i keep a diary

March 19, 2008

Egypt: Part Two

Islamic Cairo & First Day in Luxor!

Wednesday, March 19th

I woke up a little after 9am on Wednesday...
...packed up all my stuff, checked out...
...and set out on foot. My plan for the day was to explore the neighborhood called "Islamic Cairo" and then, go to the Pyramids of Giza, then catch the 8pm overnight train to Luxor.
I had a whole list of things that I planned to try to find in Islamic Cairo, but while I was waiting to cross the street, a man came up to me and asked me, in perfect English, if I spoke English. When I told him I did, he introduced himself as Mohommed and told me he was an English teach and always was on the look out for the chance to converse with native English speakers and asked me if I had time to go for tea with him. I agreed and he led me...
...through all sorts of windy, twisty, spice-filled roads and back-alleys of Islamic Cairo.
Meeting overly-friendly strangers who are willing to go out of their way to show you around is such a catch-22 of traveling. You always have to try to balance your skepticism that someone wants something out of you, against the danger of missing out on a great opportunity to have a local show you around. We got to Mohommed's favorite tea house and he ordered me his favorite "yellow" tea which is an Egyptian specialty. We ended up hanging out and talking and drinking tea for over two hours and it became apparent that Mohommed really was just a friendly guy who was excited to speak English and took a lot of pride in showing a visitor his neighborhood that he loved.
After I'd drank enough tea to quench an elephant....
...we headed back out onto the streets because Mohommed wanted me to see the mosque he worshipped at. He explained that the other mosques in the area would have sterile, boring tours, and that the best way to see a mosque would be to go with him because he would be allowed to escort me through areas of the mosque that most non-muslims wouldn't be allowed to see.
Walking through the beautiful streets of Islamic Cairo.
After a windy, twisty ten-minute walk, the narrow alleys opened up a bit and we could see a huge and beautiful minaret. It turned out that Mohommed's mosque was the famous Altunbugha al-Maridani Mosque that was build in 1340!
Awesome.
After arriving at the mosque, Mohommed spoke in Arabic to a few men that were milling around in the courtyard and they went off. After they left, he explained that they had gone off to get the mosque's Iman so that Mohommed could ask permission to take a visiting American on a tour! The Iman showed up (and was totally 100 years old and scary and intimidating) but he smiled at me and told Mohommed that it was fine to let me in!

So gorgeous inside. See that crazy, patterned wall in the background? It was made of hand-carved wood and dates back to 1340!
According to the site I linked to above: "A unique aspect found in this mosque is the superb wooden Mashrabeyya screen separating the main prayer hall Qibla that runs along the summit of the courtyard facades."
After Mohammed took me through the ornate rooms downstairs, he led me to an internal courtyard and this door. We walked up an insanely narrow spiral staircase that had what seemed like hundreds of steps...
...and emerged on the mosque's roof that had BREATHTAKING views of Cairo in all directions.
Mohammed proudly showing off the city he loves!
There were a bunch of buildings that were in different states of half-collapsed disrepair and Mohammed explained to me that these buildings were destroyed in the big earthquake that struck Cairo in 1992.
Crazy, right?
The view across the roof.
The spiral staircase led to the top of the minaret. Here's the view of the rest of the lower-roof and the courtyard inside the mosque.
Different views of the city from the minaret.
Gorgeous, right?
Remember how I said that Cairo is a REALLY noisy city in my first post? It's really something that's hard to describe if you haven't been there. Here's one of the eight huge speakers that ringed the minaret that would blast out the call to prayer roughly every four hours!

There's an amazing article that ran in the NYT about the noise in Cairo and here's my fave quote from it:

"This is not like London or New York, or even Tehran, another car-clogged Middle Eastern capital. It is literally like living day in and day out with a lawn mower running next to your head, according to scientists with the National Research Center. They spent five years studying noise levels across the city and concluded in a report issued this year that the average noise from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. is 85 decibels, a bit louder than a freight train 15 feet away, said Mustafa el Sayyid, an engineer who helped carry out the study.

But that 85 decibels, while “clearly unacceptable,” is only the average across the day and across the city. At other locations, it is far worse, he said. In Tahrir Square, or Ramsis Square, or the road leading to the pyramids, the noise often reaches 95 decibels, he said, which is only slightly quieter than standing next to a jackhammer. "

Me and Mohammed. So awesome to end up spending the day with a total stranger who you have almost nothing in common with and have such an incredible time with!
Mohammed wanted to try on my shades! Hahaha.
More pics of the view.
I felt like I was visiting a city on another planet!
The view of the lower roof.
The mosque was huge.
I know it's sometimes hard to get a sense of scale, but i think this pic really helps! Look how tiny Mohammed looks!
Crumbling wall.
Heading back downstairs.
After spending almost 4 hours together, Mohammed explained that he had to teach an English class soon and offered to walk me out of the (very confusing) neighborhood and back towards the central part of Cairo since he was heading that way as well.
I fired off a lot of shots from the hip when I saw locals doing their thing. I like to capture what's going on without tipping people off to the fact that I'm taking pics.
So many parts of the neighborhood reminded me of an Egyptian version of the Wild West.
Chaos everywhere!
Here's the last pic of us I took together before we said farewell! Thanks for showing me around Mohammed! I had an amazing time!
After the total craziness of Islamic Cairo, regular, modern Cairo felt almost tame in comparison.
I went back to the hotel, had a light lunch and hid from the heat a bit...
...then I picked up my backpack from the hotel's luggage room and set out to find the subway and try to navigate my way across Cairo to go check out the pyramids of Giza!
I got off at the Nasser stop around 3:30pm and found a taxi driver who agreed to drive me to Giza for 20 EP.
When you get a couple of miles outside of downtown Cairo, this is what it looks like on the highway.
Within a couple of minutes of leaving the downtown area, I spotted the pyramids from the road! I had always thought the pyramids were in the middle of the desert! I had no idea that they are basically a couple hundreds of yards away from the edge of one of the suburbs of Cairo!

Long story short, my driver turned out to be a dickhead. Instead of taking me to the official entrance to the pyramids, he drove me to some privately owned shithold tourist trap where they try to make you buy a camel sightseeing tour. Everyone tries to tell you that the main entrance is closed, but that they are allowed to go out AFTER it's closed. It's so fucking exhausting. By the time I finally found someone willing to take me to the official entrance, it was after 4pm and they really were closed. But after having seen and gotten to go inside the Red Pyramid, I didn't really care. I had my new driver take me right back to Cairo and figured I'd try again later on in the trip.
By the time I got back into town and found the subway stop near the train station, it was 6pm! I decided to try to find some Korean restaurant that was listed in my guidebook that was supposed to be tasty!
I wandered around for 30 minutes and totally couldn't find it. And at this point, I had to pee so badly that I decided I was going to have to eat at the next place I saw open...which turned out to be this floating mall-boat thingy that was parked on the Nile! I went inside and the restaurant inside...
...turned out to be a Chili's. Hahaha. Saw what you want about American cultural-imperialism, but in this particular case, it saved me from peeing in my pants.
I ordered the Caesar salad and the penne; the only two meatless items on the menu! I guess American tourists aren't that common in Cairo (or if they are, maybe they're not the kind of people that frequent riverboat Chili's) anyway, the entire staff seemed nervous / JAZZED to have an actual American patron. It was pretty funny. I had the entire waitstaff of like 6 people doting on me. The manager even stopped by to ask me what I thought of the food and service. "Like home?" It was really sweet.
After I finished eating I headed to the train station!
Made it to the station with no problems and found the sleeper compartment I'd booked. When you get there, the compartment is in "sitting" mode...
...then around 9pm, the train attendants came by and converted the seats into "sleeper" mode. There was also a big ruckus because my compartment-mate, a college student from Germany named Annicka, was female and when THEY ASKED US IF WE WERE MARRIED (wtf?), I made the mistake of saying "No."

Suddenly, the two attendants were insisting that I had to find other seats...which was a problem, because the train was full. But we simply couldn't sleep in separate cots in the same room if we weren't BETROTHED.

After 10 weird minutes of them insisting I had to go and me being like "Ummmm, ok. WHERE?", Annika was finally like, "Sirs, there is no problem here." And the gentlemen, shrugged and walked off. So either Annicka used some Jedi mind-trick shit on them, or the whole hub-bub was for the benefit of Annicka because they were worried that she didn't want me to sleep there but was afraid to speak up? I'm not sure. Either way, it was weird!
Annicka took this awesome portrait of me in my top bunk. Hahaha.
The only sign in our cabin was this sticker:

Dear guests .
We invite you to injoy your time with the music,
dancing, best choices of alcoholic drinks and
belly dance in tha club car which located in
the middle of the train .
So come to spend a wanderful time Note :
the belly dance competition well start Aftar dinner
It was an invitation that was hard to ignore! So around 10pm after dinner had been served, me, Annika and her four friends that were in the car next to us, decided to seek out the tha club car. Which was totally marked with another awesome homemade sign!
The club car!
Here are Annika's four friends she was traveling with.
About 15 minutes after we showed up, the place started filling up. In between pouring drinks, the bartender would start blasting Egyptian music, hop over the bar and run all around the car trying to convince girls to stand up and let him give them a "bellydancing lesson."
He even managed to get a couple takers! Yay!
The fact that this girl climbed up on top of her seat and started dancing basically made the bartender weep with joy. He was so proud.
He was particularly fond of my cabin-mate Annika, but she refused to be his dancing partner. So he settled for a photo together! Nice to meet you, Annicka!

Wednesday, March 19th

The conductor woke me up with an announcement at 6:45am. Daybreak over the fields outside of Luxor.
Fifteen minutes later, I was out front of the train station thumbing through my guidebook looking for places to stay in...
...Luxor!
I decided on a hotel right on the Nile and started walking to find it. En route, I met a man who owned a new hotel and he was trying to get my business. When I told him I'd decided on a place already, he asked if I wanted to go on a tour of the Valley of the Kings, Valley of the Queens, The Colossi of Memnon and The Temple of Hatshepsut, which was almost everything that I wanted to see in Luxor!
It was 7:15am, and when I agreed to go on the trip, he was like "Good, we'll pick you up at your hotel in one hour!" I was excited because I figured I would have wasted a whole day putzing around and trying to book a trip the next day!
I stayed at a place called the Mina Palace. Here's the room...
...and here's the view of the Nile from my room's balcony! So pretty! I took a quick shower and unpacked a bit....
...and sure enough, right at 8:15, the owner of the Nubian Hotel (who is the nicest guy ever) came and picked me up and dropped me off to join his hotel's daily tour!
Our group was 10 people or so and we got into a mini-bus and set out on our tour. Farmland.
Lots of donkeys pulling carts!
The first stop on our tour was The Colossi of Memnon! The statues both depict Pharaoh Amenhotep III, and have been standing for 3400 years (built in 1350 BC).
They are beautiful.
And massive.
This one basically looks like Serpentor.
It's hard to see in this photo, but the entire lower half of both statues are completely COVERED with graffiti, in all sorts of ancient languages, etched into the stone! It was crazy!
Afterwards, we boarded the bus and started heading towards the Valley of the Kings.
The road up into the mountains!
The visitor center when you arrive.
The Valley of the Kings is has 63 subterranean tombs that are the final resting place to most of the kings of the New Kingdom era of Ancient Egypt.
When you enter the visitor center, there's a huge translucent topigraphically-accurate, 3D model of the valley that has tiny model-entrances of the 63 tombs! But the coolest part is if you crouch down...
...underneath the surface of the model, there's a scale replica of how each of the 63 tombs is carved out into the solid rock below!
Check out how insanely long and elaborate some of them are! The length of each tomb corresponds to the length of each Kings rule! As soon as someone became Pharaoh, workers would begin excavating their tomb - and teams of men would dig and dig and dig the entire time the pharaoh ruled! And when the pharaoh died, they'd make the last room and then put him in it!
After leaving the visitors center, we boarded a tram which drove us up a steep road towards the actually valley entrance. I like to take photos like this...
...and pretend I am shooting for National Geographic. See that mountain peak in the background?
The ancient Egyptians called that peak "Ta Dehent," which means "The Peak."
The Peak has a natural pyramid shape and a lot of historians believe its resemblance to the pyramids the Old Kingdom kings built is a big part of the reason this site was chosen!
Walking up to some of the tomb-entrances.
Awesome.
Only a couple are open to the public. We went into the tomb of Rameses I...
...and (his grandson?) Rameses III.
Here's what one of the entrances to the tombs looks like. You're not allowed to take pictures once you get in side, which is a shame because they are beautiful. Every single surface of the carved-rock tombs are covered with gorgeous paintings. And because they've been shielded for the sun and elements, the colors are vibrant. You can even still see brushstrokes!

There's also a lot of graffiti in the tombs! According to the interwebs, a guy named Jules Baillet "located over 2100 Greek and Latin graffiti, along with a smaller number in Phoenician, Cypriot, Lycian, Coptic, and other languages."
More pics of the valley. I was snapping away because the whole place is so severe and pretty at the same time I really wanted to have enough pics to help me remember the feeling later.
So pretty.
See that big hill on the right? If you look at the path coming down from the peak, you'll notice a few specks at the first turn, which upon closer inspection...
...turned out to be two dudes. You know, just sitting on the over-hot stones in the mid-day desert sun!
After leaving the Valley of the Kings, it was a short ride over to Hapshetsut's Funerary Temple. This place was one of the most striking places I've ever been on earth. The land alone is amazing, but when you get closer and look at the temple built into the side of the sheer cliff-wall, it really seems like some made-up Indiana Jones kind of a movie set.
Check it out!
Crazy, right?
We boarded trams again - because no one likes to walk almost a mile on blacktop in the afternoon desert sun - and headed towards the temple!
The tram dropped us off a couple hundred yards away.
Hapshetsut was Egypt's most successful female ruler! She stayed in power for a little over 20 years.
She was most well-known for building a bunch of 70'-long ships and sending a couple hundred men on a voyage to the land of Punt (no one's really sure where Punt was, btw) to return with all sorts of a goodies to trade. Most popular at the time was myrrh and frankincense. Right before you enter the temple, there's a protected tree stump that's left over from one of the trees Hapshetsup's men brought back from Punt!
So awesome.
Ok, not too much to write here.
So I'm just gonna let the pics speak for themselves.
Proof that I was there. Hahaha.
I loved this place. One of the few places that you really have to see in person to get any sense of the scale. It's incredible.
One more pic for the road!
Next, we re-boarded our bus and drove over to the Valley of the Queens.
It's pretty much the same thing as the Valley of the Kings except it's where the King's wives were entombed.
Here's our tour guide at the entrance to one of the Queen's tombs.
Which looked like something right out of Tattooine.
At 2pm (almost 6 hours later!) the tour was over and we headed back to Luxor.
By the time I got back to the hotel, I had one of the worst headaches I've ever had in my life. Looking back, I'm pretty sure I had sunstroke - walking around in the Egyptian sun in the middle of the desert without head-protection, even for a little while, is not smart.

I took a shower and a three-hour nap, and woke up just in time to watch the sun set over the Nile from my balcony!
Later that night I went out and had myself a FANTASTIC light dinner of hummus, falafel and freshly baked bread. Mmmmmmm!
The coffee grounds stuck to the side of my cup looked like Arabic!
Before heading home, I stopped at a street stall and purchased a hat to protect my bean from getting fried again. Hahah. I HATE hats.