As Piet had to clear off some leave days before our departure, we decided to pay a final visit to the Egyptian Museum, which contains thousands and thousands of artifacts from the pharaonic era. We visited the Museum before when we had just arrived in Cairo, but it was difficult to appreciate the displays and without any pharaonic knowledge they were truly overwhelming. In the mean time we have done a lot of reading (Amelia Peabody's adventures!), and visited many of the sites throughout Egypt. So it was time to put ourselves to the test.
After dropping off the girls at school we drove to Maadi and parked the car. We wanted to take the metro to downtown (a first after 4 1/2 years!). It is a modern system, with 1 LE tickets, automatic turnstiles, and regular trains. There are special women's carriages, and a sign on the platform where they should stand to wait for the next train. We got in on one of the mixed carriages and soon felt like tinned sardines, as it was morning rush hour. At Sadat Station, below Tahrir Square we got out and walked to the Museum.
At the museum it was very busy, heaving with tourists, guides and school classes. After a double security check we were in and went straight to Tutankamun's treasures, as most of the guides were still explaining the basics near the entrance. It is amazing what this insignificant pharaoh, who died at an age of 19, managed to collect for his burial. Everything was crammed into his relatively small tomb in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor: 4 huge gilded wooden shrines, fitting into each other, with the 3 sarcophagi inside them (also fitting into each other) with the mummy with the famous golden mask in the centre. The mummy and the outer sarcophagus are now in his tomb in Luxor. Further there are rooms with funerary couches, canopic jars (containing Tut's internal organs), a throne, many golden statues and two lifesize wooden statues of Tut, which were placed as guards at the tomb entrance. Most of the artifacts are stunningly beautiful, and 3500 years old! We also had a look at the goodies from the royal tombs of Tanis, the tomb of Yuya and Thuyu, the animal mummies and the Amarna area (of heretic pharaoh Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti). Slowly suffering from pharaonic fatigue we decided to call it a day and took the metro back to Maadi and had lunch at Cilantro.
Back home, and we were off again: we picked up the girls for their regular horse riding lesson at the stable. They saddled (with Reda's help) Mirinda (Paula), Humphrey (Dorien) and Mr. Small (Mary) for his first real lesson. They did some of their regular exercises, but the Mr. Small / Mary team was struggling a bit with directions. Reda tried as well and fared a little better. Then Sayed turned up and showed them "the hand of the master", and Mr. Small looked like he has been doing these twists, turns and changes of speed for years. Feeling confident Sayed decided that it was time to put Piet on horse as well. Mirinda was volunteered and Piet did a few laps, closely supervised by all his girls and the other horses. No accidents! Afterwards we had an Egyptian dinner with Sayed at the stable, as it was (possibly) Piet's last visit to the stable. But Mary will go again tomorrow, and Thursday, and Friday, and .......
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