This article recounts the last of my adventures in the beautiful country of Brazil. I stopped by the city of Rio de Janeiro, which is a marvellous city surrounded by six mountains with buildings settled below them. The buildings are all in white and spread before lakes and the Atlantic Ocean. I was received at the airport by Ambassador Sherif Ismail, the consul-general of Egypt in the city. From the airport, we went for lunch and met scholars from the National Museum of Brazil. I found out that some artefacts had been saved despite the terrible tragedy of the fire that destroyed the museum in September 2018, because the ceiling did not collapse on them. The most important Egyptian mummy in the museum that was given by the khedive Ismail to the emperor Pedro II was turned to dust in the fire. I could not see the museum itself because it was under the purview of the attorney-general and there was an ongoing investigation to discern the reason for the fire. The lady curator that I met said that the museum needed upgrading, but the funds for this had come after the building had burned down. The loss for Egypt was not great, but Brazil lost a major part of its history because the National Museum contained many important objects belonging to Brazilian civilisation. There is talk among people in Rio that the fire was started by people from the museum deliberately because objects had been stolen. Supposedly, the fire would then have been used to cover up the thefts. When I asked people why this rumour was circulating, they replied that it was because the fire had taken place on a Sunday night and because it had been at the weekend. I said that all over the world when anything happens people like to dream up conspiracy theories. However, the matter is now in the hands of the attorney-general of Brazil. But we all support the director and curators of the museum and are sure that such rumours aren't true. I was astonished to see two Egyptian obelisks in two squares in Rio. I was told by some that they were genuine, but as far as I know we do not have any evidence that Egypt ever sent two obelisks to Brazil. However, I went to see them. The two obelisks are replicas. Many people are talking about Brazil's new president who took up his post on 31 January. (I wrote much of this article before he became president.) Many people call him the “Trump of Brazil” because of his beliefs and statements prior to taking office. For example, he announced that he would move the Brazilian embassy to Jerusalem, that he would close the Palestinian Embassy in Brazil, and that he would not recognise Palestine officially. He invited Benyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, to Brazil to stay in the country for five days and receive the highest award of the country. Also, the new president is against immigration and sexual freedom. It seems that he wants to break away from all the traditions of Brazil, and he wants to stop supporting foreign migrants as well. Brazilians think that the government is responsible for providing protection and safety for everyone, and the government had to send the army into the streets to stabilise the situation when demonstrations flared up. The city of Rio is dangerous but beautiful; people advised me not to walk alone in the streets. The colossal statue of Jesus (Christ the Redeemer) is one of the great attractions of the city because you can see it from everywhere. It is on top of Mount Corcovado above Rio, and the statue itself is around 30m tall. Brazilian engineer Heitor da Silva was chosen in a competition to design the sculpture. He created it in collaboration with Paul Landowski, a French-Polish sculptor who made a model of it in clay in his studio in France. This was then sent to Brazil and re-created in reinforced concrete covered with soapstone slabs. The statue took five years to construct and was dedicated on 12 October 1931. To visit the statue, I took a taxi from my hotel accompanied by tourism expert Sedek Faragallah and his wife Michelle. Our driver looked like US president Barack Obama. We drove up to the mountain and bought tickets for $11 each. The site was well maintained with elevators, stores and a cafeteria; it took us two hours to complete our visit. There is another site called Sugarloaf, a peak with a panoramic view and a cable car that goes to its summit. I did not visit it, but I caught a glimpse of it from far away. I discovered that the statue of Jesus was one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World. These new wonders were chosen in a campaign that lasted from 2000 to 2007. During that time, a man came to see me and stated that he wanted the Great Pyramid at Giza to enter the competition for the new Seven Wonders. I asked him, “do you think that if someone has won the Nobel Prize he or she will apply for another smaller prize? The Great Pyramid is the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World that still exists, so it doesn't need to be recognised in the Modern Wonders list as well.” I recommended other sites such as Abu Simbel, Deir Al-Bahari and Karnak. My stance on this issue was clear: I did not want the Pyramids to be part of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World. However, a professor at the Faculty of Archaeology at Cairo University, a man hungry for recognition in the papers, spread the word that I had refused the Pyramids the right to enter the new Seven Wonders of the World competition. A TV presenter called me to ask about this and I told her, “I bet no one will remember the miracles of the modern world, but everyone will remember the Great Pyramid.” My last lecture while in Brazil was in a hotel in Rio and Ambassador Mohamed Al-Mahdi, Egypt's deputy ambassador in Brasilia, came to give a speech. After the lecture, the Brazilian Literature Academy gave me a prize for my writing: over 30 books by me have been published, and two of them have been translated into Portuguese. My book The Mountains of the Pharaohs is also going to be translated. The Institute of Historical and Geographical Studies in Brazil gave me an award because of the restoration work I have promoted for the monuments of Egypt. The Association of Historical Studies gave me a prize as the “world's most famous archaeologist”. I gladly took photographs with everyone attending the lecture. I was also walking near the stadium in Rio when a Brazilian friend asked me if I knew the worst day in Brazilian history. He said that it was in 1950, when the stadium was filled with almost 200,000 Brazilians. Brazil lost 2-1 in a football match against Uruguay, a terrible upset. It seems that the Brazilians are great football lovers, as are all Egyptians, of course. Finally, I must say that I really enjoyed my visit. Even if very few Brazilians spoke English, I had no difficulty communicating with them. The Brazilians are a very happy people and are very friendly. When I asked them the reason for this attitude, they gave me a strange answer: the climate and the beach. All daily life happens outdoors, like swimming and having barbeques. The rich and the poor go to the beach, they said. “We are all equal on the shores of the beach,” a Brazilian friend said. I do hope that Egypt's Ministry of Tourism will support the Rio Carnival that is going to have some Pharaonic themes in 2020. My visit to Brazil is one that I will never forget.
