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Published: November 9th 2008
Monday October 27, 2008
After going to bed around 10pm, was only able to sleep until 6am, strangely. After eating breakfast and journaling, I decided to take advantage of the still empty streets and go for a quick run around the neighborhood of our hotel - in pants and a t-shirt.
Our tour was to depart at 8am. At 7 people now, we were such a large group that we got our own van and tour guide. Our guide’s name was Heba, meaning “gift” in Arabic. At 23, she was 2 years out of college where she had studied specifically to become a tour guide. Still unmarried, she lived at home with her parents and 5 other siblings.
First stop: Giza Pyramids. WOW. As our van pulled into the parking lot, I couldn’t believe that in a matter of minutes I would finally see the Great Pyramids in real life. Check that off my Life’s To Do List. While at the pyramids, we encountered many men riding camels who tried to convince us to take their pictures or even go for a camel ride with them. Riiiight. Leslie’s cute, innocent mom got suckered into taking a picture with one of
the camel men’s turbans on, and Mr. Fisher - later renamed “Mr. Jim” by Heba, which of course stuck for the rest of the trip - ended up having to pay the man $20. Needless to say, the picture is absolutely priceless.
We paid the extra 15 pounds to go inside the 2nd pyramid. It certainly was not what I was expecting. After having to crawl through a long stone shaft, with both steep inclines and descents, we entered the burial chamber. This, to our surprise, was incredibly unadorned, no carved decoration or anything, just a simple stone room with a simple recess near the far wall for where the king’s sarcophagus would have been placed. Granted, I knew the Great Pyramids had been robbed hundreds of years ago, but I was still expecting some ornamentation.
After our expedition into the pyramid, we loaded up the van and headed for the Sphinx. Again, so cool! Somewhere, Fabi had seen pictures of people with the sphinx where it looks like your kissing it and was bound and determined to have her own. Naturally, once she figured out how to do it, we all shamelessly copied her awesome idea -
LOVE that picture.
Heba then brought us to an Egyptian perfume shop where we sampled an incredible range of essential oils. We all ended up buying a multitude of scents. The scent that I purchased “Secret of the Nile” is supposedly supposed to be a sort of Viagra. As the guy waiting on us told us, “dot this on yourself in an upside down triangle and there will be no stopping him for 7 hours.” Jeesh, and before that I just thought it smelt really good…
After a quick tour of the Saqqara Step Pyramid - which I believe is the first pyramid ever built, pretty cool - and a stop at the first capitol of Egypt, Memphis, we were ready to eat. Heba brought us to a quaint little place that was almost like an oasis, our table being outside and surrounded by gardens. We ate a variety of Egyptian dishes with incredible homemade pita bread. It reminded me a lot of a typical Greek tavern dinner: an assortment of appetizers served family style with a lot of the same types of food.
Back to the hotel at 4pm, we were all ready for some downtime
after an incredible morning. That evening we all met back up for dinner at the nearby Sheraton’s Lebanese restaurant. When we entered the Maître‘d told us “I can seat you, but you must be gone in one hour, we are completely booked for a tour group beginning at 8pm.” Umm, okay…Needless to say, the service was impeccably expedient. More freshly made pitas, and I ordered eggplant dip with “grenadine” (pomegranate), a salad of fresh fish, tomatoes, cucumbers, herbs and a lemon sauce. Pretty darn good. Funny story…near the end of the meal, “Mr. Jim” gave Fabi his leftover eggplant. Luckily, she inspected it before taking a bite and discovered a centipede of some sort baked into the skin. EWWWWWW. Handing it to me for further inspection, I confirmed her discovery. Pointing it out to our waiter, he looked mortified and brought it immediately to the Maître‘d. He came over, assuring us that it actually wasn’t an insect…surrrrre…but nonetheless offered us all free dessert platters (guilt, perhaps?). Much to his delight, we were done eating and paid our bill just as the tour group began to pour in. Side note - Sooooo glad to not be a part of a tour
group on this trip!
We took a walk down the Nile, saw the Tower of Cairo all lit up - I’ll explain more about this monument later - and dining boats cruising down the river. During the walk, I couldn’t help but notice how much more comfortable I felt simply having a man accompanying us.
Tuesday October 28, 2008
Taking a much needed morning of rest, we met up around 10am to head to the Egyptian Museum in the center of the city. Another story of Egyptians trying to take advantage of us…As we were walking there, a man approached us from behind asking if we were American. When we said yes, he replied “you know how I know? I work at reception at your hotel.” In my head: weird because I certainly don’t recognize you…He tried to convince us that all of downtown Cairo was closed until noon that day because a foreign diplomat was traveling through, anywhere we were trying to go would certainly be closed for the next hour, but if we turned around he knew of a bazaar nearby that we could visit in the meantime. Kylene was ready to follow him back
to the bazaar. Feeling that “something isn’t right here” feeling in my stomach, I thanked him for the heads up and told him we’d take our chances of just waiting for an hour.
On the walk, we decided to waste some time and walk around the Cairo Opera House complex. Not quite as impressive as that in Sydney, but still quite pretty. And, surprise surprise, when we got to the museum around 11, it was open. Thanks for the “tip” sketchy guy…
Despite housing some of the most incredible artifacts from Egyptian history, the museum itself was actually quite disappointing in how it displayed these. With few, if any descriptions, it seemed like the museum had tried its hardest to display every single artifact that it housed, cramming countless sarcophagi into a small room and sculptures standing almost on top of one another. Considering the standards of security I am used to in museums like the Met in NYC and the MFA in Boston, it was strange to see such priceless pieces just laying around, hodgepodge with little or no protection.
We did get to see the burial treasures and mask of King Tut - absolutely incredible how
much gold was used in all of this and how rich the pharos really were - and also paid the extra money to enter the “royal mummy” display. Seeing human bodies, mummified and thousands of years old, was a little unnerving to say the least, but still a cool experience. Sadly, no pictures were allowed in the museum (weird considering how lax everything else was there).
Afterwards, we ate at the Nile Hilton’s EPIC salad bar and then headed to the tower of Cairo. As the guide book told us, the Egyptians built it using money that America had given them as funding for weapons…interesting choice. At the top of it, we had a gorgeous view of the sprawling city. Both because of its size and the dense clouds of fog, we couldn’t even see the city limits. We were able to catch a hazy glimpse of the pyramids looming in the distance.
That night we returned to a restaurant we had passed on our walk the night before. Sitting as close as is possible to the Nile, we got to pick out our own fillets of fresh fish served grilled and, of course, with pitas and an
assortment of dips. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, no one found any insects in their food at this dinner, which thus meant no free dessert.
Wednesday October 29, 2008
Our last full day in Egypt, but we had plenty of time to kill before our flight left at 3:50am the following morning. The night before we’d booked another group tour through our hotel and our van departed at 8am to bring us to the Citadel of Cairo. The Citadel was home to a number of incredible mosques. The first that we entered, the Muhammed Ali Mosque, was built in the 19th century by King Ali after defeating the Marmalads - guess who read the tour book, ME! It’s supposed to be an exact copy of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, which we would be visiting the following morning. Considering the mosque is still in use every Friday for high prayer, I was quite surprised at how grimy and unkempt it looked, like you could run your finger down the side of it and leave a trail. As we entered the mosque, we were required to remove our shoes and given large green cape
Sphinx!
(The real one, mom)things to cover ourselves despite us all wearing pants and sleeved shirts anyways. The capes did, however, provide some momentary entertainment and Fabi has some pretty funny pictures.
Also in the citadel, we found the mosque of Sultan Suleymed, built in the 16th century and the very first Ottoman-style mosque. The ceilings of both mosques were painted in ornate patterns that accentuated the architecture and the light spilling in from the dusty windows. Sadly my camera died this day so I don’t have any pictures, but I will try to get some from my roommates because the interiors of these mosques were incredibly gorgeous.
While we were wandering around the citadel, I was approached by a man who I’m assuming worked at the café there. He quickly designated himself my tour guide - apparently a popular thing to do among Egyptian men. After telling me about another nearby mosque, “I listen to tour guides all day long, I can tell you just as much…” he struck up a conversation, beginning with, “you love Obama?” I smiled and nodded yes, “then you love me!” He asked me what I did for work, “I’m a student” “Oh, are you married?” “Nope.”
“How old are you?” “20” “Oh my, you are old. My wife, she is 17 we have a 2 year old boy. I never sleep. Do you have a boyfriend?” “Nope.” “Well, I marry you then!” “Umm, I think my friends are calling to me, I have to go…” AWKWARD!
Later Fabi, Liz and I passed by my new husband on our way out of the citadel. As we passed by, he pointed at each of us and said, “I will marry you, and you, and you! I am strong man, I can take care of all three!” We walked a little faster…
After the citadel, the van brought us to the huge bazaar in the center of Islamic Cairo. This was quite an interesting experience once again in terms of interactions with “the natives.” A man that I bought a necklace from asked where I was from, when I told him America, he called loudly “HOW-DE-DOOO-DEEEEEEE” with a huge smile on his face. Many of the younger peddlers would point to the ground as we walked by and the second we looked down would say “Oh, no you stepped on something!” When we asked what, they replied “my
heart!” Many just blatantly offered “Want Egyptian husband?” hahaha NOPE! I did manage to buy a number of 100% Pashima (whatever that it is) scarves, a necklace and earring set, funky tunic, and a birthday present for Annie that will remain anonymous for less than 185 pounds - thanks for teaching me how to haggle mom! It was funny browsing with the other girls who were willing pay the first asking price the owners threw at them; it took them a while to catch on.
When we returned to the hotel, we spent the evening napping and watching cheesy American movies. I’m curious to know if anyone has seen “The Long Kiss Goodnight” with Samuel L Jackson? Quite possibly the WORST movie ever made and thus incredibly entertaining.
That night we went to dinner at the Pyramisa, the hotel across from the Sheraton and just as fancy. We found another fusion restaurant, this time Chinese, Indian and Italian. Strangely craving soup, I had lentil soup and the vegetable Jalfresi (sp.?) or just baked spicy veggies. After dinner we headed back to the hotel to try and get at least a little sleep before our 1am shuttle to the airport.
I can’t lie, at this point I was ready to leave Egypt. Outside of sightseeing, there really was not a whole lot to do and being an American woman there was quite emotionally stressful; never feeling entirely safe or comfortable begins to wear you down after a while. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect in Istanbul. I knew it is another Islamic country, but I had always gotten the impression that it was more Europeanized than many of its peers. At this point, I was just hoping it was at least a little bit more liberal than Egypt, that I would feel comfortable enough to at least walk on my own.
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pete fournier
non-member comment
when are you coming
Tep, just wanted to find out when you are coming home. Fournier gathering at Kathies is the 13 of december, will you be here then? Everything OK , must be mid term tests going on now. Iwill call this weekend. Love Dad