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Published: October 14th 2008
031 - Egypt - Cairo
09/20/08 - 09/24/08
Fast Food Sober Ramadan
Prior to heading to Egypt our pallettes conjoured up images of baba ganuoush dip, aish bread, kofta meat, and shai tea, followed by a good sheesha (tobacco) smoke. Now imagine our dissapointment to find that ALL of the delicious hole-in-the-wall eateries and coffee houses in Cairo were closed during daylight hours for the entire month of September for Ramadan! And to top it off... get ready for it... NO BOOZE anytime of the day, anywhere in Cairo, during our entire stay there! So, it was McDonalds, KFC, or Hardees for lunch and an alcohol free diet for five consecutive days... welcome to Fast Food Sober Ramadan!
During daylight hours the people from Cairo don't eat or drink anything (even water!) for Ramadan. Luckily, they make up for it by going out at night and stuffing themselves for breakfast (breakfast refers to 'breaking-the-fast' when the sun goes down, around 6:30 PM) and smoking the sheesha. For this reason, Cairo lights up at night and the streets become so crowded that traffic can hardly get through. The shops stay open until the wee hours of the morning
McDonalds for Fast Food Ramadan!
All local restaurants are closed during the day for Ramadan so fast food joints are the only option!and it's not unusual to see families with youg children out and about at 2 AM.
During our stay in Cairo we visited the famous pyramids of Giza. I have to say that this was probably the most touristic sight we've visited so far. Many tourists visit the pyramids during a brief stop-over in Cairo and the tour companies cater to this easy money. Nevertheless, the pyramids are impressive in their grandeur and we did stray off the beaten path for some authentic hikes around the grounds. We also visited the national museum of Egypt which has more ancient artifacts then you would ever want to see. Most impressive were the King Tutankhamun golden sarcophagi, and his death mask made of 25 pounds of solid gold!
One night, while smoking the sheesha at a coffee shop, we met a nice Egyptian family that invited us to a home cooked meal the following night. Adel, his daughter Sarah, and her husband Mohammed, were incredibly polite and made us feel at home in their high rise apartment overlooking the Nile and the Pyramids. Their view made for one of the best sunsets we have seen - watching the sun go
down right between two of the pyramids.
All in all, a short, sweet, and sober stay in Cairo! Next, we head to my birthplace and join my family for a couple of months off from serious traveling. Next stop, Athens, Greece!
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and the journey continues........
Hi there, always a pleasure to read about your travels, glad to see your having a great time too, lamu is hot now with occassional breezes but generally very warm, we had a great event on the 18th, stand up take action campaign, we planted trees in the schools in lamu, this is towards the millenium campaign goals, it was wonderful, the big show was at the town square, we had acrobats, skits, comedy, a dance and even a rapper!!, at the end of the day 5690 participated and within the whole week 650943 trees were planted in lamu alone, imagine if we all did this!!!!, ciao more from lamu soon, will send you the pics sometime, one love