Day 3: Sacrifice Day, all around
To be honest, we really didn’t accomplish much today… slept in, ate breakfat late, etc. It WAS time to transfer hotels though – from our relative palace on the Nile for ???? (?). We weren’t sure what was ahead.
Nobody had heard of this hotel – so we eventually hopped into a cab who nodded his head knowingly… he had heard of it! He proceeded to drive us all around Cairo asking other people on the streets where to go. He then had the nerve to try and charge us 10x what it should have cost!! Generally, I am all for these guys charging us a little more…they can use the extra dollar more than we can. But this guy knew I was unhappy and wanted to charge the equivalent of going to the airport for clearly subpar service. What we offered him, it turned out, was still way more than he deserved. Afterwards we traced our path on the map, we went all OVER town, only to end up walking distance from where we started!!!! My goodwill has quickly eroded.
But, we had made it…where we were supposed to be to meeting our tour group. I have never taken a large tour group before…so this will be an experience. For the ancient part of the tour though, it seems crazy not to get someone to be there and guide you through what you are seeing. Otherwise it will all start looking like piles of rocks. So anyhow, starting tomorrow we are joing a group for the next 7 days…til we leave them in Luxor.
It was only 1pm, and we had an appointment at 4pm to get ourselves some fake student IDs (everything is half priced…why Bryan didn’t bring his REAL student ID is beyond me – but he now attends Victoria College), so we had a couple of hours to kill, but couldn’t go too too far. It was a nice day (finally) so we decided to check out the neighborhood, which seemed more authentically egpyptian than hotel row did, along the cornishe el Nil. (nile road)
As I mentioned, there is a big 4 day holiday (holy days) going on right now in the Muslim world. Apparently, today is “sacrfice day”.
Picture this: A pack of live lambs and cows standing on one side of a little town square. Across from them a hanging line of ropes, hung with carcasses, with men with machete’s hacking wildly at animals, dead and alive. One by one they will be killed in this manner. Worse, maybe 15 feet back from the action is a bunch of little cafe tabes and chairs where locals sit a spell, smoking their hookas, drinking tea and watching the action!! As we walked through I was looking straight down so I couldn’t see any more of the massacre…but even there, the streets were full of bloody and random body parts – hoof here, chunk of bone there… fleshy debris flying everywhere.
Hours later there were stinking heaps of useless body parts piled on the street corners like trash…thes treet cats sniffing through them.
Moving on, one of the more palatable highlights of the day, was the discovery of an actual beer store. They sold NOTHING but beer. Not sure how this place was existing, (maybe not illegal to sell alcohol – just to drink it??) but it was surrounded by a yellowish misty halo, and the distinct sounds of angels singing was issuing from within.
So, we bought beer, smuggled it into a comfy corner of the hotel lobby and whiled away a couple of hours until we could get our fake ids!!
The evening hours consisted of a Nile cruise with dinner and some whirling dervishes. Which amounts to a brightly colored midget spinning around endlessly – something you all should know just in case someone ever tried to talk you into seeing one.
Tomorrow, we are finally going to the pyramids!
Tags: Cairo, Egypt, Fake ID, Muslim, Nile Cruise, Tag Index
jessicab
January 3rd, 2007 at 6:41 am
So much fun for all of us to follow your activities. We feel like we’re there without the annoyances/hardships you have to put up with 😉 Again, I can’t say enough about your great writing style which puts me right with you. Keep up your great sense of humor!nrnrDidn’t Amelia Peabody eat at the 4 seasons as well?