Day 8 - Egypt

We arrived back in Cairo not too far off schedule and went straight to a yummy breakfast at the hotel - omeletes made to order, crepes and chocolate. Yum! Hehe then it was "nap" time. We grabbed a quick sleep before the group headed to the Egyptian museum. Here again I noticed sometime that was common throughout out trip - even though half the people who were friendly to us were trying to get money out of us the other half were just genuinely really friendly - waving to us through the window of the tour bus, yelling out and smiling even when they weren't in a situation where we could have given them money. Darren was sitting on a bench in Cairo next to an elderly man and his three daughters and two sons and he started dealing out mandarins to his children and because Darren was sitting there he offered Darren one too! Their genuine unreserved friendliness was so incredibly touching and eye openin gand it really has inspired me to be as friendly and as kind to people as I possibly can be from now on.

Me sitting by the pond outside the museum with some lotus flowers in it.

Anyway back to the Egyptian museum - it was gorgeous, so old school and charming. It was stuffed full of artifacts - more than you could imagine. Everything was displayed in old fashioned wooden cabinets with glass fronts - old fashioned not because they were styled like that but simply because they were actually old. The labels were scarce and when they did have them they done on a typewriter and often in only one language, not always English. The most memorable things there were Tutankhamen's burial mask (it looked exactly as it did in all the pictures), his solid gold coffin, a huge mummified alligator (or was it a crocodile - a crocodile I think), and a great mummified Nile Perch.

Darren outside the museum.

The next stop was surprisingly one of my favourites. We went to a flower essence shop where the elderly Egyptian owner was an incredibly gracious host providing drinks and country bread for us while we ate our koshari and listened to the process of making flower essence (the same process they used thousands of years ago). The shop was absolutely beautiful filled with thousands of perfume bottles and big carafes of flower essence. Then it was time for the smelling to begin. This shop provides the essence for the big perfume companies and the pure essence (without the alcohol added diluting it) smelt exactly like the perfume from the shops - I know this because my perfume j'adore was the second woman's fragrance we smelt. The flower essense wasn't cheap around $100NZ a bottle but the size of the bottle would make tons of bottles of perfume if you did dilute it (which you don't need to). You only needed two drops and it would apparently last all day - however as I write this it's now day two after our visit and Darren still smells beautiful. It was absolutely amazking the whole experience of being in this shop so enchanting - we ended up buying two bottles, lotus flower for me (which was the essence the pharoahs used to offer to the gods), and the scent for Darren called Ramses II.

Perfume bottles at the flower essence shop.

The last stop was the markets. Everyone who knows me know I love markets and during this trip I've also come to enjoy haggling. I got some great deals which I won't go into as some of them may become Christmas presents! The markets were gorgeous and lively and things I wanted to write that I've noticed about Egypt and now would be a good time to say is how great it smells! That might be surprising but it does smell really nice - lots of different smells, my favourite being the smell of people smoking the apple tobacco in sheeshah pipes - I had two puffs myself but enjoed the smell of it more than actually smoking it.

A main street outside the markets.

Sob sob, and that is all, it was back to the hotel and sad goodbyes to Sam and Sam and Surasha and Teagan. I really hope we manage to keep in touch with some of great friends we've made during this holiday.

As a little girl I was fascinated with Ancient Egypt, I can remember pouring over books about it from the Burnside Primary School library. Reading about Pharoahs and temples and perfume cones and eye makeup. My interest in Egypt has continued to adulthood and so it was extremely special for me to actually get to go there. This is so corny but this really was the best experience of my whole life - it was such an amazing place with great people a fascinating history and I don't want to forget a moment of it. The only negative part of the trip was Darren getting sick but despite that I know it was a special trip for him too.

Now it's back to reality - it will be sad not to be woken by the call to prayer tomorrow morning.

:)
Mindy