After a traditional Egyptian lunch of a rice-a-roni type dish garnished with tomato sauce and other condiments called co-sharry, eaten in a tiny establishment with a few tables and a cooking area open to one of Giza’s main drags, we bundled back into the car and arrived at the perfume “museum.” Was there a man dismayed when the word “museum” did not appear on the entrance marquee?
We were ushered to one of many benches ranged along a wall full of display cases of glass unguent bottles, and accepted glasses of karkadeh, a red infusion of hibiscus leaves common here, from our “museum” guide. We engaged in a brief friendly conversation about where we were from etc, and then he launched into his spiel, bringing over various oils and extolling their various virtues. By now it was dreadfully apparent that this was a museum like a sphinx is a minx. He had assured us there was no obligation, but after dabbing 8 or 9 various oils up and down our arms, one of which he thought would prove irresistible to the boys, as its aroma was guaranteed to bring on the women, and having brought out the various size bottles available for purchase, the smallest of which was fairly large and would have cost at least $80, I piped up that we were traveling with backpacks and simply did not have room to buy anything. Now, it may have been my imagination, but this man, who had been as smooth as his unguents up until now, fixed me with the evil eye.
Had there been a small vial available for purchase, we could have escaped a bit more gracefully than we did. In any case, it convinced me that we did not want to go to the Papyrus “Museum”, and so returned directly to our 3 Pyramids View Inn.
-Mummy
In the "Museum"
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