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Published: March 21st 2006
Yesterday, our first full day in Egypt we met up with a friendly edmontonian and went walking in Islamic Cairo. As the guide book says, Islamic Cairo isn't anymore Islamic than the rest of Cairo except of course, coptic cairo.
We visited old mosques (here women are aloud into some mosques) gateways, markets, toilets and of course restraunts (coffee houses). One of the incredibe things about Cairo is that it is safe I hope I haven't jinxed myself, but we walk a night, go to the bank, ride the subway and just generally forget we are on the same coninent as Africa. Infact I can say that it feels safer here than my 'hood in Vancouver. People are incredibly nice and welcoming, particularly the vendors and young men ;-) I've been groped a few times in a crowed market, but at least it wasn't blatant like in Malawi.
In the late afternoon we walked out to the 'city of the dead', I was expecting people living in and around tombstones. Instead we found huge house like structures with tombstones inside them and people living there like a village. Apparently, they have been living there since the 14th century.
There
was a coffee shop where we had tea and 7up, so yes, I had tea in a necropolis.
Last night we wandered until we found the movie theater, we watched 'lord of war' with nic cage with arabic subtitles. There is a 24 hour falafel joint next to our hostel that charges 60 pt (part of one egyptian pound) for a falafel sandwich. Its hard to beat that.
Today we got up early and headed out to old Cairo to visit the enclosed area of Coptic Cairo. I'm not going to lie, I don't know alot about the copts, but I know that they are greatly out numbered by the muslims.
One of the reason we headed off so early was that I wanted to catch the coptic mass at the hanging church. The church is not suspended or anything, I believe it was built over a water cistern. The mass was incredible, half of it was sung in liturgical chant in arabic and latin and the other half was what I thought was the scripture. The church itself is hard to describe, lets go with ornate, old and stunning. The service was pepered by arrial of tourists
(in hordes) with their flash cameras and silly poses.
The fellow incharge, priest?, started off in a black gown with a tall back hat with a shawl and later traded in those clothes for a purple and pearl rob and a crown. I thought he looked like a kingand he was very welcoming , he motioned for the tourists to enter the church and to stay for a while. Even the camera toting, tour bus groupies.
After lunch today we are heading out to the museum of islamic art, and possibly a book market. tomorrow, hopefully, the giza pyramids and saqqara.
Cairo seems to be a place where you can just relax. I have spent a few nice evenings just sitting in an ahwa (street cafe) watching paul smoke a sheesha and drinking egyptian tea. Everyone just sits around and chats after work, maybe sharing some food and a game of backgammon.
Yesterday we headed off to the pyramids. We opted not to go with an organized tour, but instead to hop the metro to giza city (suburb of Cairo) and to catch a cab from there. It worked out to be excatly half of what our
hotel was trying to arrange for us.
First we wentto Saqqara to see the step pyramid, one of the oldest pyramids inthe world.
One thing I should also mention is Africa's obbession with Enrique Iglasis. We have been subjected to his most popular cd's ever since we arrive in Africa. The night we spent at the Zambezi river... we listened to him nonstop for 8 hours. Every bus ride, every boat ride, every train ride anything that has speakers will play enrique for hours. No one sings long, no one even seems to notice. Recently, Our cabbie here in Cairo turned on Enrique full blast as we drove to the pyramids. I kindly asked Ahmed to turn it down and maybe if he coud play some egyptian music.
Our taxidriver (ahmed Mustafa) let us out and we explored the outside ofthe buildings for aobut 3 hours. We were not overtly impressed with the pyramid as we couldn't go inside, but as we walked around the complex we noticed some ruins and explored them, we found hierogylphs and tombs and best of all english speaking tours that we listened in on. In the distance we could see the bent
pyramid and a few others. Sorry everyone, I haven't done much in the way of research on these things.
Next our taxi driver drove us no more than 250 meters to the next site (I didn't even know it was included in the entrance price) where we climbed down into the depts of a small pyramid and toured some tombs. The heirogyphs we astounding. Some of them are in ruin and some have been restored and many are the original colour and original carvings. Some of the guards explain what they mean and indicate you could take a picture if you give him a tip. We know that taking pictures of the heirogylphs damage them over time, so we declined in all the tombs that had a sign saying that we shouldn't take pictures.
After we finnished at this site we headed off to Giza. We had become parched and desperatly wanted some orange juice. (Cairo has fruit juice stands where the man cuts up 6 oranges and squeezes them into a stein shaped glass for very very cheap) Unfortuanty Ahmed only knows numbers and destinations in english, he took us to a fruit stand to buy some oranges.
We declined, so he took us to a carpet store to visit his friend and to buy some carpets made by children in the back room. Again, we declined. Then we went to a papyeras store to buy some ancient egyptian banana leave paper, declined. Finally I told him I was hungery and he took us to a five star hotel buffet, which we decined. Finally I told him I wanted to eat fuul and falafel and he smiled. Off to his brothers shop to eat fuul. It cost us nearly 3 times as much than if we bought itin downtown cairo, but still it came to less than 1 dollar.
At Giza pyramids Ahmed quit being our driver and told us to give him 10 egyptain pounds less and we could take a different taxi when we got finnished here. the pyramids are absolutly huge the sphinx ,however, is not. We walked onto the site, polietly telling the camel renters and horse renters to bugger off, and walked up to the big one. Khafre.
There isn't much to say except that he had three wives and their pyramids were free to enter and had heirogyphs. Khare's pyramid was
paul and his sheesha
at our favorite street Ahwa100 E pounds extra to entre. We declined.
We did entre into the 2nd pyramid, I can't recall his name at the moment, for 10 e pounds. I regreted it immediatly. We entred into a dark tunnel about 3.5 feet high and climbed town a steep slope for about 50 . Then we walked straight for about 20 m in a room that was about 6 feet high and then we walked up a steep incline in a tunnel that was 3 feet high. this led us to a chamber with a tomb in it. It had very little, if any, heiroglyphs and the tempture was about 15 degrees c. higher inside the pyramid than outside. With all the heavy breathing and all the sweaty tourists the pyramid smelled like a dirty sock.
The free smaller pyramids are worth it, however this overdone big pyramid was not.
On another note we saw quite a few tourists yesterday. Many of the women were wearing short shorts (just covering their bum cheeks) short skirts, bare midrifts and spagetti strap clevage tops. Maybe I'm a little sensitive, but it is a muslim country, and most of the women here wear head
elevator
in our hotel scarfs to cover their hair. They don't show their shoulders and I have yet to see an egyptian woman wearing a short skirt. There is no dress code at the pyramids but I could see on the faces of some of the employees and some of the locals who had visted the pyramids that tourists clothing was less than appropriate.
ANYWAY....
We caught a taxi back to the metro and went back to the hotel to change and get ready for a few nice hours spent at an Ahwa.
Today, off to Alexandria.
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Rob
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Sphnix
Hurray a picture of the Sphnix. I think I've been fascinated by the Sphnix since junior high school. It does look like the nose is missing? British target practice perhaps? I really enjoyerd the other photos as well makes me want to hop on a tramp steamer and visit Cairo a la Humphrey Bogart. (I think Casa Blanca was Morocco but close enough). Is it my imagination or does every place have very interesting locals. Bona Fortuna