My quick trip to Cairo may require three blogs. It was pretty spectacular. Cairo is unbelievably loud, so dusty the sun is blurred, very friendly and the people seem easier than some other countries in this part of the world. AND even though seven lanes of cars routinely squeeze into five lanes – the drivers are not nearly as meanly aggressive as they are here in Doha. They are still very aggressive and twice I was in a cab that was driving so close to another cab that the drivers carried on a conversation in Arabic as we were driving along in traffic – the first time this happened was in the city and bearable – the second time was on the interstate going 80 kilometers an hour and was pretty scary especially as my cab driver was straddling the center white line and there was another car on the other side of us! There are a million old cars that have been turned into taxis – many of which look like my old Fiat – they all seem have been brush painted with oil paint. The fenders are white and the rest of the car is black. Each of them has a number hand painted somewhere – none have the same number and some don’t have enough numbers to be phone numbers but I suppose this is to give the impression that they could be reported to someone somewhere. They have meters that usually they do not use – the price is negotiated before getting into the cab and the meter never comes on. I was amazed to hear my daughter arguing in Arabic about how much a driver would charge to take us. Sometimes, the drivers just said psshw and sped off like we were requesting to go somewhere not worth their time.
We did a lot of walking in the city and I almost got used to people driving up behind us and honking – after I nearly killed myself a few times diving out of the way, I was told that was their way of asking if we wanted a cab!
My daughter is living in Cairo while finishing the research part of her Masters thesis. She happened to have a friend from university who was moving from Chicago and they have ended up in an apartment on a quiet (?) side street with a great balcony in Zemalek – an island in the Nile that is often referred to as the “Georgetown” of Cairo. They have a Boab who lives downstairs in the building and takes care of anything they need for $20 per month. He lives in a small room apparently with his entire family. He speaks some English, is of indeterminate age with a red and white headscarf wound around his head, scruffy beard and full-length dark brown dishdash. But he keeps an eye on who is allowed in and out of the building and seems to have a soft spot for the two young Americans living there.
The lobby of this building was magnificent in its day. Beautiful marble pillars with ornate wrought iron railings and elegant front doors. I was so hot and tired after the first day of sightseeing – I counted the stairs to their apartment as I struggled up them with a bag of groceries – FORTY marble deep steps! It doesn’t seem to faze them at all. They have a man clean their apartment weekly for 50 Egyptian pounds - $10 US – he is very well spoken and was an attorney in Sudan. There seems to be a million underemployed people here and the economy seems to be struggling.
The Egyptian Museum was built in the early 1900’s and appears huge. A beautiful building – almost pink in the sunlight – surrounded by a lot of security – I think there were two metal detectors before we bought tickets. There was so much to see that I drove our guide nuts asking questions and drove myself nuts doing the subtraction to figure out how old some of the artifacts were. I finally understand the significance of the Rosetta stone, I got to see King Tut who I missed when he came to New Orleans in the 80’s, I toured the mummy room, the jewelry room and fell in love with a lot of the small statues that were buried in the various tombs. The contents of King Tuts tomb were beautiful. Exhibits were packed into every room – lots with the descriptions typed on a manual typewriter with black and white photos obviously arranged in the 1950s. I bought postcards of the “overseer” statue that is made entirely of one piece of sycamore (except for his arms) and the marble stones that they used for his eyes have survived till this day. It is one of the eeriest and most interesting items there.
There were so many things to see that I could have spent two full days there and still miss things. Egypt is building a new state of the art museum near the Pyramids that should open in 2012 – maybe. The basement contains over 130,000 artifacts waiting to be moved and be put on display in the new building. Our guide who is getting her PhD in Egyptology told us that they think they have only found 10% of their history. New finds are made all of the time. An interesting tidbit of info - there is a satellite that when it passed over Egypt somehow spotted another buried city that is now being surveyed.
The exhibit that taught me the most was a small statue of a Pharaoh – maybe 20” long with a picture of it when it was found. It was in over 1000 pieces and someone had patiently put it back together. The only evidence of the repair was a crack along the bottom. Archeologists must be truly gifted patient people. The entire museum experience was incredible – the Germans and the British are apparently holding on to some things that they took from Egypt in the early 1900’s and although I am sure they truly belong to Egypt I hope they are not returned until they have a secure space in the new museum. There are ancient artifacts sitting on pedestals in crowded hallways with people touching, bumping and photographing them that are priceless.
In the middle of this fabulous museum I saw something that reminded me of why a lot of people think we are the “Ugly American Tourists”. There was a tour group of couples in their sixties/seventies and I watched a white man in a baseball cap put a plastic water bottle in the lap of a statue of the only female Pharaoh – Hatshepsut- and have someone take a picture – not sure if it was to mock the lack of penis or was just inexcusably disrespectful – the statue is 5000 years old. Then he had his picture taken holding the bottle up as if he was giving her a drink of water. In my home country no one would be allowed near an artifact like this one.
The food is amazing although the hygiene in the food stalls might put off some people. We ate lunch at a little shisha café on a side street that without Ali’dan (Egyptian friend) I would never have even ventured near. The fresh Arab bread is lighter than the bread here in Qatar – it is also trekked through the streets in an open pick up truck. The falafel is so fresh, spicy and stuffed into warm pita bread with chopped salad vegetables and a dash of tahini and costs $1 US. The Egyptian mezza meal could be my new favorite!
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