Advertisement
Published: December 13th 2009
Checking em out
Didnt know my guide was still taking picturesThe City
Cairo - It took me a while to tune into the ryhtem of Cairo, and at first, it was somewhat daunting...but after figuring out the inner workings of the city, I'd recommend a visit to the Egypt's capital to anybody looking for something a little different. I'm not talking about the 5 star resorts along the coast, I am talking about real, downtown, dirty Cairo.
Let me try to paint a picture for you. A sprawling metropolis divided by the wide Nile river,
which is at the economic heart of the city. The Nile is lined with tall buildings such as four
season hotels and a Mobil Exon office building. The Nile itself is filled with traditional feluccas (sail ships) power boats, lit up wooden tour boats, and large dinner cruise boats.
The streets are wide and filled with crazyness. The population in Cario alone is about 2/3's that
of Canada's entire population. Egyptian people (muslim) wearing traditional robes, as well as western street wear are everywhere. They make up a hectic jumble of people and small cars - 4 wide, sharing the roads with no particular right of
way. The cars somehow weave together, chris-crossing around, beeping their horns and josteling for position. It's pure madness, but somehow it works.
The People
The people here are friendly - "Welcome to Cario, where are you from?!" is the most common english
thing I have heard here. Half of the time, it's honest friendlyness, the other half its somebody trying to sell me something. Particularily in the touristy areas if you so much as glance at someone they will take that as an opportunity to approach you with a potential sale. For all of the begging and poverty that is evident in this city, it is amazingly safe and nearly crime free. Cariens have an strong sense of pride for their city and country, and their sense of community and religous faith helps everyone get through day to day life - which is why, I am told, the crime rates are so low.
Cariens love to take to the street, walk around and mingle with one another. They also love to
enjoy tea and seisha (water smoking pipe - no crazy effects) while playing a game of backgammon or some sort of dominoes which I couldnt really figure
out.
The average architecture in the city is dull, brown or grey and the entire place is filled with dust,
grime, and garbage. Stray cats and dogs pick away at the abundent gargabe, and the aroma
of pee mixed with garbage often finds it way in my nose.
This place is certainly filthy. But you get used to it eventually, and just blow
your nose a lot.
I happened to be in Cairo during the 4 day celebration called the feast, which is the second of two that occur in relation to the Ramadan. Muslim's do not drink alcohol so the celebration isn't your traditional western style event. Many of the shops that normally would have been open were closed down, and families and friends enjoy a large meal of lots of meat. The meat is sacrificed by the rich and shared with the poor, but it happens in homes so I didn't take part in meal. The people then take to the streets. Several of the main streets
downtown were blocked off to cars and thousands of people, young and old were just walking around (seemingly aimlessly). There was no music, or no real purpose to what
anyone was doing. Just thousands of people wandering around public areas. Obviousley being an Islamic nation, ther was also no alcholol.
The Pyramids
The last remaining of the ancient wonders of the world are next to Cairo in Giza - the Great Pyramids. Naturally this is the main reason for most visitors to come to Cairo. The pyramids are just on the outskirts of the city, about 800 m into the desert. Not far from one of many McDonald's here in Cairo.A chaotic, yet excting cab ride takes you there from down town
where you can pay for a horse or camel and a guide. I chose camel. If I had to do it again, I would take a horse. The camel was cool to do once, but it just isn't comfortable or as fast as
a horse. My camels name was micky mouse.
The pyramids are large tombs built by Pharos to honour them in their "eternal lives"
Pharos were said to be the the son's of the gods (seems that everyone in power, including Bush,
claim to have a devine connection). As such, the Pharoh's was a medium for the gods' powers, and his
pyramid set between the earth and sky allowed people to honour him in life and after death by daily sacrifices to "sustain his soul".
The pyramids are definitley awestriking. They are just so huge, and yet somehow the
engineers and tradesmen of ancient times were able to create nearly perfect pyramids (dimensionally). The ingenuity that was required to transport and build with such large building materials, to such a degree of accuracey, and such minimal technology is oustanding.
It is fun to imagine them as they were in their glory days. Covered with a flat surface of white,
bright, stone which was eventually pillaged by successing civilizations ( some of which include Romans, Greecians, Arabs etc).
It also important to think of their dates in some sort of context. First, think about how long ago the
story of Jesus Christ seems and how un-advanced that time seemed. That was 2009 years ago (I hope everyone already knew that). The great pyramids were built around 2550 BC. Thats about 4500 years ago!!! 4500 YEARS!!!! I was amazed by the construction and remains of the Colesseum in Rome, but that was a mere 2700 years ago.
...It makes me wonder what will still remain thousands of years from now from out time.
I'd put my money on Nuclear waste.
Right near the great pyramids of Giza (there are over 100 pyramids in Egypt) is the well known Sphinx. The Sphinx was carved from bedrock right infront of the second largest of the pyramids which was built by the Pharoh Khafre (2558-2532 BC). For this reason, it is assumed that the Sphinx' features resemble what Khafre would have looked like. THe largest pyramid right beside Kahfre's is his father's - Khufus (2589-2566 BC)
I also visited the Step pyramid, (and surrounding tombs) which was built by Sneferu (2613-2589 BC) which is Egypt's oldest pyramids. From there I could see the bent pyramid which was one of the first attempts at a true pyramid shape. The steep angle of inclination proved to be too much, and half way up the builders had to change the angle to reduce loads on the base. The angle they used (I believe 43 degrees) is what the great pyramids were built at.
Tombs
I visited several tombs while touring around the pyramids. The tombs were well constructed, but all of
their valuables have obviously been removed. The hieroglyphics etched into the stone walls, and sometimes painted were very extensive and detailed. I would explain the meaning behind them, but I sitll don't full understand, so feel free to wikipedia it if you are interested.
The Nile
The lifline of this otherwise barren land runs north-south throughout Egypt. Every civilization to occupy this land has completely relied on the great river for food, agriculture and transportation. So, like most places in the world, all of the major cities are located along the Nile - inlcuding of course Cairo.
I decided to take in the Nile via an evening cruise dinner. I was lucky enough to have five "dates" for the evening. American girls, studying abroad in Athens who were staying at my hostel. They were nice girls, and fairly well travelled so it was interesting to hear their thoughts.
Although I enjoyed myself, overall, not worth abou 160 egyptian pounds (35 CAD). The food
was buffet and we were expecting to be able to order. There was no wine or beer available.
The entertainment was traditional egyptian style. A man that spun around in circles
to egyptian
music while using his garments that opened up into large circles when he spun put on a pretty
impressive show. The belly dancer was pretty good too.
The best part of the whole thing was just enjoying the Nile at night from the top of the cruise boat for a couple of hours. Egyptian music was blasting from some of the smaller wooden boats all around us, which added to the atomsphere.
Islamic Cairo
Today, after a failed attempt to join a 2 day desert off roading and camping trip ( I would have had to stand on a bus for 5 hours) I decided to explore Islamic Cairo. I haven't really experienced much of the Islamic world, so it was fairly interesting for me. Islamic Cairo is less busy then the downtown center, but there is still a lot of people everywhere. Arabic architecture is most prevelant in it's mosques. I entered one that was quiet beautiful. A local man who was showing me around told me that the columns were different because much of the building material for that particular mosque had been stolen from pyramids and Roman buildings.
Islamic Cairo, I
was told, is essentially the slums of Cairo. There were lots of homeless people, even more garbage then the rest of Cairo and some of the areas looked really run-down. Again though, even in this poverty stricken area, I felt completely safe (partly because I had a local man showing me around). Unfortunatley I didn't really understand everything that my guide was telling me so I didn't really pick up on the history of Islamic Cairo, but it was still
interesting to wander through.
Egyptian Museum
One of the worlds most important museums is in Cairo - the Egyptian Museum. I wasn't allowed to bring my camera in, so there are no pictures. You could wander throuhg this museum for 10 hours and still not see it all, not even close. There are endless amounts of ancient egyptian artifacts. Two of the most impressive exhibits were the Mummy Room and the Tutankhamun Galleries (King Tut - 1336-1327 BC). The mummy room contains actual mummy corpses preserved for over 4000 years.
They don't look much like people anymore. More like, shruken down, wrapped up and burnt bodies that would give any 3 year old a nightmare.
King
Step Pyramid
One of the earliest attempts at a pyramid Tut's exhibit is particularily interesting because his tomb was only discovered and excavated (over 10 years) in 1922. Most other Pharonic tombs that have been discovered so far were already piliged by another civilazation in the past.
I saw up close the "death mask" which is what many people think of when they think of Ancient Egyptian Pharos. 11 kg in weight, made of solid gold, the mask would have been on King Tut's head when they found his mummified body. King Tut was 9 when he took the thrown, and 19 when he died. So, naturally, the mural of his face on the death mask is that of a young man.
Thats it for egypt...I meant to make this one a little more entertaining, but I still have another blog to type up, and then I'm off to exlplore some of Delhi - another dirty city.
Thanks for reading!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.076s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 10; qc: 26; dbt: 0.0224s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
