Simply My Life...me discovering me: My Egyptian journey continues...

This the second installment about my trip to Egypt. There most likely will be at least four parts, maybe five. Part One was published on May 21, 2022.

The next morning, we meet our Collette Tours guide, Khaled Lotfy, as well as the 13 other people in our group in the lobby of our hotel. Most are a bit older, and all are experienced world travelers. After Egypt, some are traveling to Jordan, while another couple, who have sold off most of their possessions and travel fulltime, are heading to Bali. Listening to everyone’s travel stories is inspiring!

But it is Khaled who I find most interesting.

Khaled is a 63-year-old Egyptologist with a lifetime of experiences. As a young man, he worked as an archaeologist and climbed Mount Sinai for the joy of it. Now he is a travel guide. He is well-educated and his knowledge of Egyptian history is infinite. I am delighted he will be our guide for the remainder of our trip and look forward to talking with him and listening to what he has to say.

After our introductions, we are off to the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities.

Khaled leads us through the museum, pointing at various artifacts and statues, while imparting history about each one. He speaks easily and doesn’t rattle off a list of dates and statistics that I’ll never remember but tells Egypt’s history as a story. At times, we all assume roles of different pharaohs and Khaled relates a part of history that we play a part in. It helps me to remember because Egyptian history reads like a soap opera with brothers killing brothers and brothers marrying sisters. It seems everyone is related.

Our guide Khaled stands next to a black granite statue
of Amenemhat III who ruled from 1860-1814 BC.

We stop at the Statue of Khafre and Khaled tells us it is one of the most important sculptures of ancient Egypt. It was found by Auguste Mariette in 1860 during excavations near the Pyramid of Khafre in Giza. The statue is 4,750 years old!

The Statue of Khafre.

After visiting a few more exhibits, we are left to wander on our own. I enter a small gallery dedicated to King Tutankhamen. It is filled with artifacts found inside his tomb. I walk in with camera ready, but just as one of the other women in my group tells me photography is not allowed, one of the docent’s yells at me to put away my camera. Begrudgingly I slip my camera into my purse.

KingTut is one of the most well-known pharaohs, but not for what he accomplished in life. He was young and ruled for only six years until his death at 19 years old, but he is known because archaeologists found his tomb intact.

Displayed beautifully in the center of the room is the famous gold mask of Tutankhamun. It is stunning and I wish I could take a photo. There are displays of jewelry and an array of other priceless treasures, but the room is full of people, and it is difficult to see the items up close.

In the hallway are more items belonging to King Tut, including four canopic jars. Ancient Egyptians believed a dead person would need their organs in their afterlife, so the liver, lungs, stomach, and intestines were removed during the mummification process and placed in jars. The jars were then sealed and placed with the body as part of the funeral rituals. The heart remained with the body during burial.

Two of the four canopic jars that once held King Tut's organs.

I venture to other parts of the museum, but many of the rooms and cases are empty. Items are being moved to the new Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) which is scheduled to open in November 2022. The new museum will be at Giza near the pyramids and, with a size of 5.2 million square feet, it will be one of the biggest museums in the world.

I am excited about the opening of the new museum. Not only will it have everything from the smaller museum, but it will feature over 20,000 relics that have never been on display. It will also include treasures from King Tutankhamen that haven’t been released since their discovery in 1922! When completed, it will display over 100,000 different items making it the largest archaeological museum in the world. Christy and I are already talking about a return trip.

After the museum, everyone takes the bus back to the hotel, but Christy, Linda and I decide to walk. It’s hot, but the walk is a short one of only 10-15 minutes. Besides, the walkway is along the Nile. This is my first glimpse of the Nile, but I’m not impressed. Maybe it is just this stretch that runs through Cairo, but it looks similar to many other rivers I've seen, and it isn’t as romantic or beautiful as the movies portray it to be.

The Nile River

One of the first things I noticed when we arrived in Cairo was the traffic.

It is very congested. There are no individually marked lanes and cars drive wherever there is space, sometimes five and six cars wide zigzagging across the road. No one uses turn signals and it’s a constant beep beep beep as drivers honk their horns to alert others to their presence. There are very few signal lights and no crosswalks. I'm not sure who is given the right-away when driving, but it all seems to work with cars merging whenever there is an opening.

Pedestrians, however, do not have the right-away and cross at their own peril.

Bumper to bumper Cairo traffic.

And now we must cross the street to get to our hotel.

Fortunately, traffic is light, but no one slows down as we step off the curb. I am reminded of an old video game, Frogger, and we are the frogs attempting to cross the road. We try a few times but are too scared to commit. Finally, traffic has slowed enough to where there are only a few cars, and we dart across. We are so proud of ourselves.

We have crossed our first street in Cairo without getting splattered all over the asphalt!

The bus ride to Saqqara the next morning is 45-minutes, and even with our early arrival, we can’t avoid the heat. My travel bloat has not subsided and my swollen ankles hurt, but no matter how uncomfortable I am, I will not be deterred. It is 110-degrees as I take my first steps into the Sahara Desert, but I am enjoying every minute of it.

Our tour group poses in front of the Step Pyramid,
Saqqara.

Saqqara is one of the richest archaeological sites in Egypt with its monuments spanning a time frame of 3,000 years. The area was used as a burial site for Egyptian royalty but was eventually abandoned and left buried under the desert sand for centuries. Recent discoveries at the site include a rare, gilded burial mask covered in obsidian, calcite, and onyx and in March 2022, five 4000-year-old tombs were unearthed.

The Step Pyramid of Djoser is the centerpiece of the Saqqara complex. It was used as the model for all other pyramids built in Egypt. The great innovator Imhotep built the pyramid for King Djoser in the 27^th century BC.

The Step Pyramid is currently undergoing extensive
exterior conservation work.

One of Saqqara’s more interesting monuments is the Serapeum, the underground burial chamber of the sacred Apis bulls. It consists of long passageways which house 25 giant granite sarcophagi. The sarcophagi, weighing up to 70 tons each, contained the mummified corpses of bulls. Unfortunately, when the site was discovered in 1851, all but one of the tombs had been pillaged. The mummified bull that remained is now in the Agricultural Museum in Cairo.

Entrance to the Serapeum.

Our guide stands next to one of the granite sarcophagus
in the Serapeum. For scale, Khaled is about 5'5".

At the Pyramid of Unas we see a tomb covered in hieroglyphics detailing spells designed to protect the king in the afterlife. Khaled tells us this is significant because this is the earliest known examples of decorative writing in a Pharaonic tomb chamber. These funerary texts later formed the basis of the Book of the Dead, which was a guide through the underworld.

Hieroglyphs inside the funerary complex of King Unas.

The pillars at Saqqara are the first known attempts to make
pillars in Egypt.

The heat has subsided some, but not much, when we reach Coptic Cairo. I want to stay on the airconditioned bus, but Khaled says we are family and must do everything together. Of course, it is for our safety.

We follow Khaled, or the walking stick he holds high into the air because that’s all we can see, through the crowded streets to the Hanging Church. Inside, it is so packed we can barely get in. I ask why it is so crowded and Khaled reminds me it is Easter Sunday. People are arriving for church services. Tourists and worshipers compete for limited space and it is causing a people-jam at the entrance.

Our guide gets into an intense discussion with a man controlling admittance. Another man joins the argument, and a few others chime in. The yelling lasts for several minutes. At one point I thought a fight was going to ensue, but then we are let through. Whether that is because the man at the entrance gate relented or whether Khaled simply walked in on his own, I do not know. We push through the crowd to follow.

It is a difficult situation. We are tourists who have paid for this tour and are on a time schedule, but these are locals who also have a right to enter the church whenever they chose, especially for Easter services. When it is this crowded, who is given the advantage? In this case, it is us. I do not make eye contact with those waiting in line as they glare angrily as we pass.

The entrance to the Hanging Church.

It doesn’t help that it is 107-degrees and in the middle of Ramadan. Khaled explains that a person cannot even have a sip of water during their fasting and if someone who does not have a medical reason is caught eating or drinking, they can be fined. No wonder tempers are short. Later, I see Khaled and the man he was arguing with, making amends. All is forgiven.

One of the mosaics in the courtyard of
The Hanging Church.

Next, we visit the Church of St. Sergius and St. Bacchus. It is also known as the cavern church because it is believed that the Holy Family sheltered in a cave here during their flight into Egypt. The cave is preserved as a crypt, and you descend a short stairwell underground to view it and then back up into the church.

But inside, it smells rank with cat piss.

The odor was so strong when we previously visited with Mariam that it gave me a headache. Christy, Linda and I opt to wait outside this time while the rest of the group goes inside. While we wait, we see some of the offending cats running about.

A kitten on the streets of Cairo.

The alley leading to the cavern church is
filled with racks of books for sale.

More authentic Egyptian food for lunch at Fel Fel Egypt. I am glad to be free of the crazy crowds and the heat. We start our meal with a falafel. This is my first time eating one. It doesn’t look very appetizing, but it is delicious! Falafels are a popular Middle Eastern food made with chickpeas and fava beans that are ground up and formed into patties, and then fried.

I also try another new dish, Shakshouka, which is a combination of eggs poached in a tomato sauce, onions, and minced meat. I don’t like it very much and prefer the kabob of mixed beef and chicken as well as eating a second falafel or three.

My first falafel!

We get back to the Kempinski Hotel about 5pm and I am glad to call it an early night. Our wakeup call is at the ungodly hour of 2am! We are flying to Luxor tomorrow morning and will be boarding the Movenpick Royal Lotus to begin our cruise down the Nile!