Vibrant, Chaotic Cairo

Our 1.5-hour flight to the capital city, Cairo, Egypt departed Amman at 6:50am which necessitated a VERY early wakeup at 2:30am. Our hotel packed us a box breakfast and also arranged a taxi. We sailed to the airport and through the multiple security and check-in steps, boarded and landed right on time. These next three segments … Egypt, Kenya and Tanzania … were arranged by a travel specialist in these countries because of the difficulty of independent travel in these parts of the world. Consequently, this began being handled by a tour company including immigration and customs clearance, transportation, tours and accommodations. That said, at the bottom of the escalator after deplaning, we were met by Ahmed, a nice, well-spoken young man with our tour service, “Your Egypt Tours”. Ahmed had obviously handled this a few times because he whisked us right through all the bureaucracy and we were on our way in no time. Our transportation for the next three days will be in nice, big ten-seat van, and air-conditioned. Our driver is Rafet, a pleasant gentleman with expert driving skills through the complete chaos called streets. Since it’s too early for hotel check-in, Ahmed suggested we stop by his favorite breakfast place for an Egyptian breakfast. This turned out to be a massive spread of mostly unknown dishes, but very, very tasty and way too much food for four people … but we gave it our best shot!

 

Our hotel is the five-star Kempinski Hotel in the Garden district overlooking the Nile River. The United States and the British Embassies are just a few blocks away with all the requisite security in place in our neighborhood. The room is beautiful … small … but well done and a balcony looking out over the Nile. After getting unpacked and organized, we hit the street with two stops: (1) SIMM card for the I-Phone, and (2) wine\beer for happy hours. No problem with finding #1 … there’s a store on every corner and for $20, we’re set for our entire stay in this country. #2 poses a bigger problem. Like Amman, Cairo does not have many places on the street to buy booze, but we find “Drinkee’s” a beer\wine place about the size of a closet in a somewhat seedy area about a mile away. Mission accomplished. The hotel bar is “The Jazz Bar”, a very suave place on the next-to-top floor that was also a cigar bar … with very good ventilation. So, we spent a couple of sunsets there with some beers and an excellent Cuban stogie.

Living the dream!

 

Our Egyptologist guide for the next three days is Mamdouh Ismail, “Mam” for short. He’s a very personable gentleman. Degreed in history and English, he’s a walking encyclopedia of all things Egyptian. We started the day visiting what is probably the most recognized sites in Cairo, if not the whole of Egypt … the Giza Pyramid complex. Here are nine pyramids including the Great Pyramid of Giza, the largest of all in Egypt and built around 2500 B.C. Also here is the Sphinx, the largest statue and mostly covered in sand until last century when excavations began. We did the obligatory camel ride on “Banana” and “Micki” which, in spite of being touristy, was really was a lot of fun and was an incredible photo op.

The Grand Pyramid

Tourists and Mam

The oldest pyramid, Giza

The Sphinx

Walking like an Egyptian 

Lifting a stone on the pyramid 😬

Our camel guide

The next two days were spent seeing some incredible Islamic mosques and Christian churches that represented so much of Egypt’s ancient history. Christianity is the minority religion here, representing only 12 % of the people. Along the way Mam did an excellent job explaining some of the Islamic faith and customs, of which he is obviously is a faithful follower. 

We had coffee and rice pudding at El Fishawy, a 241-year-old coffee shop in the bowels of old Cairo. Our Egypt Tours must have a lot of clout because we were ushered to an old, beautiful private room and got to experience a parade of hawkers come in, one at a time, and try to sell us trinkets, shoe shines and tattoos. Andrea got several bracelets and an ankle tattoo..that should wash off in about two weeks. 

Walking thru the shopping district

Tea time

The tea room 

The tatoo artist

 Hookah shop

The jewelry district 

At the very last mosque we visited, we were astounded to enter a side room and find the gravesite of the Shah of Iran, the last monarch of Iran before that country’s Islamic revolution in the late 1970’s. Seems that he had some Egyptian relatives so the government allowed him to be buried in the country even though many other governments refused.

 

When Mary and Jesus were fleeing from King Harod and tracked thru Egypt , 

they stayed in a cave which is now covered by a church. 

This is where Mary bathed Jesus. 

Stained glass in the church 

Moscaic portraying Mary and Joseph and Jesus

Greek Orthodox Church 

Inside the Mosque

To the right is the pulpit. Directly behind us is the side of the church facing Mecca 

 

We were honored to be invited to dinner at a genuine Egyptian restaurant on the second night by the owner of Your Egypt Tours. Adel was a most interesting young man, a lawyer by education who is passionate about building a boutique, upscale travel service. Great food and conversation!

 

 The last stop on our Cairo tour was the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities. This 100-year-old massive building holds tens of thousands of relics, statues, sarcophagus and mummies. There is a new museum nearing completion so some of the items have already been moved there. The crown jewel of the museum (pardon the pun) was the exhibition of King Tut, the boy-king who ruled around 1,340 B.C. This burial tomb was the only one discovered completely intact and is an amazing collection of gold, jewels, chariots, food and thrones. The theory is that at age 18, he fell off a chariot, broke his leg and an ensuing infection killed him. What also might have killed him is that he married his half-sister at age thirteen. 

 King tuts parents 

Mummy sarcophagus 

A MUMMY, look closely at his hair! 

These are the canopic jars  where they stored the organs of the (mummies), pharaohs, that were buried in the tomb with them. 

 

Statue of the Seated Scribe on 200 Egyptian Pounds

The Central Bank of Egypt issued 200 Egyptian pounds that depict the statue of the Seated scribe in 2007. These notes are still in circulation.
The statue of the seated scribe is a famous work of Egyptian art. The statue is almost 5000 years old. Scribe is a term used to describe a person who creates copies of manuscripts. This structure is made up of limestone in crystalline form. His eyes were inlaid with rock crystal, magnetite, copper-arsenic alloy, and nipples made of wood. In ancient Egypt, it was believed that reading and writing imparted wisdom.  

So, on the night of Wednesday June 29, feeling that we have a learned so much about this vibrant city’s past, we are waiting on an overnight sleeper train to take us to southern Egypt to begin our tour of the “Valley of the Kings”, where most of Egypt’s great Pharaohs lived and ruled.

Getting ready to board the overnight train 

Dinner on the train… 🤮.. details in the next blog!