Day 5 - Walk Like An Egyptian

We met Heba in the subway tunnel downtown at about 11 o'clock and began to walk north through the city. Our plan was to spend a few hours in the nearby suburb of Heliopolis. As is her style, Heba insisted on spoiling us yet again, and bought us a big tray of baklava to share along the way. We took a tram out to Heliopolis from the main train station downtown. This may have been the shittiest mode of public transportation we had seen yet in Egypt, and that is saying something!

Alex and Heba on the tram.

Heliopolis is an interesting place to visit but there isn't much there for a tourist to take in. The most exciting thing about the city is it's unique architectural style, naturally called "Heliopolis style." There are a number of interesting buildings in downtown, including the Baron's Place (the private home of the city's founder, built in the style of a Hindu temple), and the Basilica of Heliopolis. The most memorable part of our excursion had to have been a bit of black humor. Alex was complaining about the way the drivers in Egypt seemingly never take their hands off the horn (a valid complaint.) Heba responds that he should throw a stone through the window of a particularly obnoxious driver's car, and start up a so called "rush hour intifada." ZING.

The Heliopolis Basilica.

We took the tram back to downtown Cairo, and then the subway out to Giza for a surreal dinner at Heba's house. Heba lives in a 6th floor apartment with her mother and brother. The language barrier made communication difficult. It turns out that my Arabic is pretty terrible. I was able to tell Heba's mom that they had a beautiful home, and after dinner I complimented her on the food. The dinner was excellent, though it was the sort of high pressure experience I expected coming from a Jewish home. There were ten different dishes on the table, and as soon as we would finish something, more food appeared on our plates. Alex and I smiled and overate, though I would be remiss if I made it sound like I was unhappy with the whole arrangement. It was just too much food. After dinner we had coffee and conversation for a half hour, before saying our thank yous and goodbyes and heading back to the train. One of the things Heba and her mom kept repeating to us is that our thanks were totally unneccesary, as the hospitality they showed us is required by Arab culture and Islam. It's an interesting perspective, and one I've never heard before. Of course, our thanks are required by our American culture.

Chilling at Heba's flat in Giza.

Heba's brother walked us back towards the train, stearing us off momentarily to buy some Sahlab powder so that Alex could make it at home. As a final reminder that this was not some tourist trap, Alex had to yank me out of the way to keep from absentmindedly walking into a cow in the middle of the road. We said our final goodbyes, got on the train and reminisced about the experience and how very full we were all the way back downtown.

The Pyramids are very much a part of the skyline from their Giza home.

We got off at Mubarak station needing to transfer to the red line and go one additional stop to get back to our hotel. Rush hour in Cairo is madness, whether on the roads or in the subway tunnels. We had seen crowds crush into the subway cars before, but had never been a part of the crush until this last night. Alex and I were pushed onto the car by people behind us and had no choice but to pull our way on, into the most crowded subway car I have ever been. As the doors closed, Alex gasped: Part of his coat was caught in the doors and outside the car! It is a good thing that we were only going one stop and that the doors would be opening on the same side at Sadat station. We were unceremoniously pushed off the train by the same crowds that forced us on, and made our way for home. Not to be outdone, I had my own little Cairo moment a few minutes later, when I was clipped by a turning car while crossing the street. The bastard didn't even slow down. I wasn't hurt, but still...

Moon rise over downtown.

Heading back to the hostel, Alex and I had one final treat in store. We had learned through the facebook that Charlie Gandleman, an old friend of ours would be studying at the American University in Cairo that semester and had recently arrived. We managed to set up a meeting with him outside our hotel that night. Even though our bus was scheduled to leave at 10:30 and it was already after 8, we decided the hell with it, and took Charlie and our luggage to the ahwa for one last cup of tea. Khel nearly plotzed when he saw us! (His word, not mine.) We introduced him to Charlie and shared a couple of stories. It would have been nice to spend more time but we were on a schedule and had to roll out. We got a taxi right on the corner, but the driver didn't know how to get to Turgemon station. This meant a half hour of him driving in circles, stopping every hundred meters or so to ask directions. It didn't make me feel real confident in our driver. Finally we arrived and got inside. We had to take a later bus as the one we were intending on taking was full. This would have dire consequences some 6 hours later on the Israeli border.

Tea with Charlie.

The ride through the Sinai was uneventful. As boring as the desert is to look at during the day, it is even less interesting at night. We dozed most of the way. I moved in and out of sleep due to a slight queasiness that I was trying to ignore. It wouldn't be the first time a bus driver on shitty Middle East roads had made me feeel ill. Unfortunately, this was another story. We arrived to Taba around dawn and had to switch to another bus to get to the border crossing, as the one we were riding was turning south to Dahab. Stopped momentarily for a routine passport check, I suddenly felt like someone had yanked my esophagus like a door chime. Alex told me to run to the bathroom. I did just that, and I almost made it there in time! I vomited on the floor, the walls and door of the bathroom, and got it all over the old sweater I was wearing. That sweater promptly went in the garbage can. If I had gotten sick just 5 minutes later, we would have been off the bus. Or if we had taken the earlier bus, I would have been at the bus station in Eilat and would have been able to go to the bathroom or at least a garbage can. I was not so pleased at the time.

Even if I had a photo of me vomiting, I wouldn't post it online.
Instead, enjoy more Heliopolis architecture!

We finally crossed the border to Eilat around 7 in the morning. Never has Israel looked to sweet to me. Our trip to Cairo was awesome, truly unforgettable, but returning to Israel was really welcome. Perhaps for the first time in my life, I felt I was coming home. The hills of the Galilee had never before looked so sweet to me as they did when I was on the bus to Haifa two days later. It was time to resume my life in Israel, and look forward to the second half of my year abroad.

Day 4 - Heba In Hebrew

Israel is a cultural halfway house between the West and the Middle East. I didn't realize it until I visited Egypt, but Israel is very western oriented. Even so, the Middle East culture has also left a stamp on Israeli culture, leaving it a unique blend of Levantine, European and American culture that I haven't encountered anywhere else.

How to know you are in a third world country: Donkey's eating garbage by the side of the road.

Sunday morning we took the subway south to old Cairo, also known as Coptic Cairo because of the heavy concentration of Coptic churches in the area. Coptic Cairo also houses the most famous old synagogue in the city, the Ben Ezra synagogue, which is now nothing more than a museum. The train ride went much smoother the second time around, and we would spend the next two days using the subway as our primary mode of transportation. It was fast, inexpensive, and really quite easy once you learn where the stations are.

The "Hanging Church" of Cairo.

One of the more striking things about Coptic Cairo is that it was nearly empty. The downtown area is always so packed with people that this really took me by surprise. The old churches are still very active and there were a lot of worshipers inside. Many were Egyptian, but many others were tourists like us who stopped off to pray. All in all there are 6 churches in Coptic Cairo, as well as a Monastery, the old synagogue and a mosque.

The interior of the Church of St. Barbara.

My friend Katja remarked on seeing my photos that the Egyptians "have nicer synagogues than we have in Israel." The Ben Ezra synagogue is as beautiful as it is old. It is the sight of the famous Cairo Geniza. Today the synagogue and the grounds are cordoned off and guarded by Egyptian police, who strictly prohibit taking photographs inside the building. Of course, this was not going to stop me, so I held my camera as discreetly as I could down by my waste while Alex blocked me from view, so that I could snap some photos. I'm glad I did. I grabbed a hat and said a quick Shema, we dropped some money in the tzedakah box for preserving the synagogue, and we were off on our merry way.

The ark, menorah and Torah scroll at the Ben Ezra Synagogue.

From Coptic Cairo, we hopped back on the train and took it to al Gazira, intending to walk around. We stumbled upon the Cairo Opera House, a large compound with multiple theaters, an amphitheater, several concert halls and smaller stages scattered throughout. Alex wasn't particularly interested in the Opera House, while I couldn't tear myself away. I took a short 10 minute guided tour, and while it is no Civic Opera House in Chicago, the place is really quite nice. The artwork in the Opera House is a mix of Islamic and Contemporary styles, which provides a beautiful and unique contrast.

The main hall at the Cairo Opera House.

That afternoon was the most surreal of my time spent in Cairo. We met a girl in downtown named Heba. Heba is a religious Muslim Egyptian, fluent in Hebrew and thrilled to take us around Cairo and show off her city. Alex and I had been fearful of speaking Hebrew in Egypt, assuming that it could be dangerous for us. Nonsense, she quickly taught us. The overwhelming majority of Egyptians don't even recognize the language. We spent hours that afternoon and into the evening walking through the capitol of an Arab state speaking exclusively in Hebrew, and drawing no more attention than some curious stares. We must have looked like quite the trio: Two white people dressed like tourists tramping through decidedly un-touristy areas with a local Cairene girl acting as their tour guide, and chattering in a language that they did not recognize and could not place.

Our first day with Heba.

Heba was determined to show us the best of Cairo's local food and scenery. She started off by taking us to a small kiosk where she bought us glasses of sugarcane juice, called "assif." It was absolutely delicious, and so sweet it would have killed my parents after two sips. Walking through Giza, she then took us into an ice cream shop, where we tried Egyptian ice cream. It is different from what you can get back home, and I'm not really sure how to explain what is different about it. It was delicious though. Ice cream cones in hand, she led us down to the Nile to take a ride out on a small schooner on the river. Alex and I had wanted to go on a cruise on the water and mentioned this to Heba. If we had gone by ourselves, we would have had to pay 150 Pounds to hang out with other tourists. Heba got us on a tour for locals, and she of course paid for that too. I remember remarking to Alex that this is what it must be like to have a 'sugar mama.'

The sun setting over the west bank of the Nile.
Probably my favorite picture from Egypt.

Heba took us to dinner (of course) at a "Gad" location in downtown Giza which has a dining room upstairs. The dinner was very nice and would be uneventful except for one incident. Reprising a mistake a made in a Chinese restaurant in Maryland almost ten years ago, a took a huge bite out of a hot pepper, mistaking it for a bell pepper. My companions almost fell out of their chairs laughing as my face turned bright red, my nose began to run and I battled the hiccups for ten minutes. After order was restored, we finished our dinner and said goodbye, with plans to meet up for another day all together tomorrow. Alex and I took to the subway once more and came up back in central Cairo. We headed back to our ahwa for what we figured would be the last time: Our bus was scheduled to leave Cairo at 10:30 the following night. We stayed for an hour and a half, and when we told Khel we were leaving Egypt, he gave us big hugs and kisses! He also posed for this winner of a photo with us.

Saying goodbye to Khel.

We started to pack up that night, with only one more day left in Cairo ahead of us. We called Heba from the hostel desk phone and decided to meet in the Sadat subway station the next morning. Mostly packed, we put the rest of our things on the desk in our room and crashed.

The shores of the Nile at sunset.

In the courtyard of the opera house.

The gates of the old synagogue.

Our cruise on the river.

Delicious sugar cane juice.

Day 3 - Slogging Through The Mud

Alex and I woke up Saturday morning intending to visit the Egyptian museum. Considering the weather, this would really have been one of our only options anyway. It rained all night while we slept, and then intermittently throughout the day. This created some of the most disgusting conditions I've ever seen. Cairo, for whatever reason, does not have a sewer system. There is nowhere for the water to go so it simply collects in pools wherever it happens to be. This made for impassable streets and alleyways that have been completely taken over by mud. Perhaps if they did something to prevent this from happening, it would stem the spawning of mosquitoes that are carriers of the West Nile Virus and other infectious diseases.....

Squeegeeing the sidewalk.

We picked our way across the wreckage and got in the first of several lines outside the museum. We got to the ticket booth and showed the ticket agent our student ID cards, once again requesting the student price. She refused at first, telling us that student tickets could only be sold to international students with a current international student ID card (we already knew this.) However, we kept arguing with her and after about 2 minutes she gave in and gave us our half price tickets. After going through several security sweeps, we entered the museum.

The water comes halfway up this policeman's calf.

The collection at the museum is as impressive as advertised. The museum is as large as the Field Musuem in Chicago, and their collection includes hundreds of painted reliefs with Ancient Egyptian heiroglyphs, the sarcophogi of dozens of royal mummies, the Rosetta Stone, as well as the bonanza that was uncovered in the tomb of King Tut. Unfortunately, museum rules forbid the use of cameras inside. In fact, Alex and I had read that cameras are confiscated at the entrance and the only way to get them back is by paying baksheesh to corrupt guards. Imagine my dismay when I saw the dozens of tourists inside snapping photos of all the exhibits. I felt like a world class sucker.

The exterior of the Egyptian Museum

If there is one feeling that stuck out for me after touring the Egyptian Museum, it is that while America may have mastered the art of conspicuous consumption, it certainly wasn't invented by Americans. The Ancient Egyptian royalty covered their lives with an avalanche of precious metals, mother of pearl, alabaster and papyrus. Perhaps the most heinous example? The set of solid gold razor blades on display in the museums "Ancient Egyptian Jewelry" exhibit. The museum also has some holdings on display from after Egypt's contact with the classical world was initiated. I got a chuckle out of the way a gaggle of little Egyptian girls were staring at the penis on a statue of the Roman god Apollo. They were scandalized.

Lines were a problem at the museum.

As impressive as the museums holdings were, the museum itself couldn't have been shittier. I could have predicted this, drawing on my experiences the last few days in Egypt. To whit: The museum had large holes in the roof, the lighting was poor and their were several brief power outages while we were inside, and the informational plaques were either handwritten or typed on a typewriter, and all with egregious grammatical errors. A thunderstorm passed through while we were inside and it actually began to rain inside the building! Millennia old artifacts and they are letting it rain inside the museum! As I said, by this point we were no longer surprised by any of this. We tried dodging the raindrops for a minute and then grabbed a cab back to our hotel to plan our afternoon.

Even a driving rainstorm couldn't wash the shmutz off of these vans.

I had read in the guide book that the "Sha'ar Hashamayim" Synagogue would be open that day because the caretaker opens it for Shabbat, should anyone wish to come and pray. We had bad information. The synagogue was not open. Security wouldn't even let us get close to the building. What was worse, they wouldn't even let us photograph the exterior! Needless to say I was doubly glad I got the candid photo of the building during our cab ride into town two days earlier. Longing for a little familiarity, Alex and I grabbed a pizza in a nearby shopping mall and burned some time in a cafe before heading off to our next adventure.

No mall is complete without a Starbucks!

That afternoon we headed to the Cairo citadel, also known as the citadel of Salah al Din. The site served as the seat of government for Egypt's kings for 700 years. For me, this was simply the most beautiful place we visited. The Muhammed Ali mosque is stunningly beautiful, and there is a gorgeous panoramic view of the city from the top of the citadel.

The beautiful Cairo Citadel.

Also contained at the site are the national military and police museums. We had the pleasure of seeing tanks and artillery that were actually used against Israel in the '56 and '67 wars! Unfortunately, we arrived late in the afternoon and the museums were already closing, so we couldn't actually go inside and look around. Even so, they have a rather impressive display outside.

The mosque of Mohammed Ali at the site of the citadel.

We made our way north to the area of Khan El Khalili that evening, where we would spend the night. We first waded into the shuk to stop for coffee at "El Fishawy", the most famous ahwa in Cairo. It was an interesting place, shielded on 2 sides by the narrow walls of the surrounding buildings, and crowded by the merchants of the bazaar on the other sides. The atmosphere was cool but still not on a par with our ahwa back downtown. We would spend the next two hours wandering the tourist bazaar, being courted with exchanges like this gem:

Egyptain Merchant: "What are you looking for?"

Alex: "Nothing."

Egyptian Merchant: "We have lots of nothing! How big do you want it?!"

At the El Fishawy cafe.

And of course, there was the guy who obviously believed in the power of honesty, earnestly asking us "how may I take your money?" The bazaar was a total circus. Of course the height of the madness was when the owner of a different shop attempted to show us the quality of his all-Egyptian cotton T shirts by pulling out a lighter and burning one with it.

There are many treasures waiting to be found in Khan El Khalili

We had planned to end our night by seeing a performance called "Sufi Dancing" in an old theatre beneath the Al Azhar mosque. Unfortunately, our wanderings had taken us to the wrong end of the bazaar, and with only 40 minutes to show time. Undeterred, we plowed down an alley and began to powerwalk through a decidedly untouristy section of the market. No one was screaming at us in English, and we drew lots of funny looks, but we made it from one end to the other in under 15 minutes. Really, it was nicer from the chaos of the main market in a lot of ways. Here the sidewalks were made of concrete, rather than mud.

"Sidewalks" in the bazaar.

The dance performance we saw was like nothing I've ever seen before. Sufi dancing involves spinning for ridiculous periods of time, often while playing one or more musical instruments. The performance lasted for about 75 minutes. The man in the video below spun for 45 minutes at varying paces, and that is no exaggeration. I don't know how he didn't vomit. I guess it just takes practice.

We finally returned to downtown at about 10, already a late night for us. We certainly were not going to miss going to our favorite ahwa that night, so we head on over. The entire place was preoccupied by the national soccer game on television that night. Egypt is currently competing in the Africa Cup of Nations, and has a great chance at winning the tournament (they are the reigning champions.) I did get to see what it looks like when soccer fans in a country that truly cares about soccer are watching a game: Egypt took the contest going away, 3-0, and for every goal the home squad scored, the celebration was like Mardi Gras and Carnaval all rolled together in this tiny back alley coffee shop.

The view from the citadel.

This tank was used against Israel.

Sufi Dancing

Day 2 - Baksheesh

Baksheesh is an Arabic word that Egyptians use when they ask for money. It's meaning resides somewhere between 'tip' and 'bribe.' Baksheesh is an important part of any trip through Cairo, as the only way to truly see some parts of the city is to pay people off. Alex and I woke up early on Friday morning so that we could get to the Pyramids around opening time. They are located about 45 minutes drive from downtown Cairo in the nearby suburb of Giza - a suburb significantly larger and more populated than Haifa. We walked over to the Nile Hilton where we caught a minibus to "Al Haram", the Egyptian name for the Pyramids. It seemed to be a nice morning, but visibility began to go fast while we were on the minibus. Some sickly combination of dense fog and air pollution descended on Cairo, and by the time we got off the bus we couldn't see 10 meters in front of us. Don't take my word for it though, watch this video and judge for yourselves.



We hopped off our minibus in an impenetrable haze. Our breathe was visible, even though it couldn't have been colder than 50 degrees Fahrenheit. We began walking in what we believed to be the direction of the pyramids when we got approached by another scammer. This time, we were ready. The guy insisted he was with the "Cairo Tourism Board", there to offer tours of the area to lucky tourists like us. He even had an official ID badge identifying him as such. Unfortunately for him, we had read about this particular scam in the guide book the night before, and apparently there is no such thing as the Cairo Tourism Board. Just like everyone else, he was just looking to shaft ignorant tourists. It took us a while to shake him off, but we got rid of him and followed the signs to the Pyramids.

"To The Pyramids."

We climbed up towards the Giza Plateau but saw no sign of the pyramids. The sun was starting to climb in the sky at the point, but it looked like a sickly impostor, mocking the grandeur of the real sun. We sat down outside the entrance to debate what to do. Even if the Pyramids were right on the other side, would we even be able to see them? It would a waste of money and of our entire morning. Bummed out, we decided to stick around for about a half hour to see if the situation improved. We watched as bus load after bus load of tourists unload and enter. The smog seemed to be lifting a little bit over time, as the stone ramparts were becoming slightly more visible. We decided to take a chance and go in. We talked our way into student prices, bought our tickets and entered the plateau.

The Giza sunrise.

I am really glad we decided to head in. As soon as we walked through security and turned to our right, we could see the base of Kuffu's Pyramid. It had been sitting less than a city block away, and it was completely invisible to us! Now the smog rose quickly, and the majesty of the plateau came into view. We eschewed a mounted tour at first, preferring to walk around and see things on our own. Besides, there was no lack of people waiting for us behind the gates with camels, horses and lots of touristy garbage if we chose to take advantage and ride later. A ten year old boy walked up to us by the base of Kuffu's Pyramid, trying to sell us postcards. We refused, but he was determined, and took out two keffiyahs from his bag, to give to us as 'gifts.' He put one on Alex first, and then put mine on, and remarked that it "made me look just like Mr. Arafat." My skin crawled.

::Shudder::

The Pyramids are even more impressive than I expected. It boggles the mind that anyone could have built something so large and imposing without the aid of modern technology. Even in crowded, cosmopolitan Giza, they still dominate the skyline, over 20000 years after being erected. It is truly a sight to see and worth the hassles from the hustlers on the plateau. We eventually found a mount to ride through the plateau on: a Bedouin man was very persistent with us that we ride his camel, and we haggled him down from 50 Pounds each to 20 Pounds total for a guided tour on the camel. We got on and he showed us around, guiding us on his camel, who we learned is called "Columbus."

That human shaped dot is me. These things are HUGE.

The camel ride took us out into the wilderness a few kilometers away so that we could see the entire sight at once. Three Pyramids jut out of the earth as if they were a natural part of the landscape, while off the to right, the modern day city is plainly visible. The man leading our camel asked us where we were from. Tired of getting the American punchlines, Alex told him we were Brazilian. He began to ask us questions about Brazil, and I told him that we were specifically from Buenos Aires... Alex gave me a sharp jab in the ribs and whispered that Buenos Aires is in Argentina, not Brazil. Naturally I felt like a dumbass. Luckily, the Bedouin didn't know any more about South America than I do, and the incident passed without mention. We rode back to the edge of the smallest Pyramid, dismounted and thanked our guide with some baksheesh, and then walked back towards the entrance.


Our last stop was at the Sphinx of Giza. The Sphinx was very cool but you can't go right up to it like you can with the Pyramids. It is smaller than I imagined it to be, but I think that is more the fault of Las Vegas and our collective imagination than of the ancient Egyptians. We hung around for 5 more minutes before heading for the door. We spent about 2 hours at the site, marveling and taking photos and trying to understand what was standing before us. Needless to say, this was a really cool stop on our trip.

We got a bite to eat at a stand in Giza, and then took a city bus back to central Cairo. As with everything else traffic related in Cairo, the buses are a frightening reminder that we are no longer in Chicago: Buses do not step to load or unload passengers. People are expected to see their bus coming, wade out into traffic and then climb onto a moving vehicle through the open back door, then walk to the front and pay their fare. When it comes time to get off, you hop off the still moving bus wherever is convenient for you. For someone uninitiated with this system it is quite intimidating. Luckily for us, the buses originate outside the Giza Plateau, and so we were able to get on and pay before the bus had left the station. We did, however have to climb from a still moving vehicle back in Cairo nearly an hour later. The driver, taking pity on the tourists, at least attempted to slow down while we jumped off.

The "Cairo Transit Authority." If you know me, this needs no explanation.

We walked back to our hotel to rest for a bit, and determined that we would spend the rest of our day in the eastern part of the city, colloquially known as Islamic Cairo. The area is a maze of small streets and alleyways, and completely saturated with mosques and Islamic schools. It is the location of the Al Azhar Mosque and its sponsored university, the oldest university in the Middle East. We determined to take the subway out there, following the east-west "yellow" line. We went down into the subway at what turned out to be the Sadat station, where the yellow line was supposed to pass through. It turns out that the yellow line is currently under construction and has not yet been built. Great! We were arguing in the station and wondering about how to get where we were going when a couple of guys walked into the tunnel next to us and opened up a guide book in English. We pounced on the situation, asking for help immediately. They turned out to be from England, and had been in Egypt for a few weeks already. They were able to tell us that the line didn't exist and get us going in the right direction.

Our English tour guides.

We got off the train in the middle of western Islamic Cairo and took a cab the rest of the way. Islamic Cairo is a world apart from Downtown. It is older, more conservative, and in my opinion much more beautiful than the new architecture that dominates the business districts. At the same time, it is more crowded if possible, and poorer. We got out of our cab outside of the massive outdoor bazaar known as "Khan El Khalil." The bazaar has several sections, including one specifically for tourists, another for crafts and artisans and another for food. We stood on the side trying to decide where to go when we were approached by another Egyptian scammer, this time claiming to be "an English teacher who like to give tours to Americans so he can keep his English sharp." We went with it because it would mean a tour of the less touristy parts of the shuk. He lead us into the bazaar and started showing us around.

Jugs of free drinking water in the Khan El Khalili market.

We wandered through the shuk popping in and out of artisan workshops. Even though the sales pitch was totally transparent, it was still really cool to see the amount of energy that some of these craftsmen put into building a handmade backgammon set or a papyrus painting. The tour certainly ended on a high note. The guy took us into a papyrus painting shop and attempted to show us how much higher quality the handmade paintings were over the machine printed ones. The test is simple. If you lick your finger and then touch the paint, a hand painted drawing will leave some ink on your finger, while the machine printed one will not. He demonstrated first on the machine printed drawing and nothing happened. Then he went to the hand painted version and did the same thing. The ink certainly came off on his finger - it also smudged about an inch all over the lower part of the papyrus! The dude began to flip out as he tried to fix the problem, but to no avail. He looked at us with pain in his eyes before carefully concealing the error beneath the frame and hanging it back on the wall. He couldn't hide how disappointed he was that we weren't planning on buying anything though. We gave him a few pounds baksheesh as thanks for the tour, and made our way back onto the main street and hailed a cab back to our hostel.

The Beautiful Al Azhar mosque in Islamic Cairo.

That night we ate cheap before going out to our ahwa again. We learned the name of our waiter that night, Khel. He was really excited to see us again. I imagine he thought we were just yanking his chain when we told him we would be back the following night. We idled away about an hour and a half playing backgammon and enjoying the atmosphere, and then went back to our hotel exhausted, satisfied in the knowledge that we would get to sleep a little bit later the next morning.

A fine end to a killer day.

Day 1 - Yankee Doodle Dandy

Our trip began at dawn on Thursday morning, when we walked across the border into Taba, Egypt. Immediately I could see Egypt was gonna be a different experience from Israel. The border terminal was disorganized, no one spoke English, and they didn't have any individual offices. In short, this was a ghetto looking office. We got our passport stamps and officially crossed into Egypt. We were immediately taken advantage of for the first (but not the final) time: a cabbie agreed to take us the "couple of kilometers" to the Taba bus station for ten Pounds Egyptian. Of course, it turned out the station was only a half a kilometer away, and the driver demanded twenty Pounds when we arrived. Whatever. We learned quickly for the most part how to avoid being ripped off.

My first moments in Egypt

One of the defining characteristics of our trip is our 'fly by the seat of the pants' attitude towards pre-planning. We did not know much about the buses to Cairo from Taba, except that they existed. We got to the bus station at around 7 A.M. Turns out, the first bus for the capitol didn't leave until 10:30. This is a long time to sit around cooling our heals, but what could we do? Take the minibus that was instead leaving at 7:30! The minibus was old and broken down, but it was heading where we wanted to go, leaving 3 hours earlier, and at only ten more Pounds than the bus. We were crammed in like sardines in a can. A bus that was meant to hold 12 people ended up eventually holding 18, as we stopped repeatedly to pick up hitchhikers along the highway in the Sinai Peninsula.

On the rode to Cairo

The desert makes for a very boring ride. Things were interesting for about 45 minutes as we
wound through some hilly terrain near the Mediterranean coast. Then, things got flat and dull. We would have slept except the Egyptian army wouldn't allow. We were stopped at 8 checkpoints throughout the peninsula, and had to show our passports at every one of them. Combined with the stops we made at little Bedouin tumbleweed towns for food and water, and there was no sleep to be had. We tried to talk, but the driver had the music turned up so loud that we just dozed on and off in between checkpoints. Finally, we crossed under the Suez canal and began to pay attention to our surroundings again. We had to ditch the minibus about 30 KM outside Cairo, as it was turning to go in another direction. A guy who was with us on the bus offered to help us catch a cab into town. Turns out this offer was contingent on him getting a free ride along with us... We flagged down the first taxi that passed, perhaps the biggest piece of shit car that I have ever seen. The junk pile was from the mid 70's, with no shocks, pieces of the doors and interior falling off in our hands, and a top speed of about 35 miles per hour. We crawled into the city, our first view of Cairo from the dingy, filthy windows of an unfortunately typical Egyptian taxi.

Strapping our luggage to the roof of this crap box...

My first impression of Cairo was of the sheer size of a city that house at least 14 million people, not including the suburbs. It is a stunningly massive, and unbelievably crowded city. We cruised through the various neighborhoods trying to take it all in, snapping photos and ogling the foreignness of it all. For the first time it truly hit me: We had traveled over a thousand kilometers that day, but the cultural difference was much greater than the physical difference. People ran across the street in front of our car, seemingly unconcerned about their health or well being. thousands of men in suits, women in hijabs, teenage solicitors and young children filled every square of sidewalk on all sides. We rolled past dozens of mosques, hundreds of restaurants and the only synagogue in downtown Cairo, called Sha'ar Hashamayim. I snapped this photo of the outer facade from the cab, a decision I would appreciate much more two days later.

The "Sha'ar Hashamayim" synagogue in downtown Cairo

The scene was a total mash up of the old and the new. Alex quipped that Cairo looked "just like Aladdin, but with more cars." We finally got to our hostel, the Richmond Hotel on Shereef street downtown. This unassuming little hostel turned out to be one of the best decisions we would make in Egypt. We checked in, dropped off our things, and then left for the afternoon, determined to take advantage of our early arrival into the city and get some touring done. We went down to street level and made our first stop, at the chain restaurant "Gad." We each got a falafel, at a Pound a piece. Truly a great value. Then we decided to head East towards the Nile river. Unfortunately, Alex got us sidetracked. An old, fat guy on the street engaged him in conversation while we were walking, promising to show us the right way to the river. He was thrilled to have a couple of "Yankee Doodles" visiting Cairo, and welcomed us frequently and profusely to Egypt. Unfortunately, he had no intention of taking us to the river. Instead he lead us through a maze of alleys and directly into the perfume and extract shop that his son runs. We sat there for a half hour drinking Turkish coffee, having our praises sung again by both father and son as "Yankee Doodles", and listening to an extremely high pressure sales pitch over extracts. Finally breaking out of there, the shop owners actually pointed us in the right direction of the river. By now the sun was starting to get low in the sky. We found and crossed the river onto the trendy, so called "al gazira" island on the Nile. (Al jazira, or gazira in the Egyptian dialect of Arabic literally means "the island." And yes, it is the name of the Arabic news network.)

Our first trip to the shores of the Nile

We soaked up the sights on the island for a while, and then turned back and returned to our hostel. It was getting dark and we didn't want to get caught outside without a plan or a map. We picked up a very small and inadequate guide book in a bookstore near our hotel. Upstairs, we discovered that the management has a much better, more comprehensive guidebook on hand to lend out to residents. We would end up using both sources to plan our trip. We found a restaurant for that evening, called felfela, and took off into the cool evening. As crazy as Cairo is during the day, it is utter madness at night. The traffic had gotten heavier after dark, and the rumors we had heard about Egyptian drivers were confirmed to us: They do not use their headlights at night. We groped our way to the restaurant, stopping several times to navigate the maze of streets that converge and dispel at the strange squares and traffic circles that dot downtown.

Typical Cairo after dark.

We closed our first evening with Cairo early a trip to a local institution, the "ahwa", a shop that specializes in great coffee, tea and sheesha. We found a place we read about in a little alley behind a large luxury hotel, with fantastic atmosphere and rock bottom prices. They only had one guy there who spoke English, and we would become close with him over the next few days. We retired back to our hotel early that night, with plans to visit the Pyramids of Giza the following morning.

The famous Nile river.

The Egyptian supreme court building.

Alex digs in at dinner. His can reads "Bebsi" in Arabic.