Our first steps on Egyptian soil gave the less traveled Greyson clan a taste of the beautiful, and often extremely hectic weeks to follow. After collecting our bags, and withdrawing Egyptian currency from the ATM, we found our driver holding a big sign saying RICHARD GREYSON, Horus Hotel. The taxi quickly whisked us away packed like sardines into Cairo and to our humble abode for the next few days to come. We checked in to our friendly hotel, modest in amenities, but perfect for our needs.
It had the feeling that the rest of Cairo gave me--a little wilted--as though its glory days were long over. After a slightly worried Mother and Father Greyson, checked their e-mail concerned about Aaron and Kate's whereabouts (who it turns out missed their flight due to a protest at the Athens, Greece Airport), we all quickly settled into the Horus with a warm bowl of Egyptian lentil soup, tea, and chicken kabob. This soup came to be the king of all lentil soups, which we compared all other lentil soups to come (none of which where ever as tasty). As we finished up our meal, Aaron and Kate walked in. Our Mom of course ordered more food, and we all caught up on life and travels and began to plan the rest of our days together...in Egypt. The next day we woke up early, met for breakfast for instant Nescafe coffee, yogurt, toast, croissants, and plenty of hard boiled eggs, cucumber, tomatoes and salty cheese to go around. After consumption was completed, and we discovered the lair of hungry lions aka taxi drivers outside our hotel. We found ourselves a very friendly, and good-natured cab driver named Abdullah who took us to the Egyptian Museum.
The Egyptian Museum is no walk in the park. It is a very large enclosed mess of expensive artifacts, relics, and art. In fact, it is somewhat of a microcosm of Cairo itself—dusty, unorganized, and stressful. However, we made it out alive, and only slightly cranky. The exhibits that stood out most were the exquisite jewelry exhibition, and the jewels and artifacts of King Tutenkamen. These two displays were truly fascinating, and profoundly beautiful. After feeling overwhelmed, we then found our way to a Koshari dinner
at Koshary el Tahrir(if I can remember correctly), which is also known as the poor man’s food/carbo load meal of a lifetime. It consists of lentils, several types of pasta, spicy tomato sauces, and fried onions. Needless to say, we loved it. AARON'S EDIT: Our second day actually was a little different than Laurel remembers. We started off with a taxi out to the Al-Azhar mosque,
where we got the tour from a guide who forced himself on us, then demanded that we tip him better than we had. Still, the mosque was fairly interesting and we were encouraged to take pictures of the burial chamber of the builder, which is a bit of a departure from normal procedure and, as all but the least astute can tell, made everyone (except for the heathen Kate) a bit uncomfortable...Next, we wandered around looking for the "real" market nearby, getting led around by "friendly locals" who wanted to show us where to get the bargains. They led us through filthy back alleys lined with closed shops to the couple of places that were open where they, of course, wouldn't receive any commission. They did make one sale,
however, as my mom bought a couple beautiful camel and mother of pearl inlaid boxes which, while not dirt cheap, were, admittedly, beautiful. We did eventually make it over to the actual tourist market which, while more touristy, was much more interesting. Let's pick back up with Laurel's narrative now for her account of the Khan al-Kahlili bazaar...The bazaar is a maze of madness, full of shouting people, harassing you in every direction. Yelling, offering their goods, pleading, begging for visitors to buy, buy, buy. And buy, we did. We bought all sorts of things, and spent way too much money.
But the sights, chaos, and smells of the whole experience were well worth the depletion of funds. We relaxed from time to time over cups of Egyptian tea at Fishawi's, hummus, pita and mango juice. We people watched on benches, and rested our weary legs from a long day of shopping at busy cafes. To treat ourselves at the end of the day, we ate a delicious North African meal including an assortment of dishes to share, and lots of hibiscus tea. After all the food was licked clean from our plates, we headed off to the
Whirling Dervishes, for a riveting show at the El Ghory of swirling men in colorful dress-like costumes and lots of beautiful music. Our [third] day in Cairo began bright and early with a friendly face — our loyal taxi driver — Abullah. Abdullah greeted us with a warm smile after breakfast and once again took us to our destination for the day — the Sphinx and Giza and Saqqarah pyramids. We got dropped off near the entrance of the pyramids and were approached by “Official Ministry of Tourism” guides/trip organizers. We can now all look back on this title, and scoff a bit at this scam. One of many scams to come…
Anyways, we rented our camels, climbed on top of their humped backs, and started our grand journey through the desert to Giza only to stop for occasional photo ops, and to listen to our mis-informed guide, tell us wrong information.
Despite the changes in history, we found ourselves snapping shots of Giza and then of the Sphinx, surrounded by other photo-happy tourists. Now, I don’t mean to sound cynical here, but the pyramids were kind of, sort of not all they were cracked up to be. Yes, it was pretty incredible to think about how little old me, could be next to this great big massive ancient structure—yet at the same time I also felt like it just wasn’t worth all the hype. However, what I did find more intriguing as the day went on was Saqqarah.
AARON'S EDIT: Saqqarah is the site of the Step Pyramid of Djoser, one of the first pyramids ever built, constructed as a series of ascending mastabas or steps mounted on top of each other to form a triangular shape reaching toward the sky.
Abdullah's claim that he would be our tour guide throughout the day was really fully refuted here as he, again, just sat in the car whilst we surveyed the site on our own so I played tour guide, leading our small troupe across the site as best I could, reading the walking tour provided by my dad's Lonely Planet. Cheapskates didn't even tip.We then went on to the Red Pyramid and the Bent Pyramid, one of which (can't remember which) is the oldest true pyramid. Back to Laurel's tale...
Here, we got to actually climb into the belly of the pyriamid. This was pretty amazing, and also not too bad of a work-out. We hunched over and inched our way down the narrow, claustrophobic tunnel into the pyramid.
At the bottom of our descent we were greeted with pungent aromas of sulfur and what smelled like rotting decaying bottles of bleach. Despite the foul smells, the inside was overwhelmingly illustrative of the ancient Egyptians obsession with the underworld, as well as impressive in size, architecture and design. Afterwards, we huffed and puffed our way out of the tomb, and were hungrily dropped off at a mediocre Egyptian restaurant for pita, humus, meat mezzas, and more lentil soup.
By this point in the trip, we were all starting to feel a bit exhausted. Aaron got a little cold, so we decided to take it easy and... explore some of the Mosques and old city of Cairo where the Coptic Christians
and Jews lived. We toured the old city, which was really interesting—the streets were all windy and cobbled stoned. The synagogue was beautiful, decorated with intricate inlaid wood designs. We also got suckered into buying lots of poorly made items that day including but not limited to: scarfs, jewelry, and bags. So, that was our visit in Cairo — or at least the big, main points to mention. But, I guess my favorite things are none of the above musings. The things I enjoyed most
about Cairo were the day we spent just wandering the city, walking through various neighborhoods, visiting the Islamic Ceramics Museum, eating delicious baklavah, and talking to Egyptian people who gave us a brief glimpse into their lives, culture, and world. Above all, my favorite memory was probably sitting at a hookah bar watching my parents
attempt to smoke the little water pipe. They didn’t really enjoy it, but it sure was funny. AARON'S WRAP UP: Definitely good times in Cairo, though be forewarned that the air there is amongst the worst in the world and you will have black snot for weeks to come.
This is in part due to the ridiculous amount of traffic you get when you have 20 million people crammed into a city, traffic which, itself, becomes a tourist attraction/liability. It would have been much easier to navigate the town had we not been forced to quite literally run for our lives at every street crossing.Other highlights: well, firstly, we did happen to enjoy the Giza Pyramids. Sure, they're a bit crowded and touristy, but I did think they were pretty spectacular. Next, Kate and I actually bought a souvenir! I think it was our second one in about seven months, which is pretty impressive, if I do say so myself. Accordingly, it is awesome. It's the 17th century lead-lined (on the outside, don't worry) set of cups and kettle with silver inlay in antique Arabic reading, alternately, "Allah," "Drink and be healthy," and something in archaic Arabic which includes the words "Good" and "Drink."
In the rather silly photo above, you see me staring at it like I want to eat it, but the biggest photo coup came when we were at the Giza Pyramids and our guide took our camera to snap some shots of us posing at "holding up the pyramids" by the top of the cones. Some (read: one) of them came out alright, but most looked, well, completely and utterly ridiculous. And that's all for now, but stay tuned for the upcoming Luxor blog, guest written by another Greyson...
0 comments:
Post a Comment