Our time in Cairo went quickly, but we managed to squeeze in the essentials, such as the Egyptian Museum. It was full of sarcophagi, ancient crumbling statues, and thousands of other bits and pieces, but the best part (even though it cost extra) was of course the royal mummy exhibit. Unfortunately, the entire museum was off-limits for photography. Go figure. However, I managed to sneak this photo of a mummified baboon.
The royal mummies were fascinating - amazingly preserved down to the eyelashes, hair, teeth, and fingernails. Misha was excited to see them. He even noticed a very old, very wrinkled, very bony tourist also admiring the display, and to our embarrassment, he called out, "He looks like a REAL mummy!" We can hope that the poor tourist didn't speak English.
The baboon was part of the animal mummy display - also extremely interesting. We saw mummified dogs, cats, horses, and even alligators. Sebastian, whose love of cats has been fostered greatly in Egypt, started making meowing sounds upon seeing the mummy felines. The display featured mummified food products as well, which had been placed in the tombs for afterlife sustenance.
Before leaving Cairo, Josh took Bud and Ashley to the not-to-be-missed market Khan al Khalili. There, Bud and Ashley had so much fun haggling over souvenirs that Josh couldn't pull them away until the wee hours of the morning!
Bud and Ashley taste the thrill of bargaining.
Khan al Khalili on a Ramadan night. Packed to the brim!
Back in our hostel, Misha gets a lot of use out of his hieroglyphic stencil as he busily writes the names of everyone he knows with ancient symbols. Thus, his love of secret codes is born - just like his mommy. :)
The next day we headed on our journey south. Misha looked great in his tourist get-up:
We opted for taking the overnight sleeper train for the 11-hour journey to Aswan. Here we are at the station:
We fell in love with our sleeper train. We had two tiny, cozy, adjoining rooms, each with fold-out bunk-bed-style beds.
The train's soothing motion soon lulled the kids to sleep, leaving the four of us some time to chat and play cards before falling asleep ourselves and waking up the next morning in Aswan.
3 comments:
I laughed out loud at Misha's comment while I was on dorm duty and had to tell the dorm girls. Too cute!
Eleven hours on the train....it's a good thing you got the sleeper option! Enjoyed reading your update. -mom
The sleeper train looked fun. I wish I could have been there haggling with Bud and Ashley. It looks like so much fun. I think the mummy's would have scared me.
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