Cairoglyphics

After a long, uneventful flight to Cairo via Singapore, we made our very first groundfall on the African continent just before midnight. Upon deplaning, we were struck both by the sour smell of sweat and the heat, which hovered above 80 degrees despite the late hour. Tired and jetlagged, we were both quite glad that we had pre-arranged pickup and arrival visa assistance with our hotel. After being led through Customs and then whisked through the dusty back streets of Cairo via a Mercedes sedan, we were delivered to our five-star-in-price-only hotel some thirty minutes later.

We managed a few hours of fitful sleep before (in what was becoming a recurring theme on our trip) being awoken by a nearby mosque’s morning call to worship. We were subsequently reawakened a few hours later by loud Arabic talk radio coming through the hotel’s thin walls (courtesy of the next room’s former occupant). Forcing ourselves to fight through jetlag, we rose and made our way to the hotel’s club lounge for breakfast, where Kaberi was introduced to strawberry juice, a heavenly puree of sweet fruit that would become her sole drink for the foreseeable future.

After breakfast, we began planning our full two weeks in Egypt over the Internet. Armed with Kaberi’s friend Miki’s Rough Guide to Egypt, chock full of handwritten suggestions on what not to miss and what to skip, and a Concierge.com dream Egyptian itinerary, we quickly formulated a decent plan. Satisfied for the time being, save for a frustrating inability to book flights or cruises in Egypt via the Internet, we left our itinerary with the hotel’s concierge and asked for a price quote from the in-house travel agency. With a few productive hours behind us, we started our explorations of Cairo.

The first stop on our agenda was the Egyptian Antiquities Museum and our early start to the day deposited us at the front gates before the museum opened. After buying our tickets and ensconcing ourselves at the front of the line, we prepared to follow Concierge.com’s advice to bypass the hordes of tour groups assembled in the lobby for orientations and make a beeline for ­­rooms 3, 56 and 14. We had used the same trick at the Louvre a few years ago, and it had allowed us to admire the Mona Lisa undisturbed for a good ten minutes.

This time, our best efforts were thwarted by the museum’s poor numbering scheme and our own unfamiliarity with Egyptian antiquity. After wandering the rooms aimlessly, looking queryingly at the seemingly-endless clutter of unmarked statues and busts, we realized that we needed a guide to appreciate our visit. After exiting the building to haggle with one of the many guides unceremoniously assembled near the ticket booths, we settled upon a choice.

As it turned out, our guide was a well-intentioned man who had one hour’s worth of information at his disposal to fill a three-hour visit. His repetitive explanations of the symbolism of Upper (southern) and Lower (northern) Egypt, depicted by the papyrus and lotus, or red crown and white crown, turned into a ceaseless mantra that transformed us from intellectually-curious adults into fidgety middle-schoolers desperate for class to end.

The highlight of our visit was very clearly the King Tutenkamen (Tut) exhibition halls. Having seen the condensed, traveling King Tut exhibit in the U.S., we were astonished by the vastness of the contents comprising the burial tomb. We were also struck by King Tut’s relative inconsequence as an Egyptian ruler (he reigned only 14 years before dying very young and did not lead any military campaigns). If not for the discovery of his relatively-pristine burial chamber, he would be nothing more than a footnote in modern times. We could only imagine the scale and grandeur of the tombs of more important kings whose larger treasures did not evade the hands of graverobbers or other misfortunes.

The 3,000-year old artisanry reflected in King Tut’s treasure was a sight to behold. The painstaking detail and symbolism in many of the pieces was truly remarkable. For example, King Tut’s walking cane and footstool were adorned with black and white figures depicting Nubian and Syrian figures, thus symbolizing the king’s power to hold the traditional enemies of Egypt under his grasp and under his feet. The impeccable and delicate craftsmanship was repeated throughout the exhibition’s wooden boats (to transport the soul in the afterlife), jewels, gold pieces, coffin and sarcophagus.

After perusing the King Tut exhibits, and due to our misconception about the current currency exchange rate, we paid an outrageous admission price ($35 for two) to stroll through the rather-forgettable Royal Mummies Room. Our last stop before leaving was to see the Fayoum Portraits, a collection of Greek-influenced Egyptian watercolor paintings of nobility.

Afterward, we returned to the hotel on foot, thankful to have gotten something out of our visit. After arranging for a daylong guided tour of the Giza pyramids, the Sphinx and Memphis for the following day, we spent the afternoon giving in to jetlag.

When evening arrived, we took an impossibly-circuitous taxi ride to a restaurant in Cairo’s Muslim quarter overlooking the Citadel. We took in the sunset view and watched the area mosques illuminate as we dined on kabobs, babaganoush and hummus at Studio Misr. And in what would prove to be a short-lived state of affairs, we congratulated ourselves for successfully playing it by ear on our first full day in Egypt.