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Published: February 7th 2010
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Coptic Cairo
Inside a church in the coptic area. Coptic Cairo
From Alexandria I went back to Cairo for just one day. There I went to see the Coptic (Christian) area with my Indian friend. It took only fifteen minutes by metro to get there. There were small churches and a synagogue in a small area. Nice to walk around there and taste the atmosphere of the area. In almost all of them I went inside to have a look. Near a Greek Orthodox church I had some lunch and enjoyed the peace and quiet. So different from the other parts of Cairo. Just outside the area I saw the oldest existing mosque of Egypt. I went inside, but although old, I didn’t sense anything special about it. In the evening I went to the trainstation to get my train to Aswan.
It took twelve hours by train to Aswan, in the south of Egypt. It was a sleeping train. Luckily I had my own cabin with my own bed. So I had quite a good sleep while the train went forth. In the morning I noticed I could take my sweater off because it was quite warm. I found a place to stay and went after dropping
Abu Simbel
Can you see the tiny people below. Those statues are really huge. my bag for a walk around. And I arranged my plan to go to Abu Simbel. So the same night I had to get up at three o’clock to go by minibus to Abu Simbel. It took three hours to get there, but it was definitely worth it. The giant statues of the Pharaohs were very impressive. And it was possible to go inside and see many carvings and decorations. And afterwards back in the minibus for again three hours back to Aswan.
And more Pharaoh wonders…
From Aswan I went by train up to Luxor. There I went to see the Karnak temple the same afternoon. It was very impressive, the big statues and pillars. Until now I think the major highlight of my trip in Egypt. During that same evening the city exploded because Egypt won the Africa Cup in football. Everywhere people running around, cars honking their horn and Egyptian flags everywhere. The next day I met an American guy and together we decided to rent bycicles to discover the west bank (of the Nile). So first we had to take the ferry to get to the other side and from there we cycled to
Karnak
The amazing pillars. The site of Karnak is 2 square km. large. Unbelievable if you walk around there. the Valley of the Kings. I went inside some tombs with nice colorful decorations. I tried to imagine how these tombs looked like in the past, before all the pieces were robbed or transported to other musea throughout the world.
After Luxor I went by train back to Cairo. In my hotel I met a girl from China with the same plan. So luckily I had some nice company during the eleven hour trainride. We spoke about many things which were really interesting. She spend the last three months in an Ashram in India and I liked her stories about it. After arriving she wanted to show me a Chinese restaurant, where we had dinner. I never thought there would be a Chinese area in Cairo, but indeed there is. The food was very good and afterwards I went back to the hotel. The next day we went to a huge shopping mall (Star City). It was fun to look how people behave over there. It seems to be more liberal, maybe also because of the western atmosphere and the upper class people who are only able to shop there. I liked to watch the people.
The next day I decided to take the bus to Saint Catherine. But I will tell about my experiences there in the next blog.
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