Egypt Day 11 Religious Cairo

On our Eleventh day in Egypt, it was time to see some of the major religious sights in Cairo. The bakery at the Marriott got us off to a good start with a pastry and a cappuccino, and we piled into the van once again. Our first stop of the morning was the Citadel of Salah ad-Din. We started by walking inside to see the Mosque of Muhammad Ali. You've got to take your shoes off to enter, or buy some plastic booties to go over your shoes. You can set your shoes down, but with the soles turned so they're not touching the floor. The first thing you notice when you get inside, is what's missing, there are almost no chairs. We took a seat on the floor in a circle and Yusef gave us all the information about the mosque and gave us an overview of key points of islam. The girls got to ask some questions about life as a muslim woman, and even how our guides felt about the way that women and men our treated differently in our society and theirs. We talked for a while about polygamy, and how much a man is responsible for taking care of his wife. From outside the mosque, you can see all the way across cairo to the pyramids. On our way out of the citadel complex we saw a group of catholic schoolchildren visiting the mosque. When someone in our group started to take their picture they were very excited and yelled in perfect english, welcome to Egypt. it was very cute. We stopped by another mosque that somehow I managed to forget the name of, but i'll be seeing if i can match up pictures and find the name of it for you. The girls had to put on robes with hoods and enter through a seperate door, and there was a funeral going on while we were there, so in all the excitement the name of the place completely eluded me. Being a tourist during someones funeral feels more than a little weird. Next was a trip to Coptic Cairo, and a visit to the hanging church. We wandered through churches at a pretty rapid fire pace here, but probably the most important note is from the church of St. Sergio (Abu Serga). There is a cave below the church where it is said the Holy Family stayed on their journey through Egypt. We also visited the church of St George, and the Ben Ezra Synagogue, where legend has it baby Moses washed up.From there it was on to lunch, which was on a boat docked on the nile, the food wasn't that great but there was a cute little kitty outside that lived on the dock, we snuck him out a little fish in a napkin on the way out that he chomped down in a hurry. Then it was time for a trip to the Cairo museum. The items on display here are truly, truly amazing, even when you consider how man of the really great works are spread out in museums across the globe. Having a tour guide was helpful, since there is so much stuff that there's no way of knowing what is important and what isn't. We had some time to wander after our tour, and W and I just tried to make sure we at least eyeballed all the exhibits, and we'd consider a trip back the next day if we thought we were really missing out. You can rest assured, if I thought I could get away with it, I would have worn out my camera in there, but there was strict adherence to the no camera policy. After the museum we sat outside and asked questions about the exhibits and then it was time for power shopping. We needed to stop first for a pick-me-up at a coffee shop, and as you're sitting there merchants stroll through frequently selling tourist goods. It's charming at first to shop over coffee, but after a while you tire of shooing away the fourth straight person hawking beaded head wear.That brings us to the final must see of any trip to Cairo, a visit to the Khan, or Khan El Khalili. We walked around for a few minutes looking for a spoon for a friend, and before we left Rosita recomended we stop by Gouzlan where she shopped frequently when she flew the Cairo route for TWA. We absolutely just happened to walk right up to it by accident without even trying. They have nice things and sold in a much lower pressure situation than many of the other places. We met back at the coffee shop when we were done, and enjoyed a tasty falafel selection before heading back to the hotel. We made our usual stop in the lobby, and after such a busy day and late snack we couldn't round anyone up for dinner, so we ended up having a little room service and crashing hard.

Egypt Day 10 getting down to business in Cairo

If you're counting at home, I've been in Egypt 9 days and have yet to lay eyes on a pyramid. Day 10 brought about time to change that. We talked our favorite tour guide into hooking us up with a friend in Cairo, and our trip sounded like so much fun that he took the train up to join us. So now we have the six of us and two tour guides on a whirlwind mission through Cairo. We started down in Memphis with the open air museum there, which has a lot of cool old stuff some more ruined than others, and a giant colossus of Ramses II that won't stand up anymore. The drive to Memphis takes you over a lot of little bumpy rides past the most disgusting looking Nile canals. At some places the canals are filled with floating floating garbage at one end of a section and at the other end there would be people fishing. I'll order the lamb thanks. From the museum at Memphis, we next rolled to Sakkara where you find the oldest pyramid, the step pyramid built by Djoser (Zoser). We had seen dogs at a lot of the sites, and got the impression that there might be puppies around someplace, but finally found one at the step pyramid. I think if W thought we could have gotten him in our carry on, we'd have a new puppy at our house. You start by walking through the temple complex through some stone columns, and suddenly find yourself craning your neck at this giant structure. There is still much to be unearthed there, but the structure itself is really quite impressive. There's a small museum there too, with cool artifacts from the early dynasties there would be pictures, but you know how this story goes. After hanging around the step pyramid for a while, we were back on the bus, for a quick trip to the carpet factory. How they make the carpets was cool, what they charge and how they pressure you to buy, not cool. After carpet shopping it was time for a little lunch. We ended up in a pretty touristy spot that I really regret not getting the name of because the view of the pyramids from there was incredible. We sat at a window table that looked right over the Giza plain. The Egyptian food served there was quite good, despite the fact that it was on a buffet. We gorged ourselves on all the deliciousness and enjoyed a sakkara beer with a whole new perspective on it. After lunch the guy in charge took us up a few flights of stairs to an outdoor deck where we actually got some of the best pictures from the trip. After our picture time, it was time to go get up close and personal with the pyramids. You have the option to pay extra to go inside the great pyramid of Cheops (Khufu) but no one really wanted to follow the big crowd into a hot, dark cave and pay extra for it. You can go down in one of the smaller pyramids without extra charge, and essentially get the same experience. We had also been warned by many people not to take the camel ride at the pyramids, so we were glad to have already fit the camel ride in. There's no doubt about it, the pyramids are big, and impressive. Tourists don't get to climb up the sides of the pyramids anymore, and there was a little guy blowing a whistle and yelling at select groups of people climbing and letting others go with no real rhyme or reason to his methods. After getting close to the great pyramid and going down into a small one we got on the bus to go over to the panorama where you can take pictures of the big three in one shot. After snapping there for a while it was time to go pay a visit to the sphinx. You can't terribly close to it, but the fact that you're there at all is plenty of consolation. You're also there with a lot of other people. I never realized how short a distance it is from Cairo to major European hubs. 5 hours from London or 3 hours from Frankfurt makes a sunny destination like Cairo easily in reach of a lot of tourists. So you don't get a lot of pictures without other people in them, but for us here in the states it's a big deal to go that far, so you just learn to deal with the crowds. While you're there, you have to take the touristy pics of pointing at the pyramids, and kissing the sphinx, and assume that people have done these things as long as theyve had cameras to do it with. The best realization is that some of the monuments you're standing in front of have been there since before 2000 BCE, or more than 4000 years ago. That's an insanely long time. We were a tired wind and sand beaten bunch when we got back to the hotel, and after a little rest and a round of showers for all, briefly checked out the casino, and it seemed nice, but there were far more casino employees than gamblers.We grabbed a bite to eat at Roy's Country Kitchen in the hotel, which has unfortunate Egyptian waiters forced to wear overalls and flannel shirts, oddly paired with dress shoes. Then it was sleepy time, with another full day ahead of us for the next day.

Egypt Day 2 Moving South to Luxor

On our second day in Egypt, We had a mid afternoon flight from Cairo to Luxor, so we just sort of lounged around early on. We grabbed a little breakfast downstairs at the Garden Promenade Cafe. The Eggs Benedict is tasty, even though it is served on a piece of beef ham. We managed to arrange with the same company that gave us a ride to the hotel to find us another van. At the same time we were trying to wrangle a payment for our cruise. The travel agency really wanted us to go someplace to pay, so we were going to send Dave, and have him talk the travel agent into taking him to the airport if he couldn't make it back in time. The travel agent showed up late, right as our van arrived, so we ended up having the travel agent jump in the van with us and ride to the agency to pay. We had to unload a few people on a busy downtown Cairo street, and somehow while getting out someone managed to step on an under seat fire extinguisher. Angie screams out "Oh no, someone just threw something in the van", and I turn around to see what appears to be smoke building in the back, and think for a brief moment that it's a lit fuse, and we're all going to die right there on the street. Needless to say we didn't die, and my heart rate eventually came back down. Our driver and the travel agent had traded numbers so as soon as they made the transaction we were to go back and pick everyone up. Milly and I stayed in the van and drove around the block a bit. We landed in front of a little local eatery, that looked a lot like what we'd recently watched anthony Bourdain eat on his trip to Egypt. Despite having only just finished my hotel breakfast within the hour I was dying to try some local food, and when the driver asked if we wanted to try it, I couldn't help but say yes. What we ended up with was a plastic dish about the size of a bowl of Kool whip full of rotini pasta in a tomato sauce, served witha spicy sauce on the side and some pita chips. It was delicious, and based on the volume of people we saw eating at this little place, it was clearly a local favorite. Milly, the Driver and I waited for what seemed like an eternity, and finally I convinced the driver to just go drive by where we'd dropped off everyone else. We were fortunate to time it just right, and they ran out to meet us and off to the airport we went. We left ourselves a lot of cushion and ended up arriving at the airport pretty early. We sat down for a snack at a coffee shop, and the guys working the counter were suprised to see us eating regular food, and one came right over stirred it up, warmed it up in the microwave and brought it back on a plate with forks for everyone to share. When he first came over we thought for sure he wasn't going to let us eat outside food there, but he mostly just seemed impressed that we were eating non-tourist food. We arrived in luxor, and found a van that seemed like a resonable deal, until we got to the hotel where they had the fare to the hotel posted outside. We paid a robust two dollars more and had to listen to the pushy sales pitch about more transportation and tours the entire way. We checked ourselves in to the Sheraton Luxor, only to find out the renovated parts of the hotel had one bed per room, which doesn't really work for 6 people sharing 2 rooms. So they moved us out to the older bungalow rooms, which turned out to be much bigger, although our air conditioners had to get a quick boost from a repair guy. We started in our room with a little happy hour, and we decided on dinner at the Agra Indian Restaurant in the Hotel Complex. We took a much smaller ordering strategy after ending up with so much food the night before. The food was tasty, and our waiter was actually really great. There's a wall size 3 D Taj Mahal on the wall in the restaurant that's a nice touch. When the check comes the waiter brings 2 boxes and says one is for the ladies and one for the gentlemen and made someone choose. One contained a check, and the other, 4 flowers. At dinner, the Manager at the hotel practically begged us to come to the bar for the belly dance show, so we were happy to oblige. We enjoyed some beverages, and and went back to the room to finish off happy hour. The plan for the next day was to relaxby the pool, and possibly explore Luxor a little.

Is Salaam 'Alaykum Egypt

I feel guilty that I haven't posted since the last trip, but let's face it, that's what you want to read about. Globe hopping makes for a far better read than everyday spreadsheet jockeying. That being said, let me tell you about on enormous adventure to Egypt and Jordan. You should know that getting things done with travel agents in Cairo is difficult, and we struggled mightily to get a Nile cruise set up. Cairo is 9 hours ahead of San Francisco, and things just move at a pace that's hard to be patient with. On the day we left, we at least knew we had a cruise to get on, and the rest of the stuff might just sort itself out as we went. We jumped on a SFO-LHR flight, and managed to score some business class seats, but unfortunately, no window for me. In London, we are working our way through a security check, right in the middle of a shift change. Half of our six person group got through without incident, and three others including me, got told our carry on bags would be too large to carry on. So we get shipped all the way out to check our bags, picking up a UK stamp in the passport for our troubles. Heathrow is notorious for losing bags, so it was with great nervousness that I passed off my bag and hoped for the best. At passport control, the officer says to me "Where you headed today"? "Cairo", I replied. He looks down at my passport, sees where I was born, and without flinching says: "That's a long way from Kansas!" I've been laughing about it ever since. We got a British Midland flight from London to Cairo, and were totally impressed by how good the service was. They nearly wore out the carpet going up and down the aisle with the drink cart. The food was nice for coach too, but sitting in the back of the plane on the aisle means lots of people heading to the lav. bump into you on their way through, making sleep far too difficult. We got to Cairo with no real way to get to the hotel, but a guy who sort of looked like he belonged in the airport (he had some sort of badge, but that means nothing) offered us a ride in a van for what didn't seem like a huge rip after I negotiated down a little. It's a long warm smoggy trip from the airport to the Cairo Marriott, which depending on who's driving can include a claustrophobia inducing tunnel. We arrived at the hotel and got our first taste of the security measures. Your vehicle stops outside gets sniffed by a dog and viewed carefully by someone looking underneath with a mirror. and then they let you in. There's a metal detector at every door, that if you're not Arab or it's daylight, no one seems to care whether you go through it or not. The Marriott is a huge complex that we had time to explore a little, finding where all the bars, restaurants and currency exchange were, and looking for a little something to help settle an uneasy stomach. Dave and I even managed to grab an Egyptian Beer(our first Sakkara of many) at the Irish Pub. Yes, you read that correctly Egyptian beer at an Irish pub, although to be fair, it is a Heineken product. For dinner we settled on the local Cuisine at Egyptian Nights. We started with the Mezze platters, There is a hot, and a cold, and ended up with what would have been enough for dinner on its own. There was Babaganough, Tabbouleh, Kofta, Calamari, Tahine, and the most delicious bread I've ever eaten. It's a flat bread, cooked on site, outside, in an oven that you walk by on the way in the door. It's amazing, and worth paying for a night at the Marriott just for this bread. The main dishes were also tasty, but unfortunately we were so full we couldn't even consider dessert. I did however enjoy my first Turkish coffee, which is a little like rocket fuel served in a demitasse, with a sprinkle of cinnamon and ground cardamom on top. After dinner we took the whole group down to the Irish pub to take part in their week long St Patty's day celebration. It was a nice makeup, since we'd spent all of the holiday on a plane. There was even an imported Irish band. At that point you could easily forget where on earth you were, and we felt a little guilty not experiencing any local culture at all, but we got over it eventually.