July 10-14, 1984

July 10, 1984

I am at a crossroads now.  Andy needs to fly home.  My flight doesn’t leave London till month end and I have already seen the major capitals of Western Europe.  I learned many of the local airlines offer half-price student flights and Athens is a hub for the eastern Mediterranean.  We met this Canadian girl also looking for something to do, so her and I picked Egypt.  After visiting a travel agent we had tickets and I flew to Athens with Kathy.  Athens airport is a multicultural zoo, and I am starting to have second thoughts about going to Egypt.  Maybe going to a third world country with little money and no planning isn’t such a great idea.  My bible, the Lets Go Europe guidebook, has very little on Egypt.  Also Kathy is not prepared to backpack.  She has no sleeping bag for emergency.

Fortune must have been smiling on us, for as we were standing in the Egyptair line, I ran into yet another classmate just coming back from Egypt.  He very nicely gave us his sleeping bag, his Lets Go Egypt guidebook and an emergency contact number in Cairo if we needed it.  Wow!!  He also said we would have a great time and don’t sweat it.  A big relief!

In Athens we boarded the flight to Cairo.  Along the way I looked at the airline magazine and tried to learn a few words of Arabic to get us going.  I didn’t get much past Thank You (shook-rahn).  Identifying street signs is going to be a big problem.  Arabic writing is impossible to decipher.  It looks like some kind of artistic script.  I can’t tell when one letter starts or ends or if they even use letters.

By the time we arrived at the Cairo airport, got our luggage, and made it through customs (and paid a hefty price for a visa) it was late and dark.  Travelers have a natural mutual attraction especially in strange locales.  Fortunately there were two young Brits in line with us and we hooked up.  Together we took a taxi into Cairo asking the driver to take us to a cheap hotel.  We ended up going to several, and they were all expensive.  We assumed the driver was getting a commission.  Finally we relented and stayed at one with the expectation that this was for one night only.  All four of us crowded in one small room.

The next morning we found cheaper accommodations on Talaat Harb Square albeit up several flights of stairs.  We were now ready to sightsee.  We started off a few blocks west on Gezira Island in the middle of the Nile River, the lifeblood of Egypt.  On the island stands the 614-foot Cairo Tower.  The observation deck gives us a bird’s eye view of the city.  We could see the pyramids of Giza on the western outskirts of town.  They are big.  Of course we had to see them next.  We took a taxi there for less than a dollar.

As we walked thru Giza towards the Pyramids, the Brits got in conversation with an Egyptian fellow who invited us for tea at his house.  I was suspicious but it was all very genuine.   I guess if I were a tea drinker like the British, I also would have thought nothing of it.  I think the Egyptians are just very nice people who don’t often get to mingle with westerners.  Most tourists probably don’t stray far from their organized tour group.  Still, I was eager to press on to see the pyramids.

Everybody should see the Great Pyramids.  They are marvels.  They are the only remaining Wonders of the Ancient World and are unbelievably old.  In fact when Christ was born two thousand years ago, they were already unbelievably ancient, older than 2500 years BC!!  They are monstrous, built of layer upon layer of hand-carved stone blocks, more than two million in all.  When you get up close you see that the individual stones are immense.  How did they do this with only primitive tools and more important, why on such a grand scale?

The pyramids must have been splendid in their day.  They were originally encased in polished white limestone.  Only one of the pyramids has a small remnant of that finish near its top.  I thought about climbing up to the top of the pyramid but decided not to.  It is a long dangerous climb up the side of large stones.  Plus it is very hot.  You can also go up into the pyramid to some of the burial chambers.  I don’t go far.  It is murderously hot crawling hunchbacked up the very narrow ramps.  Plus they are very claustrophobic.

On the Giza plateau there are three giant pyramids and several “tiny” queen pyramids plus lots of ruins of funerary temples and miscellaneous burial grounds.  We walked around the three giant pyramids and came upon a vendor offering camels and horses for rent.  Not sure why but I thought riding an Arabian stallion around the pyramids would be exciting.  Maybe it would be for those proficient at riding.  Unfortunately my horse didn’t know I was an American cowboy or maybe he only understood Arabic.  He apparently had seen the pyramids before and wasn’t interested in going anywhere.  Next time I’m riding a camel.

Next door to the pyramids is the Great Sphinx.  This crouching lion with a man’s head was carved out of a single block of stone.  According to legend the missing nose was blown off by one of Napoleon’s cannons.

We also met an Egyptian kid, who followed us around, wanting to talk and practice his English.  It is summer and very hot and we were the only tourists around.

On the walk out of the Giza plateau, we went thru a small village and stopped at a street vendor cooking some deep-fried balls.  We need to be very careful about what we eat in Egypt, a third world country, but I figure deep-fried is safe.  This food is called “Falafel” and is made from smashed chickpeas (Fava beans) and spices.  They are delicious, especially when you are starving because you are afraid to eat most foods.  The Egyptians also like to eat their smashed chickpeas without frying, eating them in a spread called Hummus.  They flavor both by topping with Tehina or Tahini sauce, a paste made from crushed sesame seeds.  Very similar to the Gyros of Greece, they also add Schawarma, shaved pieces of roasted and spiced meats, to the meal.

Another day went to see the Egyptian Museum.  It contains by far the largest and most impressive collection of Egyptian antiquities.  The highlight of course is the King Tut exhibit with its solid gold funerary mask.

We took a taxi into Islamic Cairo or the Old City.  It is the less developed, crowded, and poorer part of Cairo, looking like it hadn’t changed any the last 1000 years.  It is full of mosques and minarets.  We visited the Mosque of ibn Tulun, the oldest, built in 879 AD, with a huge courtyard for prayer.  We climbed the spiral minaret tower for a view of the area.  We can see the fortified Citadel of Cairo sitting atop a nearby hill.  Within it is the magnificent alabaster Mosque of Muhammad Ali.  A lot of the Cairo mosques were built from the limestone casements removed from the pyramids.

Our guidebook mentioned a camel auction in Cairo on Friday morning.  We couldn’t pass that by.  We went to the northwest neighborhood of Imbaba and it was real Cairo.  They truck in these wild camels from the desert of Sudan.  They hobble one leg so they can’t run.  I am not sure of what use camels are in this day and age but the market is still very active.

We went to the Khan el-Khalili market in the Old City and did some browsing.  I bought an outfit I thought an Arab might wear.  I am not sure it will help me blend in or not.  Perfumes were very popular along with hand-carved items like chess sets.  The market is by the mosques of El-Azhar and Hussein.

I never felt unsafe or concerned in Cairo despite going into parts that few westerners tread on their own and seeing lots of machine-gun toting police guarding some intersections.  The Egyptians were quite nice.  They have some strange customs.  One time while waiting on a park bench, an older man to my right motioned with his fingers and eyes I shouldn’t be crossing my legs.  Apparently there is something rude or unclean about seeing the soles of shoes.

From Cairo I want to go up the Nile River to see the temples of Karnak and Luxor and the City of the Dead.  We went to the train station to buy tickets for the trip but didn’t make much progress.  Egypt can be very frustrating to deal with when you have little money and don’t speak or read the language.  By this time frustration had reached a peak and we decided to try another country.  We bought a bus ticket to travel across the Sinai Peninsula to Israel.  I have decided I would love to come back and see more of Egypt.  But next time I would bring money and travel in style.