Egypt - Cairo

After a day full of mega travel, we opened our eyes around 10:00 the next morning on New Year’s Eve, pulled back the curtains over the French doors in our bedroom, and looked out over the Giza Plateau with the pyramids reflecting the rays from the sun in the east. In the days of the pharaohs, the rising sun meant resurrection and new life for the dead in the afterlife if all preparations had been made.  For us it meant we were running late on our first full day in Cairo, and we hurried to get ready to meet Ashti, who was waiting to show us around the neighborhood.  Ashti owns the building in which we’re staying on the top in the fourth-floor apartment.  Our quarters are old and a bit worn, but spacious and comfortable with a kitchen, living room, bathroom, and two big bedrooms. The master bedroom has a large balcony with a heavy rail and decorative stone balusters and an astounding view of the pyramids.  We have access to the roof of the building where the Sphinx can be clearly seen in front of the pyramids.  The city of Cairo stops abruptly, and the desert begins in front of the Giza Plateau, and that’s right where we are.

We met Ashti downstairs, and he spent thirty minutes showing us the neighborhood, which is centered around the main entrance to the pyramid complex.  We awkwardly kept up with him as he darted between taxis and camels, while we were more focused on dodging all of the animal excrement on the street.  Ashti showed us the small markets where we could get good deals on groceries, and he introduced us to some restaurant owners who promised to feed us for a reasonable price.  After he left us, we went into one of the restaurants and ordered two big bowls of koshary, which is a local staple made of rice, noodles, shredded beef, and a spicy tomato sauce.  It was hearty fare, and we devoured it, and washed it all down with some cold cans of Pepsi that had real pop tops with which the kids were unfamliar.  The whole meal set us back 37 Egyptian pounds, which is the equivalent of about two US dollars.  Food is insanely cheap here—a huge relief on our coffers after coming from the high prices of Israel.  

All of the locals bid us good morning, and welcome, and happy New Year as we walked back to the apartment, and while some just wanted to offer us a taxi ride or some cheap souvenirs, most seemed genuinely glad we were visiting their country.  The borders of Egypt contain the world’s richest and most compelling remains of the most famous ancient civilization in history, but people are afraid to come here due to recurring violence.  The average Egyptian relies on tourism for income, infrastructure, and opportunity, and when the malcontents start blowing things up again, all that goes away overnight.  The violent acts of a minority of misguided persons are affecting the way of life in areas all over the world, and it’s very evident in Cairo.  

After an hour of organization in our apartment, we made the short walk to the pyramid ticket pavilion, bought our tickets, walked through the iron gate, and were immediately accompanied by a persistent gentleman trying to sell us a horse ride.  The pyramid complex is legendary for its population of aggressive merchants peddling everything from King Tut t-shirts to camel rides, and the guy following us would not give up.  We had planned to hire a camel for the kids to ride around the pyramids, but we weren’t ready to deal with it until he made an offer that made us slow down a bit.  This guy was good, but he didn’t know that he had latched onto a couple of tightwads that aren’t intimidated by sales people who talk all fancy.  By the time the heated negotiations were over, we had two horses, one camel, and an hour’s ride around the pyramids with a guide for about twelve dollars—not a bad deal in our estimation.  Watching that big ol’ camel stand up with my kids on his back was a huge treat, and Deena and I mounted our trusty steeds as we set off for the pyramids.

Our guide went out of his way to make sure we had a great time, and he spent a lot of time taking pictures for us.  We saved so much money on the rides that I was able to give him a generous tip, which brought a huge smile to his face exposing teeth coated with long, brown stains common to the men around here produced by years of apple flavored tobacco smoke pulled through the hose of a hookah.

We bid our guide and the animals goodbye, and I marched the kids to the nearest stone block, and seated in the shadow of the great pyramid, I gave them a passionate, concise Egyptian history lecture in a big outdoor classroom full of object lessons.  Like a lot of people, ancient Egypt fascinated me as a child, and it became a bit of an obsession as I grew up, and I dreamed of going there one day but always thought I would never get there.  Then I married Deena, who made my dream come true twenty years ago when we were young and fabulous.  At that time we spent two weeks in the country cruising the Nile, and everything about ancient Egypt came alive for me during that trip.  Egypt is a difficult travel destination, and I was thrilled to be able to return here and share stories of this incredible civilization with my kids in the place where a lot of it happened.  I’m not going deep into all that history in this post, but for those interested in more, there have been a few books written about it and several documentaries produced, some narrated by Leonard Nimoy!

The temperatures were in the mid-sixties, and the sky was a deep blue backdrop behind these legendary monuments, and the angles of their sides against the heavens is an unforgettable sight.  The ancient Egyptians didn’t come up with the diesel engine or send a man to the moon as far as we know, but they were pretty good at stacking blocks, so they stacked a whole bunch of big ones.  The great pyramid of Khufu was the tallest structure on earth for over four thousand years, and it’s still impressive today.  The nearby pyramid of Chephren still has some of its limestone facade near the peak, and the smaller pyramid of Menkaure brings up the rear.  The great Sphinx stands guard just below the pyramids, and while erosion is taking its toll, it’s still an imposing sentinel.  Thousands of years ago, the Egyptians worked these giant stones to fit together perfectly, and when they were finished, they covered the structures with smooth limestone and capped them with a peak of gold.  While all the fancy finishes are gone today, the pyramids still command every aspect of attention with their sheer size.

We spent several hours walking around the pyramids and the Sphinx until we decided it was snack time, and we ate a small cheese pizza at the Pizza Hut facing the Sphinx—incredibly, it tasted just like it does at home.  We strolled back down the sand-covered alley to our building and took the chairs from our balcony to watch the sunset from our rooftop where a whole new facet of Cairo came into view.  Other than the spiffy areas around the airport and the government buildings, a good bit of Cairo looks like it’s in a perpetually dirty and unfinished state.  Many of the squat, blocky, sand-colored buildings are near completion, but their rusted rebar crowns suggest that the construction process has ceased.  There are mosques on every corner, and their bronze crescent-topped spires spike the skyline with loudspeakers blaring the call to prayer many times during the day.

Like everything else in this section of the city, our rooftop is covered with dust and sand from desert deposits, but it offers a commanding view of the pyramids with other compelling sights in the foreground.  The rooftop beside us is filled with old construction debris and rusted satellite dishes, and the one in front has been strung with clotheslines full of laundry since we’ve been here.  The rooftop just beyond is stacked with rubbish on one side, and the open area serves as a barnyard with chickens, ducks, and geese milling about during the day, and some of the adventurous geese fly over to nibble and pull at the laundry hanging up next door.  It seems that the majority of the roofs around here have a similar function as the junk rooms in American homes where items are placed for future use.  Most of those items end up like they do here, minus the dust from sandstorms blowing in from the pyramids.

For our New Year’s Eve supper, we walked a few blocks down to the kebab restaurant recommended by Ashti, and our host was so pleased to seat a family of Americans that he gave us a great table.  We ordered grilled lamb and chicken for the entrees, and before they arrived, our table was filled with bowls of multi-colored sauces, hummus, and vegetables, and a huge basket of pita bread to mop it all up.  There were bowls of hot savory soup, and our meat dishes arrived steaming and smelling of fresh, toasted herbs.  I don’t think we said a word to each other during the entire meal as we stuffed our famished faces with this amazing food.  This restaurant was fancier than the ones in which we’re used to dining, evidenced by the well-dressed clientele and the quality of the food, so we held our breath when the waiter brought the check.  Including drinks, our meal cost about fifteen dollars, and the three-dollar tip I gave to the waiter put him over the moon as he thanked us over and over for dining with them that night.

We settled in at the apartment, and I sat at the desk in the bedroom to write for a few hours waiting for midnight and the possibility of a rumored fireworks show over the pyramids at 12:00 AM.  Right at the stroke of midnight, we heard a loud boom, and we rushed to the balcony and stood there transfixed for several minutes as the Egyptian sky filled with the most astounding fireworks display I’ve ever witnessed.  The sky and and the surrounding air pulsed with the intensity of the colorful eruptions, and we shouted with delight as it just kept coming.  Once the show was over, the smoke cleared gradually, and the pyramids emerged lit with soft purple and green light against the blackness beyond.  Happy New Year indeed.

New Year’s day started slowly, and we spent a good bit of the morning sitting in bed sipping coffee and tea and staring out the window at the golden pyramids with their angles sharp in the cool, dry morning air.  We eventually got our act together and called an Uber to drive us to the Egyptian museum located near the Nile River about thirty minutes away.  While the museums of the world have some decent Egyptian collections, and their curators are mighty proud of the items “procured” over the years, The Egyptian Museum puts them all to shame with the huge volume of mind-blowing artifacts on display.  All the rooms are packed with one wonder after another, and many of the corners are just piled up with the stuff that won’t fit.  We spent all afternoon wandering around open-mouthed through the exhibits as the cabinets with dull varnish, dingy walls with peeling paint, and yellowed, curling typewritten display placards made us feel like we were touring a museum stuck in the early twentieth century in an Agatha Christie mystery.  We spent a lot of time in the room housing Tutankhamun's treasures and marveled at the beauty of the funerary pieces crafted with amazing skill from a huge amount of pure gold.  The famous burial mask is displayed in the center of the room, and it is truly one of the finest artistic treasures in the world. It’s made from solid gold weighing eleven kilograms, which is the same weight as Deena’s suitcase—unbelievable.

The corridors are filled with enormous statues of Ramses the Great, Akhenaton, and Chephren along with countless sarcophagi, stelae, and stone panels covered with hieroglyphics.  Even with all the solid gold and precious stone encrusted marvels on display here, my favorite items to view are the simple, stone panels carved with delicate, detailed reliefs showing the ancient Egyptians in scenes of everyday life, which went on for thousands of years along the Nile.  After several hours, we finished our tour with a walk through the royal mummy room, which required an extra admission fee, but it was worth it as we got to view the mummified bodies of some of the world’s greatest rulers like Ramses the Great, Merenptah, Seti I, Tuthmosis III, and Queen Hatshepsut.  These rulers’ reigns were glorious in the days of Ancient Egypt’s might and power, and they were viewed as gods by all the people of the land, and now they can best be described as…crispy.

King Tut's chair and footstool with pictures

of his enemies on which to 

rest his feet

King Tut's flip flops - proof that bad fashion sense

extended to the wealthy in antiquity

We had a fabulous time in this world famous museum, and we walked to the banks of the Nile hoping to score a ride on a felucca, but there were none to be seen due to the off season, I guess.  Instead we went to dinner at a Chili’s restaurant overlooking the ancient river, and while the queso dip was excellent, the rest of the food was mediocre, but it was cheap, so no big whoop.  It was almost dark by the time our driver delivered us back to the neighborhood, and we relaxed in the apartment until the pyramid sound and light show cranked up at 7:00.  The show on this night was in English, and I sat on the roof of the building and watched for free while the people inside the complex were watching from their $75 seats.  

So now it’s Monday morning, and I’m in the living room drinking coffee, writing, and looking out the French doors to the pyramids warming up in the morning sun—I hope I never forget this view.  On the rooftop in front of me, a lady in a scarf and long green dress is shooing chickens away as she collects dry laundry from the line.  I’m about to wake up my crew so they can enjoy this view one more time before we fly back to Amman later this afternoon. Our visit to Cairo has been brief but intense, and we’ve made some cool memories in this land of wonders both ancient and modern.  In the streets, cars move at crazy speeds with no regard for lanes or right-of-way. The sound of constant blaring horns seems strange considering many avenues are full of broken-down vehicles covered with decades of dust. At the edge of town, it all just stops.  

The pyramids dominate the sky as they have for thousands of years, and the Sphinx remains watchful and testifies to the glories of days gone by.  Something changed inside me when I first learned of ancient Egypt and saw the curious artwork and building specific to that culture.  Witnessing the still impressive remains has fanned that fire in my children, and it’s been tremendous fun showing them the pyramids and watching their eyes light up with inspiration.