Dates 2 Nov '11 to 16 Nov '11
Flexible? No, not really
Est. Cost 2,149 - 2,149 USD (USD United States Dollars)
Type Tour Participants Wanted
Name Egypt Photo & Culture Adventure
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Sheila Wow, talk about good timing! The square & museum were inaccessible both Tues & Fri. & I was there all day Wed. & Thurs. In our perambulations, I'd lost track of what day it was & thought my departure was Thurs 1:05am, but it was Fri 1:05am. Luckily, I realized my mistake before heading for the airport & contacted Jimmy via Adel to change my airport transfer.
So, I ended up with 2 full days & spent them both at the museum. It is at once mind-boggling in its collection & infinitely frustrating due to its lack of labeling & overall abysmal curatorship.
I'd estimate that less than 2% of items are labelled at all. Of those, maybe 10% are decent labels. The rest have woefully inadequate information and laughably poor quality. Many are done on plain paper on a MANUAL typewriter!
Only the royal mummy room has any kind of climate control. Many items are not in cases & despite people going around with dusters, they have a layer of grit over them, like everything else in Cairo. The glass on many cases is also covered with dust - both inside & out. A curator from any other great museum in the world would have a conniption fit.
Just as well we didn't get there on Tues. It would have been a joke to go for an hour. Between the 2 days I spent approx. 12 hours in the bldg & it was barely enough to get a handle on the collection.
Thanks for the link, Julie. I went to the centre of Tahrir Sq. on Fri & shot a 360° video from pretty much the spot where the red dot is on the aerial shot on that linked page. My video includes 3 small tents, whose removal was referred to on CBC news today as a trigger for Friday's protest. I will, at some point, post the vid & send you all the link.
Todd Hi Sheila. Yes, I've spent a few weeks. Absolutely loved it. We travelled from Cairo all the way to Abu Simbel on the Sudanese border.
Money was never a problem and everything is cheap. A falafel sandwich with salad was about 50 cents. Taxis are cheap too. A hot air ballon above the Valley of the Kings was about $75. Probably a bit more now, but cheap nonetheless.
Only real advice I have is to try to be tolerant in the bazaars. At first it will seem like people are being aggressive and your natural instinct may be to snap or avoid them. Our guide told us to just take a breath and go with the flow. Best advice ever. Don't feel pressured and try not to be defensive. Just have fun bargaining and chatting.
Hope you have a blast :)
