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Published: August 8th 2007
Tutankhamuns mummiform coffin
All that glitters is gold! The museum had some awesome artifacts from King Tuts tomb, and many others.From a chilly September morning in the UK to a "warm" 40C in Cairo - it was a long day gett ing here. The flights were all ok (even if the first one did leave Heathrow at 6.30am and we got up way earlier than that!) and got us safely to a hot and dusty Cairo. The ride from the airport to the hostel, by a driver / car organised by the hostel as part of a 'deal', was kind of fast and hair-raising. Horns blared non-stop...lane markings are ignored as is anyone else who may be in the space you want to occupy...three lane roads mean at least five lanes of cars...and as for speed limits, what an alien idea! Still, we got to the hostel and we given a room, albeit without A/C. They claimed they were full (we didnt see very many people) tonight and we could swap tomorrow if we wanted. Uh huh, yeah, we swapped! Anyway, we didnt do much else apart from listen to their sale pitch (tours etc) and head out to see what we could get for ourselves. The official tourist info place wasnt much. Our
first nights dinner seemed a bargain - less than one whole pound (sorry, cant find the pound sign here) got us each falafel and salad in a pitta bread, a can of pop, and a bean salad to share.
Day Two - changing rooms Our perennial problem - I sleep hotter than Colin, so when he closed the window to block some of the noise, I woke up too hot! The noise didnt disturb me, guess I was too tired last night. Breakfast is included in the rate here so we tried the Egyptian (bread, fuul, boiled egg) and the Continental (bread, jam, boiled egg, cream cheese triangle) varieties. And the swapped to a room with A/C!!! 'Course, we had to have an ensuite as well as it was (apparently) the only one available. Still cheap when spending pounds though. Give us a few more days here and our bartering skills will be better.
We braved the traffic and walked to the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities. What an awesome place, once we'd been x-rayed and searched several times on our way in. We headed straight for the Tutankhamen exhibition but were too late, the tour group
nightmare had already arrived. We fought our way past all the tour-groupies to see the finery and treasures from King Tuts tomb. Impressive doesnt really describe it, and our photos wont do it all justice. You've really got to see it for youselves. The gold room...well...he was a wealthy boy!
The rest of the museum wasnt bad either. There were hundreds or even thousands of statues and artifacts from other ancient kings and rulers of Egypt, from the Ancient Kingdoms through to Roman times. We paid a bit more to see the Mummy Room, the well preserved remains of about 11 old royals including Ramses II. Teeth, hair, nails..all well preserved, even the skin although that was a bit dry and wrinkly. Our guidebook said you cold look up the right nostril of Ramses II and see daylight - and waddya know, they were right! There is a hole in the back of his head, his brain being in a canopic jar somewhere. (We didnt see his, but Tutankhamuns were out there.)
We spent most of the day in the museum, and probably could've spent longer but there is only so long you can walk round a museum
The Sphinx
Mighty and mysterious, although it was a lot smaller than I'd imagined! In the background is the Pyramid of Mycernius in a ay. So we had a quick look at the Nile, its just like any other dirty, inner city river! So much for preconceptions!! Bring on the Nile elsewhere! Its gotta get better than this!
Day Three - the pyramids After testing the service at the hotel (breakfast from 7am - yeah right!) we headed out to Giza. The bus was beautifully air conditioned, lulling us intoa false sense of cool and calm. Great until it dropped us off near the entrance to the pyramids, and we had to walk past all those people trying to sell us horse and camel rides and tours of all descriptions.
First up was the Great Pyramid of Cheops, which was closed so all we could admire was the outside. Walking past some smaller pyramids - 'Queens Pyramids' - and some long pits that housed the pharaohs boats took us down the the Sphinx. Impressive, but much smaller than we'd expected. Next to that was Chephrens Valley Temple, good condition exept for its roof.
Still politely saying no thanks to all the hawkers and horse/camel rides sellers, we headed back towards the pyramids, finding a small temple that
al-Azhar Mosque
Taken from the courtyard wasnt in either of our guidebooks. Inside were some ancient looking Egyptian inscriptions and some more modern graffiti, and a small tomb room that we needed to crawl through a hole to get into.
We timed our visit to the Pyramid of Chephren badly, getting caught inside with a large tour group. This made for a very slow and very hot clamber along the (narrow) main passageway into a large chamber somewhere inside the pyramid. The other pyramid we'd wanted to have a look inside of was the Pyramid of Mycerinus or Menkaure, and this was also closed!
We spent our time wandering around all the pyramids, sweltering, trying to find where an old photo of my Grandad was taken (he was in Sudan & Egypt during the war, and we have a copy of a photo of him in front of a pyramid) without any luck (might not have been the pyramids at Giza). in the evening we discovered Kushari - a mixture of rice, pasta, noodles, black lentils, fried onions and tomato sauce.
Kushari 1 cup brown lentils
1 cup rice
1 cup uncooked macaroni
2 large onions, chopped
2 Tbs oil
2
Across Cairo to Giza
Looking across the dust and smog from the citadel to the pyramids at Giza cups tomato sauce
hot chili (optional)
salt
Cook lentils in salted water until tender. Strain. Cook rice in salted water until tender. Strain. Cook macaroni, preferably the small, round variety, strain, rinse, and strain again.
Place lentils, rice, and macaroni in a cooking pot. Fry onion in the oil until rich brown, then remove the onions onto absorbent paper and strain the oil into lentil mixture. Return the pot to the flame and cook for 7-10 minutes, tossing often to prevent sticking.
Serve by topping each individual plate with tomato sauce and fried onions. Sprinkle with hot chili.
Day Four (Thursday 19th September 2002) - Islamic Cairo I'm not sure why this area we went to today is called Islamic Cairo. Its a bit of a misnomer as this area is no more or less Islamic than most of the city, but...! There were a lot of mosques though. And a lot of walking was needed to get us around. I'm sure there is perfectly adequate public transport in Cairo, we just seem to walk every where. But back to what we did and saw...
...The Mosque of al-Azhar, a big place that is the worlds oldest surviving university or something, students arent taught in the mosque courtyard anymroe though but in other campuses.
...the Khan al-Khalili, a huge bazaar / market with areas more for tourists and areas more for locals, so we wandered through parts of both.
...the old northern gates, not much, we passed a lot of mosques along the way that were undergoing restoration so all we experienced was dust and dirt joining the dust and dirt already in the air and on the ground.
...the very impressive Beit as-Suhaymi, the house of a 17th century businessman and his 4 wives and other hangers-on. A two storey house, men downstairs, women upstairs, and apparently all four wives shared the same room!
...walking south from the Khan al-Khalili past the impressive Bab Zuweila (remains of southern gate) to the citadel, following a busy market street most of the way. Passed two huge mosques, Mosque-Madrassa of Sultan Hassan and Mosque of ar-Rifai. The citadel was a bit of a diappointment though, boring museums, a few smaller mosques, but a good but very hazy view over the city to the pyramids.
...and then we walked back to the hostel for a very welcome rest and shower. Glad we got the air-con now!
Day Five - Coptic Cairo, and our last day here Today we took the metro instead of walking, and it took us right to the old Roman towers in what we believe is the heart of Coptic Cairo. This area used to be on the banks of the Nile before the river was moved. We wandered past the Hanging Church but it was packed due to a service and we couldnt get close. We went to Egypts only round church, the Church of St George, full of Coptic text and people kissing icons. Under the nearby Convent of St George was a small tomb/chapel where the bones of St George - of dragon slaying fame - are said to be. We couldnt get too close for a look because of all the icon kissing folk. We had a look around the Coptic Museum, really neat building full of interesting bits and pieces, but there were some grumpy, bad tempered guards on the door!
We made it back to the Hanging Church and got inside through a neat ornate portal, finding more icons and texts.
A quick trip across part of the Nile took us to Roda Island and the Nilometer. We came back to Coptic Cairo to take the metro a few stops back towards the city centre before taking another quick trip across part of the Nile to the other end of Roda Island and the eclectic and sumptuous but slightly kitsch Manial Palace.
And that was it for Cairo. The late afternoon / evening was spent back at the hostel cleaning up and relaxing before leaving on the 10pm train for Luxor.
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