Tale of the Trip - Part 2
Part 1 is here.
Day 5 - Paris, France to Cairo, Egypt
We headed to Charles de Gaulle Airport very early Thursday morning from our hotel. The taxi ride used up nearly all the rest of our Euros from what was a pretty expensive 4 day stay in Paris. Where we were heading next, though, our dollars would go a bit farther.
We arrived for our connecting flight in Milan and waited in line for over an hour as the Now Boarding ("Imbarco") sign kept flashing. A group of American tourists in front of us, who looked like they could have been going to Key West, were chatting up some native Egyptians in line in front of them. Everyone's patience eventually wore thin, and people just sat down as the Alitalia agents continued to keep any information about why we weren't boarding highly classified.
Eventually, we were allowed to board the bus to the tarmac. I couldn't wait to finally get there. This was my first trip to the Middle East and it was Dana's first trip anywhere outside of the first world. I sent a text message to Mourad that we'd be a little late and he replied back. Everything was set for our arrival.
We landed in Cairo at around 4:30, the view from the plane was beige with endless apartment buildings in clusters. As we grabbed our bags and left the plane, I was ready for whatever culture shock would await. As we walked through the airport from the exit, I noticed a store where you could buy major appliances, like washer/dryers. I asked Dana if she wanted to buy one. She declined.
The next task was to get the tourist visa. A series of windows immediately before the customs check allows you to buy the $15 tourist visa that you need to get through passport control. I forked over $30 and we quickly got our passports stamped. Immediately upon entering the baggage claim area, a man in a suit came up to me and asked me which flight we were on. I told him and he sent me to the correct carousel. Then he asked me if we had a place to stay in Cairo, and I politely told him that we were staying with a friend. Despite that, he continued to talk to me as if I'd said "No, we came here with absolutely no lodging plans at all." I repeated to him that we have a place to stay and he headed back towards passport control. How people like this get into the secure parts of the airport would be one of the many mysteries of this city.
We got our bags and headed into the mob of people waiting to greet passengers. A hand waved towards the back. It was Mourad. He grabbed Dana's bag and we headed straight for the duty free shop. Even though I'd cleared customs, I was still permitted to buy duty free items. This was a bonus for Mourad because the airport is one of the few places where you can get non-Egyptian liquors. The cashier held my passport and a cigarette in one hand as he rang up the transaction with the other.
Because of some construction, we had to take a short shuttle trip to the general parking. The shuttle was completely packed. Pressed up against my suitcase at the front of the bus, we sat watching as a police officer wouldn't let a car through a gate. The driver argued with the officer, by now holding up well over a dozen cars, including the shuttle. I turned to Mourad and noted that an American wouldn't even think that he could win an argument like that, but in Cairo, rules aren't quite as hard and as fast as they are in the U.S. It's sometimes worth your while to find out exactly how hard a rule is. The man eventually lost the argument, turned his car around and drove the other way. The shuttle dropped us off at our destination.
The drive from the airport was the visual feast I expected it to be. We drove first past a military stadium, with several large posters of President Mubarak, and then into the Cairo metropolis, with row after row of apartment buildings with the occasional mosque or Coptic church. Surprisingly, there's a much greater presence of American chains and brands than in Paris. There were billboards everywhere for Coke and Pepsi, McDonald's, Pizza Hut, and I even spotted some Yellow Stars (no, not those Yellow Stars, but these ones). They still have Little Caesar's and they even have Papa John's now.
We arrived at our destination in Mohandiseen, a section of Cairo just west of Zemalak, the main area where ex-Pats and other non-Egyptians live. Mourad's parents keep an apartment there even though they live in Alexandria. The parking situation outside the building is controlled chaos. There's a circle of pull-in spaces surrounded by another ring of cars that block the pulled-in cars. If someone needs to get in or out, several "parkers" are always on-hand to push the cars in the outer ring (they leave the car in neutral) so that the person can get out. Their efforts garner a small tip from the drivers. We got a spot and settled into to our new home for the next four days.
Despite the very plain look of the buildings in Cairo, we often found that this was a misleading indication of the interiors. The entrance to the apartment in Mohandiseen was very plain, like the lobby of a banking office, but the inside of the apartment was extremely nice and made us feel at home. After the very cramped accomodations in Paris (the bathroom there was so small, our knees touched the door if we sat on the toilet), we had all kinds of room.
Dana took a nap while I hung out with Mourad and caught up on things (we had worked together at Microsoft for several years before he moved back to Egypt). The view from the apartment was of the local Coptic church and an alleyway of other apartments and businesses. To the right was some kind of EU office, and I remarked that I'd now seen more EU flags in the 3 hours I was in Cairo than I'd seen in all 4 days that I was in Paris. His cousin then stopped by. She has an interesting job working for an agency that tries to enforce environmental regulations. It's a challenge (the whole rules thing again), but she finds the job pretty rewarding. A magazine on the coffee table had a huge article on the mysterious black cloud of pollution that blankets Cairo every fall.
Nightlife in Cairo doesn't start until late, but at around 21:30, we headed out to get there early and grab a table. Mourad was expecting a lot of people to come out. Friday is the weekend there, so Thursday night is a busy night at the clubs. Many places allow you to bring your own liquor, so we brought one of the bottles from the duty free shop and headed out. The place we were heading to was right along the Nile in the Zemalak neighborhood. It was a giant white tent/pavillion with numerous areas for people to congregate. Waiters dressed all in white poured drinks, brought out food, and set up houkahs for people to enjoy a number of different kinds of flavored tobaccos. I sampled the apple flavored tobacco while I drank a Whiskey and Pepsi and ate some strange finger foods. A video screen in the distance showed music videos, mostly American stuff.
After an hour or so, others began to show up. I knew of one other person who'd moved back and would be there, Sam, but it turned out that there were a few others I didn't know would be around. Shimi, a guy who I'd once played soccer with at the Redmond ArenaSports showed up, along with another couple I'd met in Capital Hill at Mourad's farewell outing who'd also just moved there; Karim and Suzette. As we were all meeting each other, Dana starting talking about these two Egyptian blogs that she had seen linked from Mourad's and we realized that their authors were sitting next to us. It's a small world, and we were thoroughly enjoying a new part of it.
Day 6 - Cairo, Egypt
After our very long first day, we slept in a bit the next morning. A few friends wanted to come along to the Pyramids with us, so they waited for us at the local coffeeshop, Cilantro, as we got our asses out of bed at around 11. We grabbed a quick lunch there and piled into two cars on our way to Egypt's most famous landmarks.
The Pyramids in Giza are actually visible from the part of the city where a lot of the new high tech work is being done. It's an area called Smart Village, and several of the former Microsoft folks who moved back are working there now. Since we were running late, we just did a drive by of those facilities before heading over to see the cutting edge technology from a few millenia past.
Just like everything else in Cairo, parking at the Pyramids is chaos. The rules about who can park where aren't entirely clear and it took us a while to just get to a parking lot and head over to the stuff we actually came to see. As in the airport, there are guys around everywhere asking to be your tour guide. They're like flies on a dead squirrel. I was content to ignore them all, but Mourad would occasionally speak to them in Arabic and they'd follow us around for a bit. We took some pictures, climbed up the side of one of the pyramids and were just enjoying the awe of being in a place like this that you never really expect to visit.
Next to the two larger pyramids, there was a small building that served as a tomb for the workers who died. We got a very funny tour from the local guide there. He was one of several people there who assured me that everyone still likes Americans there, although he was the only one who wasn't trying to sell me anything.
Next, we were around the back of the largest pyramid when a man riding a camel with his young son came up to us. He called out "Hi, ho, Silver" and asked if we were from Georgia. Mourad had no goddamn clue what "Hi, ho, Silver" meant, and I had no idea what made him guess Georgia, although maybe that's where the last tourists he talked to were from. Anyway, he descended from the camel and offered for us to have our picture taken on it. He put his towel around my head and helped me get onto the saddle (the camel was lying down on its legs at this point). He then motioned for Dana to join me. She reluctantly got on the back as the others readied the cameras. Then, without any indication, the camel stood up and Dana was holding on to me for dear life as I held on to the saddle. The camel didn't move much, but it was enough to make it feel like we might fall off. We asked the guy to make his camel sit down again, which he did. However, when camels sit down, they lean forward first, causing me to fall forward against the front of the saddle, causing severe pain in my groin area. I got off the camel and walked it off as the man came over to me to retrieve the towel that I forgot was still on my head. A few minutes later, I felt better, but was pretty sure I was going to ignore the amateur tour guides for the rest of the trip.
The most terrifying 30 seconds of the vacation
The crew at the Pyramids (from left: Mourad, Dana, Nelly, myself, (not sure how to spell her name - Mourad help me out here...), and Sam)
Following the camel adventure, we still had more to see. We toured the Sun Boat museum, which showcased an ancient vessel discovered in 1954 near the Pyramids, and we walked down towards the Sphinx. As we were on the pathway alongside the Sphinx, though, it started raining. It rains about 5 times a year in Cairo, and it happened the day we were visiting from Seattle. Nice.
On our way back, we stopped at a nice outdoor restaurant in Giza, our first real authentic Egyptian meal. The fava beans and onions were delicious along with the falafel and the kabobs. As we waited for the check, Nelly taught us how to read the numbers there. The Arabic alphabet would remain beyond our grasp.
We didn't have enough time to visit the Egyptian Museum that day, but we instead walked around the American University in Cairo, where a pre-graduation party was raging. Mourad was surprised by the amount of hijabs worn by the students at his alma mater. Even though Egypt has had increasing amounts of religious fundamentalism, the growing number of people wearing them has been more about fashion than anything else. We took a couple of pictures of some stray cats to remind our Fancy Feast-devouring-beasts how good they have it and headed back to Mohandiseen. We were wiped out from our near death camel ride and just stayed in that evening.
Day 7 - Cairo, Egypt
Because we didn't have time to do the Egyptian Museum after the Pyramids, that was our first stop Saturday morning. I gave Mourad instructions to tell any freelance tour guides to fuck off, as we wanted to just check out the museum at our own pace. The museum is a treasure for anyone with a strong interest in archaeology and ancient cultures. They have so much stuff there, some of it is just thrown into displays with all the other things that it looks like. Most of the stuff is labeled in Arabic and English, some stuff only in Arabic, or Arabic and French, and some stuff isn't labeled at all. But the museum is divided up into the various dynasties of the ancient Egyptian past and is easy to make your way through and see everything.
We started by walking past the incredibly old stuff from over 5000 years ago and made our way through to the relatively newer stuff. The mummies were particularly interesting, as you could see the actual mummified remains of the ancient rulers of the area. The museum was filled with a variety of different groups: Italian, Japanese, and French tourists, Egyptian students who looked like they had some kind of drawing assignment. In one of the mummy rooms, a man wearing non-Egyptian attire whose wife was in a full burqa started speaking to me in Arabic. I shrugged my shoulders and shook my head. Mourad guessed they were from Saudi Arabia.
After the museum, we made our way over to the Nile Hilton, one of the first western hotels to open in the city. We sat around for a late afternoon lunch, sipping some Sakara and enjoying some cherry-flavored tobacco in a houkah. I noticed that none of the other westerners dining at the hotel had opted for the houkah. They were missing out. After the meal, we did another walkabout around downtown Cairo.
By this time, I was starting to feel like I could wander this city alone. The combination of the language barrier and the panhandling can make the city feel very intimidating when you first get there, but after a day, I was feeling much more comfortable. We got pulled into a perfume shop (even though my co-worker had warned me about such a scenario). Like everyone else who had something to sell us, the man was very nice and made a number of claims with questionable veracity. After putting about 3 or 4 different types of perfumes on Dana's wrists, my desire to sign his guestbook was outweighed by her growing annoyance. Mourad led us out of there and we made our way back to the apartment.
That evening, it was karaoke night, probably the most fun we had during the entire trip. Mourad is a karaoke fool (he also used to sing and play guitar at amateur night at a certain bar in Seattle), and so are his friends. Mourad kicked things off with Imagine by John Lennon, causing the portly DJ running the show (who apparently used to be on Egyptian TV) to join him with some strangely improvised lyrics. Some other groups were around, getting in on the fun. A table of Algerians, two tables of French speakers and a table of various westerners (one guy I talked to was from Toronto) alternated turns with the microphone. Mourad and his buddy Amir sang a little Elvis. I got up and sang some Men at Work, and by the end of the night, everyone in the bar was trying to sing along with the French songs. Good times.
Day 8 - Cairo, Egypt
For the final full day in Cairo, we would be without Mourad as our tour guide. He had some work to do, so he reserved a tour guide to take us to visit Old Cairo and the Khan el-Khalili bazaar. The van came by to pick us up at 11 and the tour guide met us outside the apartment. She was about our age, maybe a little older, and her name was Eman. We stopped by Cilantro for a quick feed and some coffee and then headed south.
The amount of history in this part of Cairo is almost too much to digest in one afternoon. An ancient Jewish synagogue, some of the oldest churches in the world, a crypt where supposedly Mary and a young Jesus stayed in hiding, all within a very small area with narrow alleyways and brick walls everywhere. The hanging church, an old place of worship that was suspended above the old Roman fortress in the area, was particularly interesting, as you could see through the glass panes in the church floor to see how high up above the ground the church had been built. As we entered the ancient mosque in the area, it occurred to me that I'd never actually been in a mosque before. Unlike some of the other old places of worship, this one was still in use, and as we were heading out the door, a group of mourners were bringing in a casket.
The bazaar was next, and we intended to use this time to pick up some souvenirs to bring home. I had about 200 Egyptian Pounds left (about $37), and I wasn't expecting to get much more than a T-shirt and maybe some figurines. Dana had her eyes set on some more stuff though. We walked into a store with a bunch of hanging lamps. The store owner showed us a number of his wares. Dana pointed to something she thought was nice and he spent like 5 minutes trying to get it down. The price was way too freaking high. He wanted 430 pounds, I offered him 150. He went down to like 380 and I was ready to walk out of there. Not realizing that Dana was fine with just walking out of there anyway, I got him down to 220, but I was still 15 pounds short. He led me across the bazaar to an ATM and the transaction was finished. The lamp made it back to Seattle in one piece.
With the extra cash I got out of the ATM, we picked up a few more souvenirs and headed back to the apartment. Being a tourist there can be fun, but it's also tiring. It was our last night there, so we rested up, ordered some McDonald's (they deliver there), and packed up our stuff.
The final night was spent at a local jazz bar, where a well-known Egyptian drummer who once played with Dizzy Gillespie was joined by a very talented French saxophonist and two other guys. Whether I was just worn out from the trip or just had a stronger whiskey and Pepsi before we took off, I got pretty hammered. The couple that we'd first met in Capitol Hill, Karim and Suzette, had come out and we talked to them for a while. Nelly and Shimi showed up as well and it wound up being a very fun final night in Cairo for us.
Day 9 and 10 - The return home
Even though we were repeatedly told that we didn't set aside enough time for Cairo, we were ready to head back by Monday morning. The ride to the airport was pretty contemplative for me. On the way in on Thursday, one thing that really struck me was seeing two guys just sitting on the side of the highway fixing the wiring for a light post. There were no cones around them, no truck that I could see, no uniforms; just two dudes on the side of the road messing around with wires. There were far fewer rules in this city and the ensuing chaos was most evident in the traffic. Pedestrians walked were they wanted, drivers drove where they wanted, and everyone just seemed to get around. Mourad says that there are more accidents there than anywhere else, and I've been trying to find statistics to back that up, but I haven't been able to.
It's the complete opposite of Seattle, where lane changes are looked upon with disdain and pedestrians are sometimes written up for jaywalking. I have a strong animosity towards Seattle's tendency to over-regulate the traffic, which is why I ride the bus everywhere now. I really wanted to get behind the wheel in Cairo as it was more in tune with how I like to drive, although I wouldn't have expected Mourad to let me drive his new BMW. I wonder if the other extreme would eventually annoy me as much. Mourad mentioned that the traffic jams in Seattle were more annoying to him because there was never a sense of urgency from the other drivers.
We had some time before we had to be at the airport, so we stopped in the suburb of Heliopolis at one of the new Starbucks locations in the country. While we were looking at the Egypt coffee mugs for sale, an employee came over to talk to us. We said we were from Seattle, and he didn't seem to know where that was. I told him that I walk past the first Starbucks on my way to catch the bus home every day, but I don't think his English was good enough to pick that up.
We made it back to Paris on time that evening, staying at the Holiday Inn by the airport. The following day, we flew back to Seattle via Philadelphia and Las Vegas, a small setback for two frequent-flyer tickets to Paris that only cost me about $130. We finally got in a little after midnight on Tuesday where the only thing we'd have to deal with were two angry cats.
Day 5 - Paris, France to Cairo, Egypt
We headed to Charles de Gaulle Airport very early Thursday morning from our hotel. The taxi ride used up nearly all the rest of our Euros from what was a pretty expensive 4 day stay in Paris. Where we were heading next, though, our dollars would go a bit farther.
We arrived for our connecting flight in Milan and waited in line for over an hour as the Now Boarding ("Imbarco") sign kept flashing. A group of American tourists in front of us, who looked like they could have been going to Key West, were chatting up some native Egyptians in line in front of them. Everyone's patience eventually wore thin, and people just sat down as the Alitalia agents continued to keep any information about why we weren't boarding highly classified.
Eventually, we were allowed to board the bus to the tarmac. I couldn't wait to finally get there. This was my first trip to the Middle East and it was Dana's first trip anywhere outside of the first world. I sent a text message to Mourad that we'd be a little late and he replied back. Everything was set for our arrival.
We landed in Cairo at around 4:30, the view from the plane was beige with endless apartment buildings in clusters. As we grabbed our bags and left the plane, I was ready for whatever culture shock would await. As we walked through the airport from the exit, I noticed a store where you could buy major appliances, like washer/dryers. I asked Dana if she wanted to buy one. She declined.
The next task was to get the tourist visa. A series of windows immediately before the customs check allows you to buy the $15 tourist visa that you need to get through passport control. I forked over $30 and we quickly got our passports stamped. Immediately upon entering the baggage claim area, a man in a suit came up to me and asked me which flight we were on. I told him and he sent me to the correct carousel. Then he asked me if we had a place to stay in Cairo, and I politely told him that we were staying with a friend. Despite that, he continued to talk to me as if I'd said "No, we came here with absolutely no lodging plans at all." I repeated to him that we have a place to stay and he headed back towards passport control. How people like this get into the secure parts of the airport would be one of the many mysteries of this city.
We got our bags and headed into the mob of people waiting to greet passengers. A hand waved towards the back. It was Mourad. He grabbed Dana's bag and we headed straight for the duty free shop. Even though I'd cleared customs, I was still permitted to buy duty free items. This was a bonus for Mourad because the airport is one of the few places where you can get non-Egyptian liquors. The cashier held my passport and a cigarette in one hand as he rang up the transaction with the other.
Because of some construction, we had to take a short shuttle trip to the general parking. The shuttle was completely packed. Pressed up against my suitcase at the front of the bus, we sat watching as a police officer wouldn't let a car through a gate. The driver argued with the officer, by now holding up well over a dozen cars, including the shuttle. I turned to Mourad and noted that an American wouldn't even think that he could win an argument like that, but in Cairo, rules aren't quite as hard and as fast as they are in the U.S. It's sometimes worth your while to find out exactly how hard a rule is. The man eventually lost the argument, turned his car around and drove the other way. The shuttle dropped us off at our destination.
The drive from the airport was the visual feast I expected it to be. We drove first past a military stadium, with several large posters of President Mubarak, and then into the Cairo metropolis, with row after row of apartment buildings with the occasional mosque or Coptic church. Surprisingly, there's a much greater presence of American chains and brands than in Paris. There were billboards everywhere for Coke and Pepsi, McDonald's, Pizza Hut, and I even spotted some Yellow Stars (no, not those Yellow Stars, but these ones). They still have Little Caesar's and they even have Papa John's now.
We arrived at our destination in Mohandiseen, a section of Cairo just west of Zemalak, the main area where ex-Pats and other non-Egyptians live. Mourad's parents keep an apartment there even though they live in Alexandria. The parking situation outside the building is controlled chaos. There's a circle of pull-in spaces surrounded by another ring of cars that block the pulled-in cars. If someone needs to get in or out, several "parkers" are always on-hand to push the cars in the outer ring (they leave the car in neutral) so that the person can get out. Their efforts garner a small tip from the drivers. We got a spot and settled into to our new home for the next four days.
Despite the very plain look of the buildings in Cairo, we often found that this was a misleading indication of the interiors. The entrance to the apartment in Mohandiseen was very plain, like the lobby of a banking office, but the inside of the apartment was extremely nice and made us feel at home. After the very cramped accomodations in Paris (the bathroom there was so small, our knees touched the door if we sat on the toilet), we had all kinds of room.
Dana took a nap while I hung out with Mourad and caught up on things (we had worked together at Microsoft for several years before he moved back to Egypt). The view from the apartment was of the local Coptic church and an alleyway of other apartments and businesses. To the right was some kind of EU office, and I remarked that I'd now seen more EU flags in the 3 hours I was in Cairo than I'd seen in all 4 days that I was in Paris. His cousin then stopped by. She has an interesting job working for an agency that tries to enforce environmental regulations. It's a challenge (the whole rules thing again), but she finds the job pretty rewarding. A magazine on the coffee table had a huge article on the mysterious black cloud of pollution that blankets Cairo every fall.
Nightlife in Cairo doesn't start until late, but at around 21:30, we headed out to get there early and grab a table. Mourad was expecting a lot of people to come out. Friday is the weekend there, so Thursday night is a busy night at the clubs. Many places allow you to bring your own liquor, so we brought one of the bottles from the duty free shop and headed out. The place we were heading to was right along the Nile in the Zemalak neighborhood. It was a giant white tent/pavillion with numerous areas for people to congregate. Waiters dressed all in white poured drinks, brought out food, and set up houkahs for people to enjoy a number of different kinds of flavored tobaccos. I sampled the apple flavored tobacco while I drank a Whiskey and Pepsi and ate some strange finger foods. A video screen in the distance showed music videos, mostly American stuff.
After an hour or so, others began to show up. I knew of one other person who'd moved back and would be there, Sam, but it turned out that there were a few others I didn't know would be around. Shimi, a guy who I'd once played soccer with at the Redmond ArenaSports showed up, along with another couple I'd met in Capital Hill at Mourad's farewell outing who'd also just moved there; Karim and Suzette. As we were all meeting each other, Dana starting talking about these two Egyptian blogs that she had seen linked from Mourad's and we realized that their authors were sitting next to us. It's a small world, and we were thoroughly enjoying a new part of it.
Day 6 - Cairo, Egypt
After our very long first day, we slept in a bit the next morning. A few friends wanted to come along to the Pyramids with us, so they waited for us at the local coffeeshop, Cilantro, as we got our asses out of bed at around 11. We grabbed a quick lunch there and piled into two cars on our way to Egypt's most famous landmarks.
The Pyramids in Giza are actually visible from the part of the city where a lot of the new high tech work is being done. It's an area called Smart Village, and several of the former Microsoft folks who moved back are working there now. Since we were running late, we just did a drive by of those facilities before heading over to see the cutting edge technology from a few millenia past.
Just like everything else in Cairo, parking at the Pyramids is chaos. The rules about who can park where aren't entirely clear and it took us a while to just get to a parking lot and head over to the stuff we actually came to see. As in the airport, there are guys around everywhere asking to be your tour guide. They're like flies on a dead squirrel. I was content to ignore them all, but Mourad would occasionally speak to them in Arabic and they'd follow us around for a bit. We took some pictures, climbed up the side of one of the pyramids and were just enjoying the awe of being in a place like this that you never really expect to visit.
Next to the two larger pyramids, there was a small building that served as a tomb for the workers who died. We got a very funny tour from the local guide there. He was one of several people there who assured me that everyone still likes Americans there, although he was the only one who wasn't trying to sell me anything.
Next, we were around the back of the largest pyramid when a man riding a camel with his young son came up to us. He called out "Hi, ho, Silver" and asked if we were from Georgia. Mourad had no goddamn clue what "Hi, ho, Silver" meant, and I had no idea what made him guess Georgia, although maybe that's where the last tourists he talked to were from. Anyway, he descended from the camel and offered for us to have our picture taken on it. He put his towel around my head and helped me get onto the saddle (the camel was lying down on its legs at this point). He then motioned for Dana to join me. She reluctantly got on the back as the others readied the cameras. Then, without any indication, the camel stood up and Dana was holding on to me for dear life as I held on to the saddle. The camel didn't move much, but it was enough to make it feel like we might fall off. We asked the guy to make his camel sit down again, which he did. However, when camels sit down, they lean forward first, causing me to fall forward against the front of the saddle, causing severe pain in my groin area. I got off the camel and walked it off as the man came over to me to retrieve the towel that I forgot was still on my head. A few minutes later, I felt better, but was pretty sure I was going to ignore the amateur tour guides for the rest of the trip.
The most terrifying 30 seconds of the vacation
The crew at the Pyramids (from left: Mourad, Dana, Nelly, myself, (not sure how to spell her name - Mourad help me out here...), and Sam)
Following the camel adventure, we still had more to see. We toured the Sun Boat museum, which showcased an ancient vessel discovered in 1954 near the Pyramids, and we walked down towards the Sphinx. As we were on the pathway alongside the Sphinx, though, it started raining. It rains about 5 times a year in Cairo, and it happened the day we were visiting from Seattle. Nice.
On our way back, we stopped at a nice outdoor restaurant in Giza, our first real authentic Egyptian meal. The fava beans and onions were delicious along with the falafel and the kabobs. As we waited for the check, Nelly taught us how to read the numbers there. The Arabic alphabet would remain beyond our grasp.
We didn't have enough time to visit the Egyptian Museum that day, but we instead walked around the American University in Cairo, where a pre-graduation party was raging. Mourad was surprised by the amount of hijabs worn by the students at his alma mater. Even though Egypt has had increasing amounts of religious fundamentalism, the growing number of people wearing them has been more about fashion than anything else. We took a couple of pictures of some stray cats to remind our Fancy Feast-devouring-beasts how good they have it and headed back to Mohandiseen. We were wiped out from our near death camel ride and just stayed in that evening.
Day 7 - Cairo, Egypt
Because we didn't have time to do the Egyptian Museum after the Pyramids, that was our first stop Saturday morning. I gave Mourad instructions to tell any freelance tour guides to fuck off, as we wanted to just check out the museum at our own pace. The museum is a treasure for anyone with a strong interest in archaeology and ancient cultures. They have so much stuff there, some of it is just thrown into displays with all the other things that it looks like. Most of the stuff is labeled in Arabic and English, some stuff only in Arabic, or Arabic and French, and some stuff isn't labeled at all. But the museum is divided up into the various dynasties of the ancient Egyptian past and is easy to make your way through and see everything.
We started by walking past the incredibly old stuff from over 5000 years ago and made our way through to the relatively newer stuff. The mummies were particularly interesting, as you could see the actual mummified remains of the ancient rulers of the area. The museum was filled with a variety of different groups: Italian, Japanese, and French tourists, Egyptian students who looked like they had some kind of drawing assignment. In one of the mummy rooms, a man wearing non-Egyptian attire whose wife was in a full burqa started speaking to me in Arabic. I shrugged my shoulders and shook my head. Mourad guessed they were from Saudi Arabia.
After the museum, we made our way over to the Nile Hilton, one of the first western hotels to open in the city. We sat around for a late afternoon lunch, sipping some Sakara and enjoying some cherry-flavored tobacco in a houkah. I noticed that none of the other westerners dining at the hotel had opted for the houkah. They were missing out. After the meal, we did another walkabout around downtown Cairo.
By this time, I was starting to feel like I could wander this city alone. The combination of the language barrier and the panhandling can make the city feel very intimidating when you first get there, but after a day, I was feeling much more comfortable. We got pulled into a perfume shop (even though my co-worker had warned me about such a scenario). Like everyone else who had something to sell us, the man was very nice and made a number of claims with questionable veracity. After putting about 3 or 4 different types of perfumes on Dana's wrists, my desire to sign his guestbook was outweighed by her growing annoyance. Mourad led us out of there and we made our way back to the apartment.
That evening, it was karaoke night, probably the most fun we had during the entire trip. Mourad is a karaoke fool (he also used to sing and play guitar at amateur night at a certain bar in Seattle), and so are his friends. Mourad kicked things off with Imagine by John Lennon, causing the portly DJ running the show (who apparently used to be on Egyptian TV) to join him with some strangely improvised lyrics. Some other groups were around, getting in on the fun. A table of Algerians, two tables of French speakers and a table of various westerners (one guy I talked to was from Toronto) alternated turns with the microphone. Mourad and his buddy Amir sang a little Elvis. I got up and sang some Men at Work, and by the end of the night, everyone in the bar was trying to sing along with the French songs. Good times.
Day 8 - Cairo, Egypt
For the final full day in Cairo, we would be without Mourad as our tour guide. He had some work to do, so he reserved a tour guide to take us to visit Old Cairo and the Khan el-Khalili bazaar. The van came by to pick us up at 11 and the tour guide met us outside the apartment. She was about our age, maybe a little older, and her name was Eman. We stopped by Cilantro for a quick feed and some coffee and then headed south.
The amount of history in this part of Cairo is almost too much to digest in one afternoon. An ancient Jewish synagogue, some of the oldest churches in the world, a crypt where supposedly Mary and a young Jesus stayed in hiding, all within a very small area with narrow alleyways and brick walls everywhere. The hanging church, an old place of worship that was suspended above the old Roman fortress in the area, was particularly interesting, as you could see through the glass panes in the church floor to see how high up above the ground the church had been built. As we entered the ancient mosque in the area, it occurred to me that I'd never actually been in a mosque before. Unlike some of the other old places of worship, this one was still in use, and as we were heading out the door, a group of mourners were bringing in a casket.
The bazaar was next, and we intended to use this time to pick up some souvenirs to bring home. I had about 200 Egyptian Pounds left (about $37), and I wasn't expecting to get much more than a T-shirt and maybe some figurines. Dana had her eyes set on some more stuff though. We walked into a store with a bunch of hanging lamps. The store owner showed us a number of his wares. Dana pointed to something she thought was nice and he spent like 5 minutes trying to get it down. The price was way too freaking high. He wanted 430 pounds, I offered him 150. He went down to like 380 and I was ready to walk out of there. Not realizing that Dana was fine with just walking out of there anyway, I got him down to 220, but I was still 15 pounds short. He led me across the bazaar to an ATM and the transaction was finished. The lamp made it back to Seattle in one piece.
With the extra cash I got out of the ATM, we picked up a few more souvenirs and headed back to the apartment. Being a tourist there can be fun, but it's also tiring. It was our last night there, so we rested up, ordered some McDonald's (they deliver there), and packed up our stuff.
The final night was spent at a local jazz bar, where a well-known Egyptian drummer who once played with Dizzy Gillespie was joined by a very talented French saxophonist and two other guys. Whether I was just worn out from the trip or just had a stronger whiskey and Pepsi before we took off, I got pretty hammered. The couple that we'd first met in Capitol Hill, Karim and Suzette, had come out and we talked to them for a while. Nelly and Shimi showed up as well and it wound up being a very fun final night in Cairo for us.
Day 9 and 10 - The return home
Even though we were repeatedly told that we didn't set aside enough time for Cairo, we were ready to head back by Monday morning. The ride to the airport was pretty contemplative for me. On the way in on Thursday, one thing that really struck me was seeing two guys just sitting on the side of the highway fixing the wiring for a light post. There were no cones around them, no truck that I could see, no uniforms; just two dudes on the side of the road messing around with wires. There were far fewer rules in this city and the ensuing chaos was most evident in the traffic. Pedestrians walked were they wanted, drivers drove where they wanted, and everyone just seemed to get around. Mourad says that there are more accidents there than anywhere else, and I've been trying to find statistics to back that up, but I haven't been able to.
It's the complete opposite of Seattle, where lane changes are looked upon with disdain and pedestrians are sometimes written up for jaywalking. I have a strong animosity towards Seattle's tendency to over-regulate the traffic, which is why I ride the bus everywhere now. I really wanted to get behind the wheel in Cairo as it was more in tune with how I like to drive, although I wouldn't have expected Mourad to let me drive his new BMW. I wonder if the other extreme would eventually annoy me as much. Mourad mentioned that the traffic jams in Seattle were more annoying to him because there was never a sense of urgency from the other drivers.
We had some time before we had to be at the airport, so we stopped in the suburb of Heliopolis at one of the new Starbucks locations in the country. While we were looking at the Egypt coffee mugs for sale, an employee came over to talk to us. We said we were from Seattle, and he didn't seem to know where that was. I told him that I walk past the first Starbucks on my way to catch the bus home every day, but I don't think his English was good enough to pick that up.
We made it back to Paris on time that evening, staying at the Holiday Inn by the airport. The following day, we flew back to Seattle via Philadelphia and Las Vegas, a small setback for two frequent-flyer tickets to Paris that only cost me about $130. We finally got in a little after midnight on Tuesday where the only thing we'd have to deal with were two angry cats.
posted by thehim at 3:58 PM
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