Cairo part one wrapup

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So now I'm in Istanbul - the topic for another blog at some point I suppose. Anyway, thought I would fill you all in on our adventures in Egypt.

After visiting the Pyramids, we took the next day to go to Coptic Cairo. Coptic Cairo is a part of Cairo where the Copts, an ancient Christian sect who now form something like 10%!o(MISSING)f Egyptian society, live and pray. My thought in going to Coptic Cairo was that we could hopefully avoid Ramadan and find some food and drink, and drink water in public.

This plan worked beautifully. We went to Coptic Cairo and wandered around the churches. Its kind of weird to be walking around churches in very Muslim Cairo, but very comforting. We also went to a Copt cemetery, which was a bit surreal. The larger mausoleums look very much like small houses. If dead people didn't live in them they would be quite passable accommodation. Apparently the slums have moved into some of the older cemeteries, and people now live in the old mausoleums. Kind of creepy I think.

We were able to find food and water 😊 and in the cafe next to the church, there were so many couples hanging out. We couldn't ascertain whether they were Copts or Muslims actively trying to avoid disapproving glances from family and avoiding fasting. Tad and I were the only non male-female pair.

Following the Coptic Cairo time, we went to the Citadel. When we arrived at the gate we were told that they were closing at 3pm (it was 3:30pm). Doh. We resolved to do the Citadel after we got back from Alexandria. So we wandered around the area around the Citadel, and stumbled upon a really beautiful Muslim cemetery. I'm not entirely sure whether we were allowed in, but they let us. We walked around for a while, and then made our way over to some of the mosques at the feet (or thereabouts) of the Citadel. In one mosque we were able to climb the minaret for a great view of the city. At the top of the minaret there was bird shit everywhere, but the view was well worth it. I don't usually have much of a problem with heights but I was feeling a bit of vertigo by the time we got to the top and was happy when we descended.

We thought about walking back, but I was pretty exhausted and we took a taxi back to the hotel. In the evening we met up with one of Tad's friends from Georgetown who was living in Cairo for the summer and had a great discussion about the things going on in Egypt, revolution, and the highly-uncertain future of Egypt.

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Comments

[anonymous]

Cairo
Hi Ian, The view from the minaret was crazily high up. No wonder that you had vertigo. I would be interested to hear your views on the future of Egypt from your perspective. Love your blogs ! Mom