Holy Cow I Went to Egypt: Part 1

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Hello Everyone,
I hope this post finds you all well. I myself have some very exciting things to report. My friend Jordan and I got back on Thursday evening after spending an exotic week in Egypt! After weeks of stress, sending countless faxes and being put on hold by grumpy travel agents, we found ourselves on and EgyptAir plane flying to Egypt on the 22nd.
We arrived in Cairo around 8:30am on Friday morning after our sleepless flight. After paying the $15 for a tourist visa and exchanging our money into Egyptian Pounds (exchange rate about 5.3 EGP to 1 USD) we searched for a man holding a sign saying Ramses II Hostel who was supposed to pick us up. But of course we didn't see him, however, there was a coffee shop to our right and bing coffee deprived for the last four months as we were, we immediately rushed over and ordered lattes. As we sipped the pick-me-up we missed so much, Jordan and I discussed how we would find our hostel if our driver didn't show up, seeing as how we'd forgotten to write down its address or telephone number in a of irresponsibility. We finally sucked up the last few drops of caffeine from our cups and headed over towards the crowd near the arrivals area to see if we'd missed our guy. To our luck and surprise he'd been there all the time and rushed over to us once we flagged him down.
His name was Yaserge and looked to be i his late 20's or early 30's. He had a nice smile and an innocence about him that made us feel comfortable as we followed him through the airport parking lot to a silver, four-door sedan. After loading our bulging travel backpacks in the trunk,we were off. The weather was perfect: warm but not too hot, and no humidity thank goodness. So Jordan and I rolled down our windows as Yaserge drove us through the bustling city of Cairo. Through broken English he tried to point out landmarks as we passed them. Even through a fog of exhaustion, Jordan and I were in awe of the amazing architecture, skyscrapers, and paved roads lacking the huge potholes we were so used to in Ghana. It was very clear right off the bat that Cairo is much more developed than Accra with amazing infrastructure and organization. In the guide book we took with us, it pointed out that Cairo housed more than the entire population of all of Ghana, which became evident as we saw more and more of the city.
We finally arrived at our hostel on Tallat Harb St., Cairo's equivalent of Broadway in New York City. Although, to our surprise it was fairly empty and Yaserge informed us that the city doesn't usually wake up until later in the morning and stays busy well into the night. He guided us into a lift that took us up to the 12th floor of the building and introduced us to Mohammad, one of the desk managers. Because our room wasn't ready until noon and it was only 10am, Jordan and I were ushered into a temporary hostel room where we fell onto the beds and drifted into dreamless naps. A little before noon we woke ourselves up and discussed how to fill the rest of the afternoon. We decided to take the advice of our Egyptian friend Yazzmine, who was studying with us in Ghana, and went to City Stars, a new mall in Helipolis (a suburb of Cairo) that just happens to be the largest mall in the Middle East. After bargaining for a taxi and driving a half hour in traffic we arrived at the complex. As we entered, Jordan's and my jaw dropped at the sight of the inside. The mall was six stories high, had every restaurant imaginable, two food courts, a movie theater, every designer store you can think of, and to our utter disbelief: a Starbucks and Cinnabon!
We didn't know what to do first and ended up just walking around staring through shop windows and gawking at price tags. After getting lost while in pursuit of the Starbucks we decided to get some dinner at a Mexican restaurant and then saw a movie at the cinema. After enjoying the film, we made a beeline for the Cinnabon and feasted on frosted heaven and coffee. When we were hopped up on sugar and caffeine, we decided we better get back to the hostel before our exhaustion set in, and so we got a taxi back to our hostel. After checking out Tallat Harb, we decided to explore our hostel room. We discovered we had a lovely balcony that looked out over Cairo, as well as hot water, air conditioning, and cable!! This was practically heaven to Jordan and I seeing has how we've not enjoyed any of the above for the last four months.

The next morning we crept out to the front desk to try and track down some breakfast. When the manager informed us that a complimentary breakfast was included in our room fee, Jordan and I were thrilled. Although when we found out that by "breakfast" he meant two pieces of stale bread with jam and a cup of tea, we were a bit disappointed, seeing as we are both big breakfast eaters.
Anyhow, after scarfing down the food we decided that it would be best to cash our traveler's checks so we could have some spending money. However, when we asked at the desk where we could go, Muhammad informed us that all the banks were closed on Fridays and Saturdays. As we started to walk away glumly, he all of a sudden remembered that the Ramses Hilton Hotel had it's own bank that was open 24 hours everyday and would cash our traveler's checks. Relieved, Jordan and I asked for directions and set out on foot to find the hotel. After about a half hour of walking, we acknowledged that we were totally lost and the fact that so few people knew English and we knew absolutely no Arabic didn't help. As we were backtracking we got an instinct and decided to take a turn and sure enough, right away we saw the Ramses Hilton towering in the distance. When we walked up the marble steps, through the revolving doors, through the security check, and into the swanky lobby, we realized just how expensive the hotel was and how poor we looked in our cargo pants and t-shirts, with dirt from Ghana still caked on our feet and under our fingernails.
We discreetly shuffled into the bank off the lobby, trying not to attract attention. After 45 minutes of waiting, watching the tellers fight with their printers and signing check after check, we finally got our money and decided to head to Islamic Cairo where the guide book said was the oldest mosque in Egypt along with a great bazaar.
When the cab driver dropped us off, Jordan and I consulted the guidebook to try and see if we could figure out where to go and just ended up walking in what we thought was the right direction. We must have looked extremely lost because within five minutes of us walking into what we thought was the bazaar, a guy who looked to bin in his early 20s came up to us and asked if we needed help. We were wary and said no, but he introduced himself as Hashem and said he was a student at the Cairo University studying English. He offered to take us around and repeatedly assured us that he wasn't a tour guide and didn't want any money; he said this was a great opportunity for him to practice his English and so we thought it seemed legitimate.
As he took us around, he explained that we were in the Egyptian and Turkish part of the bazaar and that it was the factory area where all the vendors from the tourist bazaar across the street came to buy all of their items to sell for higher prices to foreigners. He showed us how to tell the difference between fake objects and real ones and helped us bargain for gifts and souvenirs. Eventually he brought us to the Mosque of al-Azhar, which we'd read about in the guide book. Hashem helped us buy scarfs across the street so we could cover our heads in order to go into the mosque. We also had to leave our shoes at the door and give a pound or two to the door managers so that we could take pictures inside. As we walked around inside the mosque we marveled at the breathtaking architecture and at the old and ancient vibe the structure was giving off. In every room the floors were covered with scholars reading and discussion the Koran or praying. It was truly a touching experience to feel so much faith in one place.
After snapping some pictures and slipping back into our shoes, Hashem escorted us to the tourist part of the bazaar called Khan al-Khalili where he helped us bargain a little while longer. However, it became apparent that he greatly disliked the way the vendors dealt with their customers and what little respect they had for the items they sold and so thanked us for helping him with his English, shook our hands, and then disappeared. Thus Jordan and I were left alone to wander down the colorful corridors of the market. It really was just like the movies portray the markets of the Middle East to be: clothes, shoes, jewelry, souvenirs of all shapes and sizes, and of course perfume and belly dancing outfits. Jordan and I were excited to find Fishawi's, the oldest coffee shop in Cairo, located right in the middle of the bazaar. There we enjoyed Turkish coffee, followed suit with the old Egyptian men by smoking hookah (a flavored tobacco you don't actually inhale), and even got henna tatoos (don't worry, mine has already faded).
After a successful day of buying gifts for friends and family, Jordan and I headed back to the hostel to figure out what to do that evening. Our taxi driver ended up dropping us off on a corner and so we had to walk the rest of the way to our hostel and on our way we realized that we were staying right next to a movie theater. When we checked it out we found that they were showing the new Indiana Jones movie and that we had enough time to get some dinner and be back for the next showing. We looked through the guidebook again to find a good place to eat and then remembered a restaurant that our friend back in Ghana had recommended and so set out to find Felfela's. After walking down Tallat Harb aways and asking countless people for directions, we finally arrived. The inside of the restaurant was elaborately decorated and the menu looked divine. Jordan ordered lentil soup and falafel while I decided to try what Yazzmine had recommended: Koshari. It ended up being a delicious blend of rice, pasta, lentils, chickpeas, fried garlic bread, and spices that were amazing. I must say it went well with the REAL fresh lemonade that Jordan and I both ordered. And of course it was all served with amazing, fresh, warm flat bread. After we filled our stomachs to the brim, we headed to the movie theater and spent the following hours being entertained by Harrison Ford. I mean really, how many people get to say they saw Indiana Jones in Egypt?! After the movie we decided we'd better try the ice cream that was across the street and realized that we'd forgotten how good real ice cream is, seeing as how Ghana doesn't really do dairy.

On Sunday, Jordan and I decided that coffee was in order and so ventured across the street to the "American Cafe" for breakfast. As we juiced up, we discussed our excitement because this was a very special day seeing as we'd arranged for a tour of Memphis, Saqqara, and Giza. When we got back to the hostel we met our tour guide, a small 26 year old woman with lots of energy, and our driver, a quite man named Ahmed whom our hostel had booked for us. We all went downstairs an piled yet again into the silver, four door sedan. Her name escapes me now, but as we zoomed through Cairo our tour guide rattled off every fact there was to know about every building, street, and monument. As adorable as she was, it was clear that she had done this tour numerous times and informed us that she had attended school especially for tourism and had been working as a tour guide for three years.
After about 45 minutes of driving we wound up in Memphis, the first capital of ancient Egypt. It was a lot smaller than I had expected and it seemed that they had just bunched together the most famous finds of the city together in a courtyard. As we listened to our guide chatter about each statue, stela, and monument, all I could think was, "holy cow, I'm standing where the pharaohs once stood!" Finally we entered an ambiguous looking building to find that it was a shelter housing the 2nd larges statue of Ramses II in Egypt. The archaeologists left the statue where it was found and built the shelter around it. Standing in it's presence was mind boggling as I tried to imagine the planning, engineering, and work that went into the making of such a magnificent monument.
Next we headed to Saqqara, the famous site of the Step Pyramid, built for King Djoser of the 3rd Dynasty (2660 B.C.) by his architect Imhotep; it's also the first pyramid ever built in Egypt, and possibly the world. We were first taken through a crumbling complex with an impressive colonnaded corridor which led out into the Great South Court which housed the pyramid. When we walked into its shadow, I could hardly believe that I was face to face with the pyramid I had studied and written papers about for the last three years. As we explored the rest of the complex I had to keep pinching myself to make sure I wasn't dreaming. Finally after taking countless pictures, we headed to Giza where histories most famous pyramids reside.
When they came into view as we drove out of the city, I felt a tingle go up my spine, no joke! I really couldn't believe it. The structures that have been deemed a "wonder of the world," have been written about for centuries, researched and analyzed, and romanticized in movies were right in front of me. Despite the glory of the pyramids themselves, I was a bit disappointed with how touristy the government had made the site, though I tried to take the experience for what it was worth and enjoyed myself. I pretty much tuned out everything our guide said as I basically have all of my Egyptology textbooks memorized and Jordan and I walked to the pyramid in a dreamlike state. When I gently touched the corroding structure that Khufu had built in the 4th Dynasty, known to the world as the Great Pyramid, as corny as it sounds, it felt as though my life became just a little more complete (yes you may laugh at me and call me a nerd, but it's true).
We then proceeded to the other two massive pyramids that make u p the Giza complex, taking goofy pictures all the while. Eventually we arrived at the Sphinx, which to my surprise was smaller than the books and movies portray it to be, yet it was still extremely awe-inspiring. After taking more goofy pictures, Jordan and I were sad to leave the Giza complex and return to our hostel.
After bidding our tour guide and driver good by and thanking them, we agreed that it was high time to give into temptation and eat at the McDonald's across the street. It's ironic because neither of us touch McDonald's in the States, but keep a girl away from a proper cheeseburger for four months and McDonald's starts to look pretty good. I do have to admit, my taste buds thanked me after I scarfed down the pseudo-American fast food.
Following lunch, Jordan and I took a nap, seeing as we'd gotten up early to start the day. After waking up, we decided to go for a stroll on the Nile River Promenade and check out the Nile Hilton Hotel (one of the most expensive hotels in Cairo). The Nile was even more beautiful than I had imagined. Felucca boats and cruise ships passed by as the sun dazzled the city skyline. After strolling for a bit, Jordan and I clinked glasses of wine inside one of the many restaurants housed in the Nile Hilton. Again, we felt insignificant compared to the residing patrons, but we threw caution to the wind and enjoyed ourselves as the sun slowly sank beneath the waves of the longest river in the world.

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