Cairo, Egypt – Part I (Post #63)
Hello from Cairo, Egypt!
This is Michele typing…Mike is next to me here in an Internet Cafe in downtown Cairo. After a lot of traveling (35 hours!) we arrived in Cairo at 12:45am on Friday, November 18th. We doubted our free pickup person would be waiting for us since our flight was delayed almost 7 hours. However, he was there and had been waiting for almost 7 hours as well! We arrived at our hostel at about 1:30am and were warmly greeted by the night guy. We got up late and the only thing we really did on Friday was visit the Egyptian Museum, which contains more than 120,000 statues, artworks, and sarcophagi including the treasures found in King Tutankhamen’s (King Tut’s) tomb. We saw his 25 pound gold mask that he was buried in and his 250 pound gold sarcophagus. We spent hours in this museum looking at hundreds of possessions owned by King Tut – many of them made out of sold gold. Mike also paid for a ticket to see the royal mummies. These mummies, whose bodies date back to between 1552 and 1069 B.C., are incredibly well preserved (they still have their hair!) They are once again on display after Islamic disapproval of exhibiting the dead kept them from the public eye for the past 15 years.
The next day (Nov. 19th) , we hired a driver for the day to take us to the Pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx and then on to Saqqara, a necropolis in the desert filled with pyramids, temples, and tombs. Our guidebook says that evidence shows the pyraminds were built by tens of thousands of highly skilled people (not slaves) and the two largest pyraminds are said to have been standing for 46 centuries. Here are two pictures (note that Mike is at the bottom of the pyramid in the 2nd picture):
Later at night, we went to a restaurant that sold 1 item of food. We found this very strange but there was no shortage of people and we found out why – the found was excellent and very cheap. This restaurant serves kushari, a mixture of pasta, rice, lentils, and spicy sauce. Mike and I ordered two bowls and 2 cans of soda. Our bill came to just under $2.
This morning we hired Jimmy again to drive us around for the day and take us to some sights in Old Cairo and Islamic Cairo. In Old Cairo one place we went to was an emormous necropolis known as the City of the Dead. This is a place where Mamluk sultans built huge mausoleums, meant not only as tombs but also as places for entertaining people. There are so many mausoleums and they are so large that when you walk around this place, you feel like you are walking through a neighborhood of small houses. Another interesting thing is that people are squating here so the living and the dead are co-existing side by side. Here is a picture:
In Islamic Cairo, among other places, we went to Kham al Khalili, Cairo’s crazy sprawling bazaar. We walked in there with our guide, Jimmy. Mike and Jimmy (translating from Arabic to English) were making a deal with a guy to buy a man’s scarf (the type that Saudi Arabian men wear), when the police came up to Jimmy. They asked to see his driver’s license. More police came. Mike and I started feeling very worried about Jimmy. A young man told us, “He (Jimmy) needs to wait in the car for you. We don’t want tourists hassled.” Mike and I knew that was B.S. We talked to Jimmy later and the real story came out. On Jimmy’s driver’s license, it says he is Christian. The driver’s licenses say what religion you are. The population in Egypt is about 95% Muslim and Christians are discriminated against. Jimmy said about 4 years ago he went to the market with some tourists and the police arrested him in the market and he was in jail for a month. This incident in the market was quite stressful for Mike and I because we really like Jimmy. On the way home he asked if it was o.k. for him to see his family. We said of course. We then drove to a Christian community where we lived and his wife invited us in for a meal and tea. We tried to refuse because it clear they were somewhat poor but they would not hear of it. They insisted we eat a meal. We had flafel and fruit. His three kids were there along with his father. The house is probably no more than 700 square feet. It is very small. While we were there, Jimmy got a phone call that really stressed him out. We think it may have been the police but we are not sure. We thanked Jimmy and his wife and he drove us back to our hotel. He said he wouldn’t be driving his cab tonight because he had some problem he had to deal with. We hope he will be o.k.
Tonight we are taking an overnight train from Cairo to southern Egypt (near the Sudan border) and then we will begin our journey traveling north back up to Cairo, visiting famous Egyptian sites and sailing up the Nile river. We’ll report again when we can.
Bye!
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Tags: Category #18: Egypt
Michele Harmon
After all those episodes of Nova, and all those Discovery channel shows – were the pyramids more or less impressive than you had expected?
Bummer about Jimmy! I sure hope he is okay! I should send this report to Farouk! Where will you be for Thanksgiving?
Happy Thanksgiving (one day late!) I like to think you celebrated by having a nice dinner while cruising down the Nile. 🙂