Boots in the Oven

Our Last Days in Cairo

Last Egypt post!  (Well, I'm thinking about one showing off all of the license plates - they use actual Arabic numbers, instead of the numbers we use that we call Arabic numbers.)

Our night train arrived in Cairo four hours late, and the man sent to meet us seemed awfully relieved at our arrival.

Things went totally smoothly at the hotel, and we quickly jumped a cab back to Islamic Cairo.  We were wanting to wander a bit in the markets, pick up a couple of gifties, see more of crazy Cairo...

We started out with more fatirs, the pancakes which were our favorite Cairene eats.  Egyptian Pancakes Houssen it is!

They aren't pancakes, of course, or pizzas, like the menu implies.  They're fatirs, that Egyptian treat with the flaky pastry crust, but I think the menu was translated to help us white folks feel a bit more at ease...

We tried to order the "meat" pancake, but they were out.  (of meat?) So, we got the "Eastern Hot Dog" and egg options.

These weren't nearly as good as the other ones we had at the restaurant near the Nile, but they sufficed. 

We also ordered a dessert fatir, listed on the menu as "sugar and cream". 

Or Karo and cheese... sort of the same thing.  SO SWEET. 

Bellies once more filled, off into the souk we went.  You could easily spend months in this part of Cairo; there are so many mosques and madrasas to visit, never mind all of the stores jammed with silver, cloth, and household goods.  Most of these spill out into the street - and where the shops themselves aren't in the street, enterprising folks have set up booths.

And, don't forget the extremely forward sales techniques - nobody actually grabbed my arm to drag me into a store, but it came very close!

You could even feel the craziness with half of the shops closed for Ramadan and Eid.

I was giving thanks for dryness underfoot.  Apparently, burst water mains are really common in this area.  Look at this picture, and imagine what it would be like if the ground was covered in water.

After making a couple of purchases, we stopped for a drink and sheesha at el Fishawy, an establishment that's been open for 200 years.  Every day, according to our guidebook.

We got a bench seat quickly and ordered some tea and a shisha.  I have no idea why the only kind we were able to order, anywhere, was apple - good thing we like apples?

The mint tea was quite nice, with actual mint leaves in the glass.

Since the sheesha pipe lasted us a really really long time (apparently, we're very slow smokers), we were able to order another round of drinks.  I had a delicious mango juice that actually tasted just like mangoes, and Husbear ordered a sahleb.  We saw a lot of people enjoying the drink, which is milk thickened with orchid root!  It's served warm and SWEET SWEET with a topping of nuts and raisins.

We eventually relinquished our people-watching perch to go do a little more shopping. 

We even tried our hands at a little bargaining, and felt pretty good when we were able to drop prices by half.  I'm sure Mama Bear could have gotten them down another half.

There were mosques all over the place, but we didn't have the time needed to make a more in-depth study of the area.

Since it was getting late and we were feeling dusty and shopped out, we grabbed another taxi back to the New Palace. 

It was getting on towards time to figure out dinner, and I have to say that after only five days we were really tired of Egyptian food, or at least the kind we found in restaurants!  Fatirs were nice and all, but we had heard of a Korean restaurant in a hotel near the river.

Before you judge us, please realize that we haven't been out for Asian food since we left Austin, with the unfortunate exception of one horrific Chinese place here in town.  We had a serious jonesing going on!

But, I mean really, Korean food in Cairo?  What were we thinking?  It was about as good as can be expected.

We ended up back at the Nile Hilton.  Again.  I'm not sure how that kept happening.

This time was a little different, though, because there was a wedding going on!  You could hear it from outside of the hotel - drums and wind instruments and yelling and dancing and clapping.

We stayed at the Nile Hilton for a little while, enjoying some more of the Alexandrian Cru des Ptolomees wine and one last sheesha.  We then walked home through almost deserted streets back to our hotel, passing a building under construction on the way.  Here in the historic areas of Europe, when a building is under construction, it is usually covered with a screen with a painting of what the building would look like if it wasn't currently covered by a large sheet.

In Egypt?

Rugs.

The next morning, we struck some poses for the mirror in our hotel room, because, you know, why not?

Then, we said goodbye to the hotel...

And then, a short taxi ride, and a squabble over the line for luggage x-rays, we said goodbye to Egypt.

I'm not sure if it's a testament to the foreign-ness of Egypt or that we've been in Italy for several months now, but coming back to Italy felt comfortable.  Not like home, by any stretch of the imagination, but familiar.

It was wonderful to go to Egypt, but to be honest, I had a real sense of relief stepping onto the plane home.  Egypt highlighted for me that there are some places that, no matter how much I try, I'll never blend in.  It's a good lesson.

So, that's it on Egypt.  Next, we went to a truffle festival in San Miniato last weekend with Auntie!  Also, we went to an "international market" before leaving for Egypt that turned out to be full of delicious German sausages and Dutch pancakes. 

And - omg omg - on Thursday, we are leaving for five days in Switzerland!  Interlaken, to be more precise.  Woot!

girlie

Look at the Glory of the Ancient

Our second day in Luxor started early.  Well, again, early Egyptian style - which meant that we were told in no uncertain terms to be in the lobby, ready to go, no later than 7... and we left at 7:30 for our trip to the Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens.

Our guide was a lovely Luxor native named Rihanna.

She may have been pretty, but she was also a stern taskmistress!  Continuous threats to punish us if we lagged behind were punctuated by pop quizzes to see if we had been paying attention to her information.

I thought she was GREAT.  Sometimes I appreciate a dictatorial bent in a tour guide.

We crossed a bridge crowned with an enormous photo of a waving Hosni Mubarak - whose grinning face can be found all over Egypt. 

Our first stop was at the Colossi of Memnon, so named by the Greeks (who were wrong about the provenance of the giants).  Off to the side, a young boy was grazing his donkeys. 

We only had a few minutes at the colossi, but that was absolutely fine since we had an awful lot to see and not much time to do it in. 

It was interesting to me to see how there are villages right in the midst of all of these ancient tombs.  In the time of the Pharaohs, the west bank of the Nile was reserved for the dead - because that's where the sun went to die at the end of each day.  Now, it's home to whole towns of people that make the alabaster tchochkes sold all over Egypt, or rent donkeys to tourists.  The Egyptian government has been trying to move these people since King Farouk's day, but they've had no luck and have occassionally met with violent resistance.

And yes, some of them make a living through tomb-robbing.  Old traditions die hard.

Next came the Temple of Hatshepsut, which was unfortunately the site of the Luxor Massacre in 1997.  I was aware of the killings before visiting, but I hadn't known this temple was the site.

Hatshepsut was the only woman to ever rule ancient Egypt as Pharaoh.  Her monuments can be found in the Valley of the Kings, though her nephew Tuthmosis III made a real effort to destroy any evidence that she had existed.  The temple survived because even Tuthmosis III didn't think it was a good idea to tear down a building dedicated to the wrathful gods of Egypt.

There is a large relief in the temple depicting an expedition Hatshepsut undertook to Punt (perhaps Somalia?).  She brought back myrrh trees and planted them in front of this building 3500 years ago.

For obvious reasons relating to what I'm sure was an uphill battle, getting the ancient Egyptians to accept a woman in charge, Hatshepsut had herself rendered as a man.  The statues of her have bared breasts, like the men.

Along with the usual glaringly white European tourists were a large number of Egyptians.  We took a couple of pictures of their styles of dress.  These women really cut quite a figure, with the perfectly coordinated headscarves and jewelry!  I wish I looked this put together on a regular day.

Soon enough, we had to leave Hatshepsut's temple to head to the Valley of the Kings.  We made one of the obligatory quick stopoffs so endemic on Egyptian tours - this one at an alabaster workshop.

Again, though, the demo was actually very interesting!  We saw examples of the process, from beginning to end.  The man in the above photo was using this hand-cranked machine to hollow out a hole in a chunk of alabaster in the process of becoming a vase.  It sounded like nails on chalkboard - all the hairs on my arms have gone on end thinking about it!

We did end up purchasing a couple of alabaster items, so it was worth their while.  We tried our hands at bargaining, and got the price down substantially - but they wouldn't move below a certain price, instead throwing in various other items "free".

Sorry for holding the rest of the group up a little with our haggling!

Next, on to the tombs in the Valley of the Kings.  62 separate tombs have been found officially, with the latest being just a couple of years ago.  The setting is desolate desert - but not so desolate, now that it's filled with tourists.  We heard an Englishwoman reminiscing about visiting many years prior, when the only option for getting to and around the tombs was on camelback.

The desert wasn't white, like the Negev, but it still had that sort of empty beauty.  Looking up brought men and children into view, climbing the hills all around the tombs.

The ticket you buy at the entrance gets you into three of the open tombs.  If you want to tour Tutenkhamun's, you have to buy an extra ticket for 70 LE, about $12.  We opted against this, since we had already seen his treasures in the Egyptian museum and we heard his tomb is rather small and unimpressive.  After all, he only ruled for a few years.  Makes you wonder what was buried with Ramses II and Seti, who ruled for lifetimes!

Going into the tomb of Ramses IV, Husbear asked me to pass him the camera.  Taking pictures, even without flash, is strictly verboten in the tombs, but I passed it to him...

He got a couple of amazing pictures of the inside of the tombs.

And then the camera was confiscated by a man in a galabiyyah.  I freaked out that he wouldn't give it back, but he did when we left.  Husbear didn't take amy more pictures in tombs.

(Later, we saw a guy in a different tomb confiscate a Japanese tourist's camera.   The tourist opened his wallet, and the guy took what he wanted and gave back the camera.  Another time that we failed to understand baksheesh in time.)

A couple of people in our group wanted to see Tutankhamun's tomb, so we waited outside for them.  Husbear walked up to the entrance to see how much was visible, and got yelled at - another guy, demanding 5 LE (illegally) for the privilege of looking at the outside of an open hole in the ground.

We were lucky enough also to go to the Valley of the Queens, where we saw Queen Teti's tomb and the tomb of Amunhirkhepshef (what do you guys think of that for the name of our first child?), a son of Ramses III who died in battle at the age of 9.  (!) In the corner of Amunhirkhepshef's tomb is a tiny skeleton, apparently a fetus spontaneously aborted by his mother when she heard of the death of her son.  Macabre, huh?

We then headed back to town, where I went to the hotel to wash off all of the desert dust and take a little nap, while Husbear left in search of food.  He found a very different noodle machine - different from the ones he used at the Italian restaurant in Austin!

The noodles were extruded onto this revolving griddle, which cooked them a tad and then scraped them off onto a plate. 

He picked up kofta (like shishkebob), taamiyah/felafel, some tahini (sesame paste) and a little salad of tomatoes and cucumbers.  I liked the kofta a lot - it had a really good grilled flavor, and wasn't too dry.  The taamiyah, again, was pretty greasy and undersalted, but was good in a pita.

When we arrived in Luxor, Gomal gave us the option ("decide now!") of taking a fellucca, one of the traditional Egyptian sailboats that ply the waters of the Nile.  As far as we saw, they are now used only for tourists, and our boat captain told us that they usually take out only one group a day, for two or three hours right around sunset.

The three-hour trip we took was very relaxing.  Our captain was great, laughing and joking with us and trying out English riddles.  He even brewed us karkade, the hibiscus tea, which was delicious as always.

It did feel a bit strange to be on a boat, on a river, and not be able to comfortably wear a bathing suit.  Or drink a beer.

We had a little stowaway.  He didn't bother us, so we let him hang out until he decided to take a plunge off the side of the boat. (I asked Muhammed, our boat captian, if this tiny Nile monitor lizard was his. He looked at me, "That crocodile?  No, that is certainly not my crocodile." I think he liked him though. -L. Pants)

It was wonderful to see the lives of the people along the Nile.  Children splashed each other, water buffalo grazed, men fished off of tiny boats. 

He even let us steer for a while (it may have been necessary, since he comprised the crew of one).  It was just as easy as it looks in these pictures.

I had a moment where I couldn't believe we were actually sailing.  In a boat.  On the Nile!  It snapped me out of some of the dissappointment I'd been feeling.  In a lot of ways, Egypt was what I'd been expecting - millenia of history against a modern backdrop, money fighting poverty, religious differences right at the forefront...

I just hadn't expected to feel SO out of my element.  Italian culture shock was nothing compared to this.

But this took my breath away.  We made it to Egypt.

Going back to Luxor we were reminded once more of the prevalence of American culture - at least the McDonald's related portions.

I haven't mentioned the nature of Egyptian security.  In most places, including our hotel in Luxor, tourists were allowed to just walk straight through security - while Egyptians were stopped and frisked and had their things turned inside out.

To be honest, it was a strange feeling that sort of added to the whole "old raj" feeling we experienced in Egypt.  Tourists were treated very differently than the Egyptians.  I'm still processing the feeling, but I know it wasn't pleasurable.

We left for the train station just before 8 to catch our 8:15 train.  I was concerned about not having enough time...

While we waited, on our platform, a crowd of young boys from Aswan surrounded Husbear and practiced their English on him, until a police officer came and shooed them off.

Our 8:15 train arrived at 9:00.  Sharp.

I felt like the train had a certain Eastern Bloc feel to it, but I found a plaque in the hallway giving the address of the company that built it - in West Germany.  Guess I was a little off on the provenance.

Next - our last day in Cairo (unless I just can't handle it anymore and stick in a post about something else.)

In other news - the house has lately been enriched by one Auntie, freshly arrived from Californ-i-ay!  Hi to her! 

(and WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, mostly, to the midterm election results.  Wow.  Look what happens when we leave!  My Italian conversation teacher thanked me yesterday... for the vote for liberty.)

girlie

Wanna see Luxor and Karnak?

Our NIGHT TRAIN from Cairo to Luxor was quiet and uneventful.  Apparently, this wasn't always the case, as even now tourists are only allowed to take a limited number of trains through the Nile Valley due to past terrorist activity.

They even fed us, though I have to say that this train food brought institutionalized commuter grub to a new low.  Oy.

We were supposed to be arriving in Luxor at around 6 AM, but luckily that estimate was off by three hours.  This allowed us to watch towns in the Nile Valley pass by as they woke from their Ramadan celebrations.

In Luxor, our train was met by a representative from the agency - his name was Gomal, but he called himself Friday - and we were taken to the Queen Valley hotel.  The hotel was entirely wonderful, with nice beds and a TV.  The TV got BBC World, which was a special treat since our TV here in Florence doesn't get any channels in English.

We had six hours to kill until we had to meet in the lobby for our trip to Karnak and Luxor Temples.  Husbear took his camera for a quick walk around town to get his bearings and learned that there were even fewer tourists wandering around by themselves in Luxor than there were in Cairo.

He met a cute kid on his walk who was willing to pose for a picture...

on the condition he could borrow Husbear's camera to snap this wonderful photo of his friends.

Luxor is much, much smaller than Cairo, and traditional modes of locomotion were more evident than they were in the capital.

Many of the shops were closed, it being Ramadan and all.  Many of the shops had "No Hassle Here!" signs, trying to draw in tourists tired of the hard sell.  Usually, the proprietors didn't heed their own signs...

Husbear was in need of a haircut, but unfortunately these guys were closed.  (Don't kids do this EVERYWHERE?)

Of course, Husbear soon started missing his lovely wife (who was completely maxed out on BBC World by this time), so he came back to the hotel to gather me.

And to change his bandages!  This was the first view I got of the thumb, which luckily appeared to be healing nicely.  (Since this, Husbear has had the stitches removed.  He still has several weeks of bandages ahead of him, but overall everything is knitting up well.)

After we rebandaged him, sawing through the new bandages with a vegetable knife begged from the bar, we left to get a little lunch before our tour.

We walked through the mostly closed souk (market) on our way to the main road.  We were sort of on the lookout for dried hibiscus flowers, because in Egypt they use them to make tea.  The best are supposed to be from the southern part of the country, around Luxor and Aswan, and we did find a guy who carried them in his tiny spice market.  A little bit of bargaining later, we were richer by one bag of hibiscus flowers (karkade) and a little bag of cardamom pods.

The owner, Ibrahim, absolutely insisted that we come into his shop and sit for a cup of karkade tea.  Once we understood what he was getting at, we were only to happy to oblige.  While we were sitting, enjoying our tea, Ibrahim took off and returned a moment later with a large sheesha.

He invited Husbear and me to join him in smoking the molasses-soaked tobacco.  I'm not a big fan of the harsher traditional sheesha, but I was fortunate enough to have an out, since smoking isn't ladylike in Egypt.  Husbear happily joined Ibrahim on the floor.

We had next to no Arabic, and Ibrahim had the same amount of English, but we had a great time.

However, time was running short for us to eat and get back to the hotel, so we extricated ourselves as politely as we could and walked over to the main road to locate some eats.

Husbear spotted a kushari restaurant, so he grabbed a serving to go in a plastic tub, but I was more interested in what this guy was selling on the street in front of the restaurant.

The kofta, on the left, was calling me, so I got a little bit of that in a sandwich with vegetables for, I think, 1 Egyptian pound.  Twenty cents.

It was good, but it made me crave a tasty Vietnamese sandwich.  Gotta make it to Southest Asia.

We also stopped at another street stand to get a taamiyyah - Egyptian felafel.  This kid had a little gadget for forming the patties.  He filled a little reservoir at the end, then depressed a small plunger and dropped a chickpea patty into the hot oil.

You have to love this packaging.  It's probably this kid's homework assignment.

Back to our hotel we went, now with full bellies.  Our group gathered just after 3 -  well, more like 3:30 - and the 15 or so of us piled into a couple of large vans for the short trip up the river to the Temple at Karnak, just north of town.

The Temple at Karnak is actually a giant complex that takes up 100 acres.  It's sort of a jumble belonging to different pharaohs, and the work stretched out over 1300 YEARS. 

The first thing you see upon entering is this long line of ram-headed sphinxes.

Around the ram-headed sphinxes are statues to Ramses the Second, who can be found all over Egypt with one favored sister-wife (or daughter-wife!) after another reaching up to knee-level.

Then, when you keep going, you suddenly find yourself in the midst of an immense forest of columns.  I've never felt so short and so insignificant.  The columns actually cover an area of 6000 square meters, which is enough to contain both St. Peter's and St. Paul's.  Yow.  Hard to conceive.

The tops of most of the columns are fashioned like papyrus flowers at various points during their life cycle.  Above, closed papyrus buds, and below, open papyrus flowers.

You can even see little bits of color, here and there.

Queen Hatshepsut, whose temple we went to the next day in the Valley of the Kings, had an obelisk and several reliefs here at Karnak, until her nephew came along and tried to remove her from the historical record.  (Egyptians at that time apparently weren't all about having a woman in charge.) 

Hatshepsut's nephew, Tuthmosis III, covered her obelisk here with a wall and had her cartouches (renderings of her name) chiseled out of the reliefs.  The end result is that her obelisk is remarkably preserved and retains some of the original color of the Aswan rose granite.

And, just to show that I'm a culturally insensitive jackass whose lack of understanding of ancient Egyptian culture (though I spent like half of my childhood at Chicago's Oriental Institute) can be directly attributed to Steve Martin's brilliant "King Tut":

Our much-too-short time at Karnak was soon over.  The least lovable thing about being part of a tour group; everyone has to leave at the same time.

This tour did offer us the wonderful opportunity to see Luxor Temple at night, though.  The Temple of Luxor is basically right smack in the middle of town, and there's actually a mosque sitting on top of a chunk of the ruins.  Apparently the townspeople wouldn't let archaeologists tear down the mosque to get to the ancient Egyptian ruins.

The approach, at almost-night, was unforgettably dramatic.

If you've been to Paris, and you're thinking, "Hey - that obelisk looks awfully familiar!", well, that's because its twin is in the Place de la Concorde.  Our guide told us that the French were offered the second obelisk as well, but getting the first one back to France was such an unholy pain that they declined the offer.  In return, the Egyptians were given that clock at the Citadel that has never worked.

The colossi, like so much that we saw, are of Rameses II.

Being there at night somehow made the temple seem even more alien and inaccessible. 

The reliefs in the temple, some of which were left by Alexander the Great, showed up really well under the lighting.  This one depicts offerings being made.

It must have taken months to do this raised relief style, which really did and does look a lot nicer than the sunken reliefs.  Lasted longer, too.

Here's another example for you:

These are the closed papyrus flower columns.  The whole temple was just heart-stopping by night; definitely a highlight.  And to think before we went to Egypt, we had no plans to go to Luxor!

A few more ramseses, in case you were feeling like you needed them.

We were running back out of the site, trying to meet up with the rest of our group before they ditched us, when this group of girls came up to me and started speaking animatedly, one of them waving a camera.  I figured they wanted me to take a picture of them, so I reached for the camera - the girl gave it up, reluctantly, and I took a picture.  As I walked back to hand them their camera, they started tugging at my arms and maneuvering me into their group; they wanted me to be in a picture with them! 

I smiled for the picture, then thinking I was done, started to walk away - nothing doing.  The girl who was taking the picture wanted to be in it with me, so she rotated in while another girl rotated out.  I think I ended up being in five or six of their pictures, and I really have no idea why!  Perhaps to show how those strange Anglo-Saxons dress during their leisure time?

But, well, now we have this awesomely strange picture.

And... that was our too-short trip to Luxor and Karnak!  Next, the Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens.  And, I'ma gonna have to get cracking, since auntie arrives on... :gasp: Thursday!  She's been packed since August, though, so I think she's ready to be here.

girlie

Cairo: The Citadel, Hanging Church, and Egyptian Museum

Our second day in Cairo, we were lucky enough to have another Echo Travel bus (same as the previous day's), with a driver but no guide.  This was fine, since we were only going to be seeing the Citadel (a large hill overlooking the city, with Mohammed Ali's Mosque), the Hanging Church, and the Egyptian Museum.  Yasir, our guide for the Pyramids, had been OK - but not really that much more informative than my book.  We were ready to go it alone.

Cairo apparently has more police officers than any other world capital.  (Not that they appear to be doing very much about the disgusting sexual assaults that took place in Cairo last week during Eid.  This, however, is not the blog for discussing such things... if you're interested, check out these Egyptian bloggers: Alaa, Sandmonkey, and Mechanical Crowds.)

Whew!  Back to vacation happiness...

The main attraction at the Citadel is the Mosque of Mohammed Ali.

Considering the enormously long sweep of history in Egypt, this mosque isn't old at all - it was built between 1824 and 1848, though apparently the domes had to be reconstructed during the 1930s.

It is a nice building, though the level of filth on the outside was astounding - I guess it shouldn't have been.  Again, the pollution.

As we approached the gates, I was preoccupied with the fact that my shoes would have to come off and forgot to get my wrap out of my bag and put it around my shoulders.  This is how I found myself enveloped by an enormous green tie-front robe.

Comfortable and keeps the young flesh covered!  Great.

The ablutions fountain, in the center of the mosque's courtyard, is very pretty.  Nobody was using it while we were there, since the only people entering the mosque were tourists.

The courtyard also holds a large baroque clock, given to Egypt by France upon reciept of the obelisk from the temple at Luxor which now stands in the Place de la Concorde in Paris.  It doesn't work and never has. Those wily French.

The interior of the mosque was cavernous, and perhaps a little bit of a disappointment after seeing the churches of Europe.  The constellation of light bulbs was striking, though it seems like they would need to be changed almost continuously.  In fact, there was a large scaffold up on one corner for just that purpose.

The decorations were very different than those found in a church, because of the Muslim injunction against any depictions of people or animals.  This led to a lot of flowery script as decoration, but Arabic is a very pretty language to look at.

Groups of tourists sat on the floor, shoes in laps, nodding intently at their guides, a few unfortunates in green robes.

After a little more poking around I relinquished the robe and returned my shoes to my feet.  We then went to quickly view the cells dating from the Citadel's use as a prison - one housed Anwar Sadat during World War Two.  Currently, they're "under restoration" and none are open, though we did look in through the slats to see piles of garbage.

The view is one of the highlights of a trip to the Citadel.  Apparently, on clear days (rarer and rarer) you can see the Pyramids.  We mainly saw more smog, though the minarets of the mosques all over the city looked so different to our Western eyes.

The Police Museum was mildly diverting.  There were lurid stories of famous serial killers, including a couple from Alexandria who killed something like 30 girls for their jewelry.  This was alongside stories of assasinations, mostly by people belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood.  Sadat's was conspicuously absent.

Since we had a guy follow us around pointing out the cases, we were obliged to give him baksheesh - the Egyptian tip that makes their economy go around.  We never really did get the hang of tipping Egyptian-style; sometimes we would offer it to guides, who would then appear rather insulted; other times, we woudn't offer and would be asked "Was I a good driver?" or "Baksheesh, please?"  Maybe in another four or five weeks we would have gotten the hang of their tipping system.

Baksheesh is necessary since the average Egyptian salary is the equivalent of $90 a month, or 500 LE (Egyptian pounds).

Finished with the police museum, we wandered over to the area of the Citadel that's still military to see the exhibit of tanks from the Arab-Israeli Wars.  We got this picture for Dad.  Quick, what kind of tank is this?

Our time at the Citadel at an end, we went back out to the parking lot to find our driver, who took us to the Coptic area of town to see the Hanging Church.

The macabre name actually refers to the fact that the church seems to hang in the air, having been built on an old water gate.  Unfortunately, we couldn't find a good view to corroborate this, though a glass panel in the floor does show the lack of foundations.

This church dates back at least to the 7th century CE, though it is possible that it was originally founded in the 4th century as a chapel for Roman soldiers.

Though Egypt is about 90% Muslim, there is a Coptic Christian minority.  I didn't know very much about them, and I still don't, but I can tell you that they have their own Pope and are independent from the Vatican.  Also, their bible is apparently a hundred years older than the Latin bible, and they date their calendar from 284 CE (when Diocletian, an emperor they accuse of killing 144,000 Christians, took the Roman throne).

The outdoor breezeway leading from the street-level entrance to the church is lined with mosaics, including this lovely specimen.

The inside of the church really spoke to me, despite the fact that it was full of tour groups.  It's a dark, enclosed cocoon of a space.

The wooden screens placed around the church were a sight for eyes underwhelmed by the mosque earlier in the day.  They date from the 13th century.

Their pulpit is interesting - unfortunately, it was wrapped in plastic for restoration while we were there, but it has 13 pillars, which represent Jesus and the 12 disciples.  One pillar is black, for Judas, and one is gray, for Thomas.

After finishing up at the Hanging Church, we still had a little time before our driver was to return, so we walked down the block to the Church of St. George.  It's the seat of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria.  Sounds impressive, right?

It's round, because it's built on an old Roman gateway tower.  Not sure why both of these churches were fashioned on strange Roman foundations, but there you are...

The interior of this church is heavy, but not in an oppressive sense.  Very Greek or Russian Orthodox.  Also not very old, though - built in 1904 after a fire gutted the original, which dated from the 10th century.

Unfortunately, that was all the time we had for the Coptic area of Cairo.  We weren't able to make it to the Coptic Museum, which is supposed to be a terrific repository of Coptic art.

But - that was because we had to book it over to the museum of Egyptian Antiquities!

Just to give you a Plan 9 from Outer Space sense of temporal uncertainty, here's the only good shot we have of the outside - taken at night.

Back to daylight!

The Egyptians are very conscientious about allowing cameras into the Egyptian Museum.  They X-ray all bags and, if they think they spot a camera, they hand-search.  Of course, they found Husbear's big daddy camera, but the little one made it through...

Not that we took a lot of pictures.

I've never seen a museum as stuffed as the Egyptian Museum... according to my book, there are 136,000 exhibits, along with a further 40,000 crated in the basement.  Just about every available inch is covered with sarcophagi, mummies, canopic jars, ceremonial staffs, sculpture, funerary barques, mosaics, painted floors, steles, triads, jewelry, sphinxes, reliefs, heads, colossi, thrones, chests...

It is completely overwhelming... and because of Ramadan, it was closing in 90 minutes.

We had a quick decision to make.

Tutankhamun it is!

The exhibition of the treasures taken from the tomb of Tutankhamun takes up almost two wings of the museum.  And it was one of the smaller tombs in the Valley of the Kings!  As Husbear said, upon viewing his accoutrements, he really did ensure immortality for himself, in a way.  After all, almost 3400 YEARS after his death, here were all these people looking at his things and saying his name.

We took a probably illegal picture of his funerary mask, a masterpiece which beggars description.

Soon enough, we were unceremoniously ejected from the museum, along with our fellow tourists.  We did get a picture of the lotus and papyrus pond on our way out - symbols of Upper and Lower Egypt, respectively.  The lotus plants in this fountain (surrounding the papyrus) , are the blue lotus, which the ancient Egyptians used as a drug.  They dipped it in their wine, but today nobody is sure of the exact effects it had.

Since we hadn't known the museum was closing at 2:45, we had asked our driver to return at 4, which left us with exactly the wrong amount of time to do anything.  So, we took the path of least resistance, walked to the nearby Nile Hilton, and ordered a shwarma.  At least we knew they would be open, an assumption we couldn't make about the rest of the restaurants in Cairo, what with it being Ramadan.

We even had a bite of a semolina-based Egyptian dessert, which was very very sweet and not half bad.

Slightly more full, we walked over to our agreed meeting point only to find out that the road was closed.  We stood at the place we thought would be most likely for our driver to find us, but after a half hour we gave up and paid double the actual cost of a taxi to get back to our hotel.  For $2, it was worth it.

By that point, we only had a couple of hours until our night train (NIGHT TRAIN!) to Luxor, so we dropped our daypack and went out to have an actual dinner prior to leaving.  Husbear wanted to check out a kushari place, so off we went.

The place he wanted to go, off of Sharia Champollion, is well-nigh impossible to miss.

Abou Tarek was completely slammed, likely because we were eating very soon after sunset with all the fasting Cairenes.

I was the only woman inside not in a head-scarf.

Kushari is sort of the food of the people, in Egypt.  It's several different kinds of pasta, with lentils, a hearty tomato sauce, and fried onions and garlic on top.  You doctor it to your liking with a vinegar sauce and a hot sauce.  These were 3 LE each, or about 60 cents.  Very stick to your ribs, though not a particular taste sensation, really.  (I thought it was tasty.  -L. Pants)

After dinner, we returned to the hotel, where a gentleman named Saheed took us and our bags to Rameses Station and installed us on our... NIGHT TRAIN!

Another busy day down the tubes.  Next - wandering Luxor, Luxor Temple, and Karnak!  And Husbear's thumb comes out from under wraps.

girlie

Cairo, Day Two - It's the Pyramids!

Before I begin, here, lemme say HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRANDOG!  WOOOO!  And happy halloween!

Our second day in Cairo began early.  Well, early for me - we were in the lobby of our hotel just before 8, where we were handed a bag of bread, jam, and odd white cheez spread and bundled into a van for our trip to the Pyramids.

Our guide's name was Yasir ("Like Arafat, but not Arafat," he said to clarify) and he started off with what we had heard was the usual spiel for the tourists, telling us of a papyrus shop we absolutely had to visit if we wanted to understand the ancient Egyptian art of paper-making, and a perfume shop where the alabaster bottles were hand-crafted and the contents were precious.

"How about the Pyramids?" we asked.

Yasir obliged.  We drove for quite some time through the sprawl of Cairo, but eventually the city started to recede and we found ourselves by the banks of an irrigation canal.  Then, we turned a corner, and

Bam!, as Emeril would have it - we were there.  This shot is from not too far away, and gives you a feel for just how bad the pollution is in that area.  Yasir said this day, the smog was unusually fierce.

The Great Pyramid of Cheops is the one on the left; the middle is his son Chepren's, and the smallest one on the right belongs to Mycerinus.

Though I was perfectly content to admire the view from where we were, Husbear took off a little ways into the desert for another perspective.

Yup, tiny-man is him.  And what did he see, from his vantage point?

Snacking camels, arrayed like a game of Hungry Hungry Hippos!

I think the one on the left caught him in the act.  Always get permission for a photo.

It was truly amazing to actually be there, looking at the Pyramids with my own eyes.  These guys have been here for 4500 years, a span of time completely incomprehensible to me. 

It was impossible to avoid getting trigger-happy with the camera.  We got a little silly.

Yasir gave us some time to wander around on our own - perfect, since I had my guidebook and Husbear his camera.  What more could we want?

Tourist police were thick on the ground, though hawkers were even more common.  Some were dressed traditionally, and would try to jump into pictures with you then ask for money.  Others were of the more directly enterprising type, with bags of cameras and batteries, head scarves (to protect from the boiling heat), postcards, carved rocks, et cetera.

Most of the tourists there seemed to be in large groups, being ushered quickly through the site.  Husbear and I were thankful to be able to have some time to ourselves.

Husbear was perhaps a little more adventerous than me.  I was feeling this need to keep my feet firmly planted on the ground (perhaps it was the copius "no climbing" signs!)

This picture is from along the side of the pyramid of Khefre.  It's rather difficult to express the scale with just a few small pictures on your screen...

Is your interest flagging?  Here, I'll throw in a funny picture to spice things up.

Ah, the famous lout flower.  Symbol of Egypt.

Anyhoo, moving along to the Great Pyramid, the first, belonging to Cheops - the paterfamilias.

The views were so evocative, especially given that most of the area was festooned with camels. 

This probably doesn't come as a shock, but Egyptians cover themselves.  Especially the women - long pants and long sleeves are de rigeur.  It was a bit of a suprise to me to see tourists at the Pyramids wearing short shorts and tank tops.

After a little while spent wandering happily amongst the Pyramids, we hopped back in our van for a look at the Sphinx.  It's in part of Chepren's well-preserved funerary complex, including parts of his temple.  I wonder what it would have looked like had Napoleon's troops not shot the nose off?  Dumbasses.

This was the moment during which I experienced my greatest level of "oh-wow-I-really-am-seeing-this" - probably because, though the Pyramids are impressive, when it comes right down to it a lot more actual craftsmanship went into the Sphinx.

Unfortunately, we soon had to leave.  One of the unfortunate aspects of being in Egypt during Ramadan was that many museums and sites close early, and we didn't want to miss Saqqara!

But first, we acquiesced to the idea of visiting a papyrus shop.  After all, we were curious.

Glimpses of Cairo while in transit:

We passed a street market.  I can't believe how easily these ladies can carry large things on their heads!

We arrived at the papyrus shop, and were treated to a brief demonstration.  This guy was very nice, and though the sales tactics were fairly high-pressure, we successfully walked out sans papyrus.  (Though they did have a lovely one of some ducks that I considered before seeing the price tag.)

Apparently a lot of the papyrus you can buy on the street is banana leaves?

First, you cut strips in the papyrus stalk, which when cut cross-wise is shaped like a pyramid.  Then, you roll them out and soak them.   The longer you soak the strips, the darker they get.  Papyrus is apparently very water- and crumple-resistant.  An interesting material.

After the demonstration, we got back in the van for the trip to Saqqara.

Well, really, how else are you going to transport your water buffaloes?

I've never seen so many palm trees... but it is the Nile, after all.

Eventually, we reached north Saqqara, an area filled with pyramids (including the famous step pyramid, the first one of the Pyramid Age).  We visited the tomb of Mere-Ruka, which was enormous - 32 rooms, according to my guidebook.

Unfortunately, photography was verboten inside.  The reliefs were really interesting, including a lot of scenes from everyday life - dancing, wine-making, bringing in the crops.  If I remember correctly, there was also a fascinating relief depicting the punishment of tax-shirkers.  They sit in jail.

We also descended a steep and narrow passageway under the Pyramid of Teti, doing our Indiana Jones impressions.  Mine wasn't that good.

We took a quick look from afar at the famous step pyramid of Zoser, built in the 27th century BCE.  (!!) At its time, this was the largest stone edifice ever built.  Unfortunately, it's closed, though we were a little disappointed not to be able to get nearer.

It was getting on a bit into the afternoon, so we unfortunately had to leave the site to return to our hotel.

I have to put a shot of our bus in here - it was probably... no, definitely the odd-man-out sitting amongst the gleaming tour buses.  Especially since, it being Ramadan (meaning many people stay up all night and sleep through the day, which I suppose makes the daytime fasting a little easier), our driver and tour guide passed out each time we left for some sightseeing.

Camel!

On our drive back to Cairo, our driver called over a young man begging by the side of the road and gave him a few Egyptian pounds.  It was nice to see.  Then, he suddenly pulled over next to a small vegetable stand just off the road.

I'm pretty sure he overpaid this guy, whose wife and children were sitting by the side of the road.  He purchased the largest cabbage I've ever seen, and an almost equally-impressive cauliflower.

From the "how the heck did they do that" files, a truck we saw while approaching Cairo:

I collapsed upon our return to the hotel and napped for a couple of hours.  Though Husbear found Egypt exciting and stimulating, I found it to be more enervating.

Soon enough, though, we were on our way out for dinner, trying to wipe our memories of the bad experience the previous night at Alfi Bey.

We made our way through the nighttime fruit and vegetable markets

and bought our first shwarma from a brightly lit diner.  Shwarma can be found all over Europe - it's a lot like gyros, really - but of course, these things are usually better in the land of their origin.  We split a tiny sammich, and it was good.  They used sweeter spices for seasoning the meat, perhaps cinnamon and coriander?  We weren't sure.

We also tried out one of the juice bars that can be found all over Cairo.  We had one with strawberry, banana and orange juice - the perfect restorative.

This sign, which I can only assume meant we were in a quiet zone, was laughably inadequate.  We were still taking our lives in our hands with every crossing of the street - I tried to glue myself to other street-crossers, but sometimes there was only space for one person to get by.

Our progressive dining continued with a stop at this fast-food place, where we had a very tasty pita stuffed with fuul (baked broad beans), eggplant, and taamiya (egyptian felafel).

The last stage of our meal came after a 20-minute walk towards the Nile.  Husbear had read about a place, El Tahrir Fatir and Pizza, and had been jonesing for a fatir.  It's like a phyllo pastry, stuffed with savory or sweet fillings.

We settled in and ordered two, one with egg and onion and the other with a feta-like cheese, olives, and tomatoes.  I preferred the sharp tastes of the latter, but the subtle sweetness of the former was nice as well.  The tastiest thing we ate in Cairo.

Finally, on to the Nile Hilton, for two reasons.  1) they have a great view of the Nile, and 2) it's a place where a woman can comfortably enjoy a shisha, which I wanted to do.  After all, when in Egypt...

They only had apple-flavored, which we enjoyed with a wine from Alexandria - Cru des Ptolomees.  Not bad.

The view was wonderful, as advertised.

Whew!  A long day.

Tomorrow in my chronology - Mohammed Ali's Citadel (the pasha, not the boxer), I have to put on a blanket to cover my shame, and we check out the hanging church.  Plus a possibly illegal, though very blurry, picture of the death mask of Tutankhamen.

'til then.

girlie

We actually made it to Cairo! (Day One)

No, we didn't forget about the blog.  We were in oh-my-gawd-Egypt for six days, including three in Cairo and three in Luxor - an awesome trip, in both senses of the word!

Turns out six days isn't really enough to see that much of Egypt.  We really would like to go back, already, although we will need some time to catch up on sleep and take a few showers.  Egypt, or at least the small part we visited, was definitely not a typically relaxing vacation... much too alien, at least for me.  Countlessly valuable, though.

I will say I've never been around friendlier people.

We arrived in Cairo last Saturday without much of a plan.  The great pyramids of Giza, of course, and the Egyptian museum, but beyond that we were open to anything.

Alitalia got us in to Cairo only about a half-hour late.  Not too shabby.  Too bad we weren't on the side of the plane with a view of the Pyramids.

Through our window, we could see the city (18 million, I hear, with a further 1 million commuters daily) spreading out into the distance, until it merged into the fog of pollution and dust hanging on the horizon.  And we thought LA was smoggy!

After landing, we made it into the passport control area.  I've been through these several times, though mostly in Europe, but the way the Egyptians handled this was entirely new to me.

I knew we needed to purchase visas for entry into Egypt, and I knew they would cost us $15 (US), but I had no idea how to get them.  After spotting a few people affixing newly-purchased lickable-back stamps into their passports, we figured out that you have to go to a line of banks along the side of the passport control area, hand over your money (only in dollars or euros!), and stick the stamps they give you into your passport.

The Egyptian entry stamp is definitely the coolest one in our passports, by the way.

After being enlightened as to the proper way to fill out an immigration form (oops) we made it to the luggage carousel, where our luggage was waiting along with a representative from Echo Travel, who was to drive us to our hotel.

Or maybe not.

He wheeled us over to this Echo Travel box, where he left us and our luggage for a few minutes.  I kept expecting a sales pitch, having heard that Egyptian tour groups are remarkably up-front with the sales techniques, but it never came. 

A guy about our age entered, introduced himself, and escorted us out to his waiting car, where we sped (no, really, SPED) into downtown Cairo.

Our first ride through Egyptian traffic was exhilirating.  They don't use lanes.  At all.  Traffic lights, for the most part, are distrusted (telling ME when to go?) and Cairenes cross major streets one car at a time, standing in the middle of the lane until they see an opportunity.  People say Naples is a symphony of traffic, but in the face of Cairo, I have to downgrade it to a frothy pop tune.  I mean, there are DONKEYS in this traffic.  And people hanging out of buses!

I was almost sad to pull up to our hotel, the New Palace.  We were paying $9 per night for a double room, so my expectations weren't that high.

Luckily, I had read about their elevator, so it didn't come as too much of a shock.

The hotel itself was really surprisingly atmospheric and cozy!  Towels, and soap, and guys who called themselves Jamaica and Metallica... I guess to make English-speakers feel more at home?  I dunno.

We checked in and got a little settled, then went upstairs to the rooftop garden to meet with Metallica.  (His name is Ahmed, and he said he got the nickname because he liked their music.)  He's moving to Australia next week, as his fiancee lives there, so good luck to him!  We found this interesting because our Egypt travel guide mentioned in a throwaway passage that all of the good travel operators and boat captains eventually marry Europeans orAustralians and move away...

We met with Ahmed for an hour or so, and he put together a tour for us which would enable us to see not only a good chunk of Cairo, but also to get down to Luxor.  We hadn't thought we'd have time for this, so after a bit of discussion we decided to spring for the extremely reasonable tour package.  It would have been even more inexpensive if we hadn't insisted on getting a sleeper car for the night train to Luxor and back, since I hope our days of sleeping sitting up on overnight trains are behind us.

The evening call to prayer could then be heard blasting from loudspeakers all over the city.  It being Ramadan, this meant that the Muslims were allowed to eat, so Ahmed went to grab a bite.

After waiting an hour or so for the immediate post-sunset rush to calm a little at Cairo's restaurants, we walked over to Alfi Bey, a restaurant near our hotel that had been open since 1938.

It was sadly pretty disappointing.  I hated having to use an English menu, but since there was no way we could make sense of their Arabic one, I suppose it was good to have the option.

Their bread was just sad.  Bread in Arabic is 'aish, the same word for life - which shows its importance.  In light of this, the fact that Alfi Bey's was stale was even more of a travesty.

We ordered a pretty good sampling off of their menu, including stuffed pigeon (stuffed with barley, I think), rice topped with kidneys and liver (which were seriously overcooked), sauteed vegetables (passable, but bland), a yogurt dip (with a too-strong taste of something we couldn't place - herby), and a broken noodle and rice dish served in chicken broth (totally watery).

We did have a full meal for 56 LE (Egyptian pounds - about $10), so that was nice.  And we weren't hungry any more.

I have to say, though, that by and large the Egyptian food we tried was not very good.  We did have a few tasty meals, though they were from street carts.

Ah well.  The food was not really what brought us to Egypt! 

Since it was still pretty early, we went for a bit of a ramble through the streets of Cairo.

When I was talking earlier about Cairene traffic, I didn't mention this - they also don't like to turn their lights on at night.  They will flash their high beams every once in a while, but the preferred method of announcing their presence is long horn blasts.

Here, I think a couple of cars have their lights on because it's a large intersection.

We were trying to find a specific sheesha bar, a difficult task since during Ramadan the streets are choked with pedestrians at night - and even if they weren't, street signs are few and far between.  We did eventually find it, only to learn that it was closed for the entire month of Ramadan since they served alcohol along with their sheesha tobacco.

We did find McDonald's, though.

The streets, and many of the shops, were so packed with people it was difficult to move.  This store was selling some kind of sweet, probably for Ramadan break-the-fast, and was overflowing with people yelling and shaking money in raised fists, trying to get the attention of the harried cashiers.  It was like Christmas - I was reminded of the yearly video of housewives trampling each other for Cabbage Patch Kids, or Furbies, or Beanie Babies, or Tickle-Me Elmos.

Though people clogged every square foot of pavement, we couldn't travel more than a few feet without people greeting us.  I guess we stuck out, me without my headscarf and all.  "Welcome to Egypt!"  "Where are you from?" When we said "America" the response was almost always "America, number 1!  We love you!" with a thumbs-up.

I was like a small child.  Everywhere things to look at, everywhere people talking (some to me), everywhere new smells and lights and sounds.  It was all a bit much, after a while.

I also couldn't believe just how many different types of headscarves there were to see.  I wanted to ask a couple of women how they tied theirs.  Some were attached with beautiful dangling decorative pins, others just with straight pins; some covered the whole front and back to waist level, others just the head; some had two or three layers of different fabrics.  I caught myself staring more than once.

It was quite an introduction to Cairo.  After being out in it for only four or five hours, we went back to the hotel, where I fell over onto our strange little slat-beds, bushed.

Our agenda for the next day involved leaving at 8 for Giza and Saqqara.  Pyramids ho!

girlie