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Published: November 4th 2008
The first "real" pyramid
This is the first pyramid which looks like a pyramid and has all the right angles.Cairo, another city of superlatives. Allegedly worst polluted city in the world and Africa's most populous city (depending on how you count and who you ask). It also happens to be a great city with lots to see and do, with friendly people and next to no crime. Really nice to be able to walk around in the middle of the night in virtually any part of the city without fearing to get mugged. This is especially helped by the masses of people which do late night shopping. The streets are come to life after 8pm and finding lots of people is not hard at 11pm.
Unfortunately this brings with it chaotic traffic and the most dangerous pastime of everyone here is to cross the road. Sounds easy but isn't. Especially if there are 5 lanes each and heavy traffic. Pedestrians are very low in the pecking order and as they do not cause much damage to cars. Drivers are blissfully unaware of them. At least this keeps you heart going.
We spent the first day in the oldest part of Cairo which is aptly named "Old Cairo" (who would have thought). A common disbelieve is that Cairo was
founded by the Pharaoh's or around that time but it was in fact founded in 969 AD as royal enclosure.
The main attraction in "Old Cairo" is
Coptic Cairo which is the Christian part of Cairo. Egypt wasn't always and Islamic country and for a long time Christianity prevailed. Even the most Christians of all the "holy family" (aka. mum, dad and Jesus) are said to have hid here when the Romans were looking for them. In Coptic Cairo we found a whole array of churches within a small distance and all connected by lovely and now touristy alleys.
To counterbalance all the Christian influence we went the next day to Islamic Cairo which is not only bigger but also more impressive. You got to give the Christians that they build nice churches but Islam has been around for longer and had more followers and that can be seen. Islamic Cairo is littered with beautiful Mosques, grand palaces, other very amazing houses and for good measure a souk (bazaar) is thrown in for good measure. Took us a whole day to walk around and we haven't even come close to seeing everything. Lonely Planet claims that there are 800 historic
South Gate
with minaret buildings listed in this section of Cairo alone. No visit to this part would be complete without climbing a minaret and staring down at the maze and mess of this part of Cairo. From above we saw the scale of it all, the amount of mosques and the amount of trash people seem to store on the roof tops.
Entering the souk is like stepping back in time. Sinbad must have shopped like this. That is if you can ignore the modern merchandise and the tourists. Its great fun to haggle over things you don't need or want. Kellie is becoming an expert in haggling these days and I often just have to sit back and enjoy the show.
Another misconception about Egypt is that the pyramids of Giza (the famous ones that you know) are the oldest or the only Pyramids around. Just to the south of Giza are more of them which are older and slightly different to the Giza ones. The Pyramid of Djoser is a step pyramid and considered to be the oldest whereas the Bent Pyramid (the steepness of the pyramid changes in the middle due to problems with the construction) of Dahshur was
the next step which leads to the first true pyramid (which looks like what we think of a Pyramid) also around this area. Really a great introduction as it looks and feels like a pyramid and has the benefit that there aren't busloads full of tourists around them. We had them literally for ourselves and could wander around and decent into the pyramid itself. Descending into the pyramid is a strange experience. Firstly the main entrance wasn't build for tall people which I can understand as they didn't expect many visitors but it's also on a steep angle. I could feel my leg muscles for days after climbing down. The first pyramid didn't have a lot inside apart from three chambers and an interesting roof construction. The second pyramid however was more like what an wannabe Indiana Jones expects. Hieroglyphs on the wall and a sarcophagus.
The surroundings were also amazing and littered with temples and tombs of lesser people. Form an interior design perspective they were a lot more impressive than the pyramids as they contained lots of paintings, even more hieroglyphs and reliefs. But then again a couple of hundred tons of stone stacked on top of
Step pyramid
Predates the pyramids at Giza each other cannot be beaten by that.
The next day we had to stop looking at stones and provide a counterbalance. We found that in hundreds of Camels. Cairo hosts one of the largest Camel markets around and we checked it out. As you would expect a camel market consists of a shitload of Camels and a couple of guys arguing over the price. That's roughly what it looked like. Interesting nevertheless.
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