Dad ended up yelling really loudly in his ear.
They still had skin, and some of them still had hair!
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May 22, 2000 -Bronwen
The Suez Canal actually wasn't as bad as we thought.
We had heard pilot horror stories (you have to have a pilot). Some of them
ask all day for their tip, some act like you are their servants, and some
of them force 'unwanted attentions' on the women of the boat, not really
serious, but irritating. We were really lucky both times. The pilots were
both older and very friendly. They just drove our boat for us all day,
great! We were very happy to be out of Egypt and done with the Red Sea. We
have been looking forward to the Mediterranean for months and months,
probably at least since Thailand. Our next stop is Cyprus, and then
Turkey. The geography lesson continues.
We took a land trip to Cairo for one night. We rode a
bus out to the great Pyramids of Giza, and they were incredibly big and
symmetrical. We walked around in a bit of a stupor though, just wandering
around banging off the pictures, not really looking ourselves. I never
really grasped that here were the Pyramids, and that they are over 4000
years old. We stayed after closing time so that they had to shoo us out.
That was great though, because there were no tourists or people selling
souvenirs. The vendors were terrible. They would shove things in our faces
at least twice before leaving, and often followed us. The camel and horse
drivers and the postcard sellers were especially bad. One kid started
mocking Dad telling him to go away, and then eyeing up our stuff like he
was going to steal something. Dad ended up yelling really loudly in his
ear. We got really irritated, so that if anyone tried to sell something we
were immediately angry. We think they must hate us because of the way they
act, but they probably think we hate them. It just started to feel that
everywhere we turned there was someone trying to rip us off. The taxis
would try for incredible prices, or agree to something and then deny it at
the end. One taxi driver tried to get us to give him 50 Egyptian pounds
for 50 Sudanese pounds, which he pretended were Egyptian. The problem with
that is there are two Egyptian pounds to 50 Sudanese pounds. So, we did
not like the people in Cairo at all. A bit of a bad taste of Egypt left in
our mouths.
We also visited the Cairo Museum. That was
fascinating. There were an amazing number of statues and all kinds of
other things: jewelry, writing materials, clay letters that used to be
sealed in clay envelopes, weapons, chairs, coffins, toy boxes,
diorama-type scenes of daily life, chariots, tools used in mummification;
all the things from daily life, most of them from tombs. There were lots
of wooden things, and I find it really hard to believe that after all of
these thousands of years the wood hasn't disintegrated. There was so much
gold too, gold everywhere. We saw Tutankhamen's death mask and coffin, and
they were incredible. The work was so intricate, and the smallest casket
was made of pure gold. Can you believe it? There were lots of things from
his tomb as well. It was hard to believe that one person owned so many
things and so much gold. A huge portion of the museum was devoted to
Tutankhamen. It was also amazing to see the high quality of the ancient
workmanship. One small room was devoted to displaying some of the royal
mummies, with heads and toes showing on some of them. They still had skin,
and some of them still had hair! Incredible. They would be so disappointed
to know that anybody can pay a few dollars to look at them today, and that
their tombs have all been ransacked.
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