Of pyramids in the dark and a night in a palace ...

Cairo ... 11/18/2008

After arriving in the city limits and hitting the unbelievable traffic we continued on to Sacaro the site of the "Step Pyramid" which was the first pyramid built around 5000 years ago.  We learned that this "stepped" design was the early prototype for the more familiar pyramids we would see later at Giza.

We spent some time taking pictures and wandering around the site then loaded back on the buses and off to eat "lunch" at about 2pm ... it's no small trick to find restaurants that can accommodate 130+ people but it was all wonderfully arranged and included in our package as were all of the entry fees to the various sites.

After lunch back on the bus (seeing a pattern here?  we spent a lot of time on that bus!) and over to the Egyptian Museum of Cairo.  This is a huge museum that would take days to explore fully.  Due to our limited time our guide "Amro" escorted us through the King Tut portion where we saw all of the famous pieces of that discovery.  We learned several interesting things about Tut... basically he was an unimportant historical figure but gets all the press because by accident his tomb had not been pillaged by tomb raiders and so his artifacts are the ones found mostly intact.

In the main "room" where the sarcophagus and head mask are kept we squeezed in with literally hundreds of other sightseers in a way too small space. (Think NIOSA on a bad night) ... after that we broke off from the main group and wandered around the museum on our own just gawking at amazing things and reading the little signs until it was time to ... board the bus for another of Mr. Toad's wild ride through the streets of Cairo.

We made our way to Giza which is the site of the Great Pyramid and the Sphinx. 

By this time it was getting dark.  Our guide passed out tickets to the Sound and Light Show.  We made our way to the seating area where there were rows and rows of folding chairs set up.  Shortly after we set down (facing what by this time was a dark "stage area") some men dressed in traditional garb came around beating drums and playing various types of horns ... this lasted a while and then out of the darkness came an amplified voice describing the evolution of the ancient Egyptian civilization ... and the as if by magic the three pyramids of Giza were briefly lighted ... we were seated at the foot of these majestic creations of man.  Soon the lasers "drew"" various parts of the narrated story on the face of the pyramids and the Sphinx was lighted in various colors as the narrative told us the story of the Sphinx.

The light show lasted 55 minutes and was well worth the harrowing transit through the traffic.

After the show we ... boarded the bus ... and were taken to our "hotel" for the evening to check-in (actually our guide already had our room keys all we had to do was "find our room") and freshen up before our dinner and "show".

Our hotel was it turns out  first built in 1869 as a palace to accommodate dignitaries attending the Suez Canal inauguration ceremonies.  It was constructed on an island in the middle of the Nile.  Today it is still a palace with many of the old palace rooms used as dining and meeting rooms but it has been expanded into a huge 5 star hotel.  Our suite had 3 rooms and a bathroom almost as big as our entire stateroom on the ship.  The king sized bed was a welcome site.

A quick shower and change of clothes and we hurried downstairs to meet up with the group to walk across the street to a huge "floating restaurant" on the Nile where we were treated to a nice buffet dinner and show that included several different dance troops, a whirling dirvish and a belly dancer.  An amazing night to top of and amazing day.

Carolyn and I ducked out of the dinner a little early ... we were beat to a frazzle and were happy to hit the bed about 10:30pm

The next morning we were served a great buffet breakfast in one of the huge palace rooms and then ... back on the bus to the Giza Pyramids ...

I'll save that tale for the next posting.