He’s the pharaoh-dynamic prez!
A relaxed President Obama turned tourist at the Pyramids yesterday, even joking that an ancient Egyptian in a hieroglyphic had big ears and looked just like him.
Hours after his historic speech at Cairo University, Obama traded his business suit and necktie for sunglasses, a polo shirt, khaki pants and tennis shoes as he got a VIP tour of the only remaining example of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
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At one point outside the Giza ruins, the president spotted a 4,600-year-old hieroglyph of a man’s head outside a tomb.
“Hey, this looks like me!” he exclaimed.
The president pulled over senior aides, including Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and advisers David Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett, to inspect the stone engraving, which showed a man with oversized ears.
“Look at those ears,” Obama said.
No one disagreed with the tourist-in-chief.
Zahi Hawass, the secretary general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, told the president he was admiring the likeness of Kar, “a priest, scholar and judge.”
The visit to the pyramids and Great Sphinx was a rare break from Obama’s business-only routine on foreign trips.
Hawass said the visit was the result of “unprecedented preparations and security arrangements.”
Dozens of security officers in business suits and dark glasses tried to keep up with the president’s party.
Obama’s aides clutched bottles of water, but the president didn’t seem to mind the 100-degree heat.
Hawass, who played personal tour guide, took Obama to the feet of the Sphinx, an area that is off-limits to regular tourists.
“It’s awe-inspiring,” the president said during the 75-minute tour.
Although visiting dignitaries are routinely shown Giza, Hawass said, “This is the longest official visit to the Pyramids.”
He said the president, who affectionately put his arm around Hawass’ shoulders, showed great interest and repeatedly asked questions about the history of the sites.
“This is huge!” Obama exclaimed at the base of the largest of the 4,500-year-old Pyramids.
The president recognized that his every move was being monitored by the world’s media. If there were no photographers around, he said, “I’d get on a camel.”
Egypt’s tourist tradesmen had been hawking merchandise that compared the president to one of the last pharaohs.
The slogan “Obama: The New Tutankhamen of the World” appeared on T-shirts, metal plaques and other memorabilia in Cairo shops last week in anticipation of his arrival.
Obama joked that getting away from his day job yesterday was better than last week, when he escaped the White House to grab a hamburger at a DC spot called Five Guys.
“Five Guys was good. This was better,” he said. “This is the best.”
The visit outside Cairo was the last leg of a busy schedule yesterday for Obama.
During his nine hours in Egypt, he also visited the 600-year-old Sultan Hassan Mosque with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
At the end of the trip to the Pyramid trip, Obama said, “All right. I guess we got to go back to work.”
With that, he headed for the US Embassy in Cairo and then his plane to Dresden, Germany, for the next stop on his four-nation tour. With Post Wire Services