Cairo, Egypt

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March 28 - 29

Cairo, Egypt

Friday morning we were picked up for some more sightseeing in Cairo. We began with a visit to several big Mosques and a local shopping market and finished after lunch with a visit to the very impressive Egyptian Museum. You could spend a few weeks in this place if you wanted to see all the exhibits. They tell us that about 3% of what they have is on display and the rest is catalogued and in storage. They have done an excellent job as the museum is laid out in different time periods to make it easier to follow how things progressed over the last 5 or 6 thousand years. Unfortunately unless you are an expert in this history it becomes a little overwhelming. Still a very interesting place with a huge variety of mummies, ( people and animals ), sarcophagi, statues, hieroglyphics and paintings from the temples and tombs, and the treasures of King Tut. This is a “must see” if you are ever in Cairo.

Saturday we took a visit to Coptic Cairo. In this tour we visited the first Mosque built in Egypt ( and Africa ), several very old Christian churches and a synagogue that were built prior to Egypt becoming a predominately Muslim country. The churches were Greek Orthodox ( or similar ). The history provided by the guide was very interesting as it follows from the time of the pharos where they worshipped many animal and human like gods to the present time with all the various religious periods in between depending who was running the Egypt at the time (Ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Turks and probably a few others ).

It was very obvious that it is almost impossible to separate church and religion with the commitment that most Muslims have to their faith. Its followers view this as more of a way of life and not just a religion and that requires that all the rules ( laws ) are according to Islam. It was also very interesting and a little confusing to hear such a wide variety of interpretations of what the Koran actually does suggest and demand of its followers. I guess in that respect it is no different than all the other organized religions in the world.

We are looking forward to a 3 hour drive by car tomorrow to Alexandria for 2 days.

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