Old Hospital Gowns in Alexandria, Egypt!

My friend from Tennessee made an unbelievably long and difficult trip to join us for three days so we planned to see the Pyramids, Alexandria and have diner on the Nile while she was with us. Alexandria is a three-hour car ride from Cairo, which was not bad – if a little bumpy – we stopped for lunch and had another falafel and foul (spicy red bean) sandwich. The Egyptian bread is as good in its own way as French bread and I never thought I would say that. Intermittently there was a lot to see – camels, mosques, wagons pulled by horses – acres and acres of vegetables but we mostly napped on the way. The night before we made this trip was a late one – fun catching up, we had a lot to talk about and Kaye bought wine at duty free!

Alexandria is ancient. The area along the harbor where the old Pharoahs lighthouse once stood – it was in use for over 17 centuries and at one time was the tallest building in the world before it was destroyed by an earthquake – is still buzzing with activity, both tourist and local. In AD 1480 the lighthouse, after lying in ruins for over 100 years was mixed with the stone used to build Fort Qaitby, which is still standing. We walked along the harbor that is lined with souvenir kiosks, ice cream and beverage stands. The water is clear, the colors are intense – the blues are so special - and everything touristy is old. Really old. We all had our photos taken with a group of young Muslim Indonesian girls who apparently had not seen many Americans.

Nautical Archaeology is a new area of extreme interest in Egypt as Alexandria has sunk 6 – 8 meters since antiquity. Excavators have found hundreds of objects including red granite platforms, columns that might have been part of a palace. There is speculation that it could have been Cleopatra’s as a sphinx with the face of her father has been found nearby. Recent finds include Napoleon’s flagship which sank recently – 1798 - and the city of Merouthis complete with temples, houses, statures and a harbor. Eventually they hope to map all of the submerged towns along the coast. There are local dives to see what has been found near Fort Qaitby. Eventually there is to be an underwater museum and that could be incredible. I hope in five thousand years they are not mapping the French Quarter underwater! They would probably still be finding beer cans! We drove along the Corniche and stopped on the beach to have a fruit juice in a stall that has been open since the 1950’s – fresh strawberries, oranges, kiwis, and bananas. The view was spectacular, the sun was shining, and the breeze was blowing, it was actually a magic day as we sat out front and watched the Mediterranean Sea.

Next we visited a very old mosque and unfortunately didn’t have our camera with us to catch the moment that we actually paid to rent old hospital gowns to cover our heads so we could enter the women’s section. We had passed it off to our tour guide to take some photos of the main (male) part of the mosque. It is beautiful and the photographs he took were excellent. (Later he told us about his day trip to Syria where he took 950 pictures – I am surprised he ever came back with Kaye’s camera!) I was spoiled in Asia, as when we visited various temples and mosques and forgot our head coverings – there were neat and clean little black scarves that we could rent - here we paid money to use OLD HOSPITAL GOWNS! There was also a section in this mosque where people drop in coins and pray for something in particular. I felt it was similar to “lighting a candle” in the Catholic Church. This was the mosque that felt the most like it was a separate experience for men and women.

Next we saw Pompey’s Pillar which is the lone 30m tall granite pillar remaining out of the original 400. Most were apparently destroyed and the pieces used to block the harbor during an ancient war. This one was too big to break! There are huge round pieces of granite lying around. The original temple is in ruins but was the site of the second library of Alexandria, which at one point held 700,000 papyrus rolls that could be consulted by anyone using the temple. Ancient bookshelves were holes in the walls and the range of size and shapes of these was fascinating. I have to wonder what type of filing system they used.

The Catacombs of Kom Ash-Shuqqafa are some the most spectacular things I have ever seen. I knew they would be amazing but I was not prepared for the beauty, the extent of the carvings and the maze of underground rooms. There is an area that was used as a reception area for the mourners where they could eat and drink. An early example of the wake/viewing (I thought the Irish Catholics came up with this idea!). Our guide had some wonderful stories and knew his Egyptian history. There is an underground area that is closed off behind a tall iron gate (painted green for some reason) that is supposedly where hundreds of Christians were killed at one point and someone paid to have it left in its original condition to memorialize them. There are actually visible bones. The principal tomb is down a few flights of steps and has an antechamber with ornate columns that lead to the inner sanctum. The decoration has an odd mix of ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman funerary – the doorway is flanked by figures that represent an Egyptian God but they are dressed as Roman legionnaires with a serpent’s tail representative of a Greek God. No one knows who is buried here but I think our guide was trying to infer that it was Antony and Cleopatra.

There is a small stone building on the way out that contains most of the tiles found in a tomb beneath a main road in Alexandria. There images were gorgeous and the colors had only faded a bit. The tiles have been cemented to the walls and ceiling to simulate what it looked like in its original state when it was part of an ancient burial tomb. It was beautifully eerie and one of my favorite things. There is an ongoing problem with developing areas and those people trying to save ancient artifacts – some are discovered just before the concrete is poured and it is a problem to remove them quickly enough.

We almost made it through the entire day before I realized who our guide reminded me of – all day I had been trying to put my finger on it - BORAT! As soon as I said it out loud – I don’t think any of us could talk and look at him at the same time. He was an excellent guide, very knowledgeable and obviously a very conservative Muslim. By the end of the day we were falling out of the door of the van and our friend from Cairo would have to help us as this young man would watch but was obviously uncomfortable touching us. He did take our tip though and did manage a smile when in one conversation, I said that if my husband was a practicing Muslim, I would never have had a chance to take a trip like this. This was probably really unfair because I have lots of friends whose husbands would nix the idea of a week in Cairo!

It was an amazing day – it is hard to believe how very young our United States is. I met an Egyptian woman here in Doha who told me that years ago, the Egyptians had money and paid for schools all over the known world but now had no money to pay for their OWN schools. Sound familiar? Her parents still live in Maadi – a suburb of Cairo in a beautiful home but Egypt seems almost stagnant in comparison to other areas of the Middle East. The government keeps a tight rein on things and has managed to stay in power for almost thirty years. I remember vividly the day when Anwar Sadat was assassinated (1981). I am sure there are some Egyptians who rue that day.