Solar Boat Museum

While visiting EZ Storage, I told one of the very nice ladies who runs the place about the incredible Solar Boat Museum. I told her how big the boat was, what it was made of and the history of it. Then, I tried to show it to her from my blog and found out to my disbelief, I never posted a picture of it on it. So, this is for her.

Here's my story about the solar boat. I arrived a day early into Cairo, Egypt so, I'd have time to recover from the long (10 hours 45 minutes) flight from New York City as well as get adjusted to the local time. I'd learned the hard way during my Globus Scandanavia tour that this could make a big difference at the beginning of the tour.

The Avalon Waterways people were waiting for me at Cairo International and patiently guided me through the process of getting my Egyptian visa. After that, they got my travel friend Harvey and I in a van which drove us to our extremely nice hotel the MENA House Oberoi. It was there that we met of the finest tour guides I've ever had Sami Hassan.

Once I was checked in, I met with Sami and, he asked if Harvey and I wanted to do something with our free time. As we were in reasonably good shape, we said sure. It turned out there were 8 or 9 us that flew in early. All of us were game and, Sami took us to the pyramid complex where we paid the 100 Egyptian Pounds to get in then led us to the Solar Boat Museum which cost us another 50 Egyptian Pounds.

The Solar Boat Museum is a museum that holds a special boat that was built for the Pharoah Cheops (also known as Khufu) to be used supposedly in the after life as the pharoah sailed round the world. It was approximately 70 feet long, made of Lebanon cedar which were apparently floated down to Egypt in rafts and was held together by special grass ropes. The boat didn't have ANY nails in it to hold it together. The boat's special grass ropes were woven through the specially drilled boards in a way that would hold the boat together. What was special about the ropes is that the grass would contract when it was watered causing the ropes to pull the boards of the boat together forming a water tight seal. The boat was buried in a special crypt/pit right next to Cheops's pyramid in pieces in a precise order so that it could easily be put back together in the afterlife. The boat was discovered in 1954. After much study, the boat was put together and displayed in the Solar Boat Museum. It is an absolutely incredible boat. Seeing this ancient boat was one of the highlights of my tour of Egypt and an unexpected bonus I wouldn't gotten to do were it not for my flying out a day early as well as for the great tour director Sami Hassan. I would heartily recommend folks check out this incredible museum. It's in the pyramid complex and behind the Great Pyramid. Here is a link to a webpage that tells more of the history of the boat: http://egyptsites.wordpress.com/2009/02/25/the-solar-boat-museum/