Advertisement
Published: April 26th 2013
Edit Blog Post
Getting into Cairo the second time around was quite a bit more chaotic than the first time we arrived. A hired van met us at the train station and took us to the Citadel, but being daytime the traffic was insane! I have to say, I would never want to drive in Egypt. It takes forever to get anywhere because every three feet someone is blocking the way. There are lanes painted on the roads, and I did see a couple of traffic lights..but nobody pays any attention to that sort of thing. At one intersection there was actually a traffic cop standing in the middle of the chaos trying to direct people where to go. That's a brave guy and I don't envy his job. Eventually we made it to the Citadel and our guide gave us a history lesson on the Crusades from the muslim point of view. That was interesting because as a Westerner when you are taught about the Crusades your lessons have a very British tone to them. School is supposed to be unbiased, but in reality it isn't, so hearing about Saladdin (?) rather than Richard the Lionheart was like hearing a fairy tale told
from the view of the wicked witch. Maybe the witch wasn't really so wicked.
We visited an old mosque, I forget when it was built, the 11th or 13th century maybe, and even though it was empty and in need of some restoration I really liked it. I loved the wooden beams and ceilings, I loved the understated archways and stonework. It was beautiful in its simplicity. Some muslim women were there willing to talk to us about their religion, and I have to admit I was curious and would have liked to just sit and chat with them. Unfortunately, we had a schedule and we were whisked off to the next mosque. A very imposing and elaborate mosque. It was beautiful as well, but the smaller one captivated my imagination more. Here we sat in the middle of the room in our sock feet and learned more about the muslim culture and history. There were lots of tourists and school groups in this mosque though so it was hard to hear everything. Sadly even in holy houses people are corrupt. One of our tour members had set his camera down beside him, only to have it stolen. Two
cameras gone in two days! This was frustrating for us, but at least they were not valuable cameras. Its losing the contents that was really upsetting. A young guy had joined in our group during our tour of the mosque to listen in on the storytelling. While chatting with him on our way out of the site I found out he was training to be a tour guide and wanted to listen to our guide on the job. He was so nice! He seemed genuinely distressed at our luck and wanted to impress on us that Egyptians are good people and that they want us to have happy visits in their country. We all know that there are dishonest people everywhere, it doesn't matter where you go so I assured him that I would not judge a nation on petty theives. I had more positve happy encounters with people in Egypt than almost any other country I've visited. They are a warm people and go to great lengths to make you feel welcome there. Even just talking to this random guy made me feel better about the two thefts. Again, had I the opportunity I would have chatted longer. Maybe I'm just a chatty cathy when I travel. People intrigue me more than attractions sometimes.
We went to another market after the Citadel. I was kind of marketed out by this point. I don't really need tourist clutter in my house, especially since at the moment all of my stuff is in storage and I was travelling with a backpack. Instead of combing the market for trinkets we sat and had lunch and delicious lemon juice where we were approached by all sorts of men trying to sell us bracelets and sunglasses. It was pretty annoying! We just wanted to eat! Its impossible to get away from it in Egypt. Everyone has something to sell, and they see you as having endless amounts of disposable cash. By now we were pretty adept at saying no, or bartering until we got a fair price, but its still exhausting. I was happy to leave the marketplace and head to our hotel. And it only took us an hour to get there!
I mentioned before that since the revolution people do all sorts of things because there is no one to enforce regulations preventing them from doing as they please. In Cairo we witnessed another example of this. Going through downtown there should be four "lanes" of traffic. However, all of the shops along the street have decided that the street is an extension of the shop and they've set up racks and tables in the lanes on either side of the road, reducing road space to one or two lanes. I've never seen such a ridiculous mess of traffic in my life! What a bottleneck! Its a good thing our group was a well tempered set of people. I could see how some would be cranky after the overnight train, the marketplace, the theft and the traffic, but everyone took it all in stride. We chuckled at the store names, like Stress and Big Man Clothes, and watched the swirl of activity cascade around us. Nevertheless we were all very happy to get to our hotel and have a hot shower and a restful evening.
Cairo, you are a city like no other!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.285s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 9; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0502s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 2;
; mem: 1.1mb