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After another delayed flight, we arrived in Cairo at 5 am and had to find a cab to the hotel. That is always the most difficult part of being in a new country because the process is always different, you are never sure how much it should cost, and there are always a bunch of people inside the airport that want you to take their cab and you need to decide if they are trustworthy. In Cairo the cab drivers actually started trying to take us before we cleared customs! Landing in Cairo, we were extra careful and ended up finding a guy that had lived in the US (he spoke English really well and had a California driver's license) and had a car service. A car service in Egypt is not a Lincoln Towncar like in the States but a 7 year old Mitsubishi with a cracked windshield. Regardless, it was much better than the alternative, a 30 year old cab with a driver that doesn't speak English.
The driver was a crack up because he kept telling us how driving in Cairo was so much safer but while talking to us he would completely turn around, taking his
eyes off the road for long periods of time while driving over 70 miles per hour through traffic that included diesel trucks, horse and buggies, and old beat-up taxis. The greatest part was that he had a siren on his car so when he would approach traffic he would turn on the siren and everyone would clear space for us to pass. Turns out that cars with sirens are fairly common in Cairo. Can you imagine even attempting a stunt like that in the States?
Cairo is the largest city in Africa and the Middle East with over 17 million people. The city is split by the Nile river with the east being Giza and the west being the newer part of the city, which is Cairo. Approximately 80% of Egypt is Muslim, which is easy to see just by being in the city. Not only because of the way people dress, but also because you are reminded throughout the day when it is prayer time. 5 times a day you hear loud singing that is broadcast from speakers around the city which means that it is time to pray. One of the prayers is before sunrise, at about
4:30 in the morning, and woke me up a couple times which was a bit of a shock. It turned out to be an interesting experience and it is easy to gain an appreciation for the dedication that the people have to their beliefs. For instance, some women dress in long black gowns, have a black scarf covering their entire head except their eyes, and wear black gloves. The amazing part is that they do this in 110 plus degree weather and do not have many options to escape the heat such as air conditioning. I was dying from the heat and I had on shorts and a t-shirt and got to hop in and out of an air conditioned bus.
That night we met up with the tour group and our guide, named Sherif. The plan was to see the Egyptian Museum and the Sphynix and Pyramids of Giza around Cairo before taking an overnight train south along the Nile to Aswan and Abu Simbel before cruising up the Nile to Luxor. From there we then headed back on the train to Cairo and spend our last day in the city. One note regarding my last entry in
Amsterdam, where I said that Egypt was going to be the spot where we got to recover. This couldn't have been further from the truth. Many of the people we were traveling with were just starting their journey so they were always willing to stay up late plus we would typically start the tour at 6 am, which meant we had to get up at 5 am. By the end of Egypt, I was exhausted, sick, and ended up eating some bad food along the way and have been paying for it since.
The Egyptian Museum was one of the destinations that I was looking forward to the most because I have heard that it rivaled the Vatican in Rome and the Louvre in Paris. I turned out to be a bit disappointed because the museum was smaller than I expected and at points seemed thrown together and poorly organized. Despite these drawbacks, it was amazing how old the artifacts are and how well some of them have been preserved. To me, the highlights were King Tutankhamun's mask, which is made of solid gold and his caskets (there were three that fit inside of each other and all had
cool designs). The other highlight of the museum was the mummy room which had about 10 unwrapped mummies. It was amazing to see how well preserved the bodies were considering that they were over 3,000 years old. As you might have noticed, I don't have any pictures posted of the mask or mummies because no pictures were allowed in the museum. From my experience, Egyptians are obsessed with process and they have a bunch of rules that are in place that don't make sense but are strictly followed. One of these rules is that you can't take cameras inside nearly all indoor exhibits, which is probably just a scheme to sell more postcards and books because taking pictures without the flash shouldn't hurt anything. Besides, given that many of the exhibits were not behind glass and open for people to touch, it didn't seem like they were very concerned with preservation. Regardless, their plan worked because I bought a book instead of taking pictures.
The next stop was what is probably considered the most recognized attraction in Egypt: the Sphinx Great Pyramids of Giza. The largest of the 3 pyramids, the Pyramid of Khufu, is the last remaining monument
of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It was built over 4,500 years ago in 2560 BC and was the largest man made structure for over 3,800 years. Besides viewing the pyramids, we also got to go into the Pyramid of Khufu. The walkway was small so you had to hunch over (nearly crawl) while you were climbing through this rectangular passageway, which was a little freaky, but also made me wonder how they fit all of the Pharoh's belongings through the pathway. The end of the pathway led to a room with black walls, which was anticlimatic, but climbing into the pyramid gave you an better appreciation for this structure.
As I mentioned earlier, we returned to Cairo after our trip down the Nile. That day we checked out the step pyramid, a couple of mosques, and a Bazaar. To me, the most interesting was the visit to the mosque. Being in Egypt you are surrounded by Islamic rituals and customs and it was great to get a better understanding for the religion. Our tour guide was great about making sure that we got a feel for Egyptian culture and the Islamic religion along the way, which
was a great learning experience. When you are in Egypt, everyone is either trying to sell you something or get a tip for some small "favor" that they did for you, which turns out to be a drain after a couple days. This took away from the Bazaar because just walking through meant that everyone wanted to stop you, talk to you, or even grab you to buy something. It was even worse if you were a women. It wasn't even safe for them to be by themselves since someone was always making some obscene sexual remark or trying to touch them. Don't get me wrong, Egypt is beautiful and full of history, but there are a lot of people that really know how to make the experinece draining.
I will post separate entries on Aswan and Luxor, but the next stop after our last night in Cairo is Bangkok, Thailand. So we are finally making it to our 4th (including Europe) and final content of this long journey.
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