction projects.

View towards Tahrir Square

We got out and looked over the outer gardens, as this would be the last time we could take photos. (A few months later the museum temporarily allowed photography inside to entice more tourists to visit. I lamented to my groupmates about this. They laughed and said “But then you’d still be editing photos!” Touché!)

Photo by Magda

Mikel rounded us up then and we headed inside. While he was getting us headsets so we could hear him, some of us ran to the bathrooms. After I got my headset, I pushed the limits to see how far I could go and still here Mikel. As we waited for others to return to the bathrooms, I darted down corridors looking at all the objects I could see. After Mikel started talking I’d dart again back to him, note what he was talking about (that I had already viewed) and then pressed on. I found that I could go as far as I wanted…unless there was a wall. The signal could get through the walls if I was say just on the opposite side from Mikel, but if I was diagonal or there were a lot of objects between us it crackled and went silent. The reason why I was darting was because I was so excited, and I wanted to see EVERYTHING. I knew we’d have a little free time later, but I had heard you could spend days here, and I wouldn’t have a chance to come back. I also was darting because I had read cover-to-cover a detailed guidebook to the museum, so I was on the hunt to find the rarer pieces before the group huddled up next to them.

After a while I wore myself out, and found a bench I could sit on while Mikel continued to explain things. After covering just 1/3 of the downstairs (and I had darted through another 1/3 of it by myself) we moved upstairs to the Tutankhamun treasures. I again darted up here as well to get an idea of what was stored up there. I noticed some of the halls were closed for renovations and re-painting, while others were off limits because rain had come in through broken skylights. As we learned more about the artifacts we slowly headed to the main Tutankhamun treasure room. Sadly, the famous mask was not on display as it was being fixed after his beard had been superglued on. That and knowing his tomb was also closed for renovations made the “Search for King Tut” lacking in Egypt. But it was amazing to see the treasures first hand. I’d seen photos of them in books, but the details were just amazing.

Afterwards Mikel took us to the other side of the upper floor to see some animal mummies. Here we were also stopped from some rooms due to much water on the floor. It was then that we all realized our bags were not inside the van, but on top of it. We had wanted more room in the van, and had assumed it wouldn’t rain in Cairo. I was concerned because I had electronics in my bag, and not in a dry bag. Mikel said he thought the driver would find a bridge. But with no way of knowing, we pressed on. Mikel then let us have free time.

A few of us saw the two mummy rooms, which honestly weren’t all that interesting. I quickly went through them wishing I hadn’t waisted the money or the time on them. (And they were freezing!) So I came back out to explore the top area. It was pretty hot and humid, so I was drinking a lot of water. I also was hungry and ate some smuggled in crackers as I was feeling dizzy. I was trying to move so quickly, to see everything, that the hot, the hunger, the darkness (man it was so dark) and the lack of labeling got to me. With still over 40 minutes to go I gave up. I had seen a lot of the major items, but I just couldn’t keep attempting to see everything in one go. I was getting frustrated and I, who loves museums, was starting to hate this one.

I headed downstairs to see the Amarna area only to find it was small. Too tired to climb back upstairs I wandered around the bottom area before decided to head out of the museum to the gift shop. So I exited…to find that the gift shop was shuttered. The protests and lack of tourists had made rent too high and profit non-existent that the beautiful gift shop and restaurant was left empty and in ruin. At this point I was so frustrated. I wanted to LOVE the Egyptian Museum. But instead I found an unorganized, dark and dusty antique. I vowed I’d come back to Egypt once the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza is finished, but I just didn’t have the energy to re-enter or look at anything else. I found some of the others in my group sitting in an outdoor cafe. The chairs were covered in rainwater, but it was better than standing. Stray cats played all over the table. I got a drink and was shocked at how expensive the prices were for just a small bottle of water. I saw waiting, hoping that the others would come quickly so we could leave and have dinner.

Most everyone came right on time, and by that point I was again not feeling 100%. Not as bad as the day before, but I decided to drink some more re-hydration powder to see if it would help. (It did.) We then headed back to the van where we found the driver had moved to under a bridge when it started raining. (I’d later find some of my stuff damp, but not that bad, and the electronics were fine.) We thanked him profusely and then it was off to dinner. Again we had to cross the Nile as we’d be catching the train at the Giza station, so we’d eat at a Egyptian Pizza place nearby.

When the roads got tight, we hopped out and walked the rest of the way. It was clear this area was more for locals, and it was fun to wander around. When we got to the Pizza place, we looked at the menu and ordered. We were told there was wifi, but apparently you had to have a local Egyptian phone number to make it work. We watched locals smoke sweet smelling Shisha. It took ages to get our food. At one point my meal was given to someone else, who ate some of it. I was a little disgusted and weirded out that the waiter’s solution was to swap the half eaten food with me, so now I had a plate someone else had been eating off of. (Ah Egyptian Customer Service at its best!) But then I found that I actually dislike the taste of Egyptian beef and I should have stuck with chicken or vegetarian options.  Instead I wandered off to a local store and bought a lot of unhealthy snacks like nutella croissants and cheetos. And although I had heard the food on the train was awful, I knew they’d be serving us dinner, so I hopped I’d be able to find something edible.

Photo by Magda, the others sitting at the cafe.

We headed back and made our way to the train station. I ended up sitting at a cafe and ordering “hot chocolate” with James, and while the chocolate bar it came with was good, the drink was not. We sat and talked about history and things like that for a bit. It seemed like we were waiting a long while. When we paid we found the price much higher than anticipated. Apparently the price had been just for the drink, with the chocolate being a “upsell” that since we ate it we had to pay for it. Go figure. I then tried to find a bathroom as I wasn’t feeling well. The only one I could find send MEN, and after paying my 2 EGP to the woman, she opened up one of the dirtiest pit toilets I’d seen, and started dousing it with water. Not feeling well, and not wanting to deal with a dirty pit toilet I tried to ask her if she had a sitting toilet, of which she said no. She was angry when I was like “No thank you” and took my money back from her. I’d rather be feeling horrible, than deal with that. So I just waited for the train.

Photo by Magda. Waiting for the train.

A few local trains came and went from the same platform and it arrived about 30 minutes late (which actually isn’t bad for Egypt.) I was so focused on being able to use a bathroom, that I just threw my stuff into one of the rooms without thinking. (If I had I would have chosen a forward facing seating arrangement, ah well.) After using the bathroom (which wasn’t as bad as I had been lead to believe) I felt quite a bit better, but still wasn’t up to eating the meal the train served. Although Elizabeth said it was great and ate hers and some of mine.

After dinner the train attendant came to put our bed down. Elizabeth let me have the bottom one since my legs were still not feeling well. We ended up going to bed earlier than the others. I was partially aggregated at the group-mates in the connecting room to ours, as they were loudly talking and drinking the alcohol they had bought in Alexandria. But the anger was also partially at myself as I wished I had energy to join them. Instead I just put in earplugs and tried to sleep. I was sleeping on top of the blankets as the bed was hard and I wanted as much padding between me and the frame as possible. So I used my large sarong as a blanket. But in the night it got cold and so I had to move under the covers then.