Egypt - Cairo

A few days after Christmas, we set off for our latest adventure...to Egypt. While Belize earlier this year was a relaxing, lay-by-the-pool kind of vacation, Egypt promised to be a couple weeks of true "travel" (i.e., maybe not so relaxing, but a lot more exciting). Intrigued by the country's history, culture and of course many famous landmarks, we thought this destination would also be the perfect place to celebrate our second anniversary.

We arrived to Cairo late in the evening on December 29, after 22 hours of grueling flights and layovers. We caught a taxi to our hotel and while the city was still abuzz outside, we decided to have a quite beer (hotels being one of the few places you can buy a beer since this is a Muslim country) and retire early. A couple things we observed before even leaving our room: 1. The city of Cairo only "sleeps" from 3-5 am (when the incessant honking from the streets quiets just slightly), 2. The 5:30 am call to prayer to begin the new day is both a wake-up call, and yet also calming and an admirably spiritual part of this country. So it was at 6AM on December 30th that we crawled out of bed to begin our exploration.

We spent three full days in Cairo...

Day One

We focused on getting our bearings and exploring the city. We started our day in one of the oldest parts of Cairo, where there are remnants of the Babylon pillars and narrow alleyways that lead through the old Coptic Christian neighborhood. We visited a famous Coptic Christian church and had lunch at a small cafe that serves the traditional noodle/rice dish called Kushari (one of my favorites). We then wandered to the site of the first mosque in Cairo and I was asked to wear a funny looking green hooded cape (to cover my hair) while wandering around the place of worship. During the afternoon, we took the metro back towards downtown and a taxi to the Khan el Khalili souk (market) and got lost in the myriad alleyways and streets filled with spices, textiles, perfumes, jewelry, and tourist treasures. Deep inside the bazaar we found Fishawi's Coffee House - one of the oldest in Cairo

serving Turkish coffee, mint tea, and shisha...Eric was in heaven.

We walked back to our hotel on the busy main streets and found a delicious fast food place with excellent beef kebabs for dinner. We completed our evening with a visit to the top floor of an old hotel that has a small cafe on the roof where you can sip fresh fruit juice and tea while taking in the city lights and constant chaos of the streets below.

Day Two - New Year's Eve

Today we ventured out of town about an hour south to visit the sites of the first and last pyramids built at Saqqara and Darshur (not to be confused with the most magnificent and famous pyramids at Giza). We hired a driver from our hotel who took us around all day - with stops of course at the carpet and papyrus factories in hopes of getting

a commission (little did he know we were not the buying type)...though it was interesting to hear the "free" tutorial on each. The museum and pyramids at Saqqara were very interesting - especially since these were the first ancient sites we visited. The credited "father of architecture" Imhotep (the royal architect of the Pharaoh Djoser) built the first pyramid, which was a step pyramid. Originally, it wasn't meant to be a pyramid at all, but since king Djoser lived so long they kept adding levels until it became what it is today. Pharaohs following Djoser improved on the art of pyramid building with the pyramids at Giza being the height of perfection. It's worth noting that pyramids were only used as tombs during the Old Kingdom - third millennium BC - later kings used more nondescript tombs to avoid tomb robbers. Eric and I spent a couple hours wandering around the burial complexes at Saqqara and had a self-proclaimed guide show us through some of the tombs and explain the wall carvings and hieroglyphics (for baksheesh - a tip - of course).

After Saqqara, we made a quick stop at the first capital of Egypt called Memphis. While this city was probably grand in its day, it's more of a village now hosting only a small museum. For our last stop of the day, we visited pyramids built later in the Old Kingdom

at Darshur. The highlight of this site was being able to climb down deep into the center of Pharoah Snofru's Red Pyramid to visit the burial chambers (which are now empty). It was pretty awesome - and a bit eerie - to be standing in an open room in the center of the pyramid...even if it did smell of musty urine. I had to wonder how they got all those treasures into that thing considering the passageway down was incredibly steep, very long, dark and so small you had to crouch the entire way down. Where there is a will, there is a way.

After returning from our day trip, we met up with our travel group at 6PM to begin our Intrepid Travel tour through Egypt. There were 14 of us in total, plus our tour leader, Ahmed Soltan. There were several Aussies, a few Kiwis, a couple Canadians, an Austrian and four of us Americans. It turned out to be a great group and we made some friends we are sure we'll keep in touch with. Our 15-day itinerary (which you will be hearing all about) would take us to Cairo, south to Aswan, down the Nile, to Luxor and the Valley of the Kings, through the Western Desert, to Siwa Oasis, up through Alexandria and back to Cairo. We were ready for a jam-packed couple weeks.

Day Three - New Year's Day...and our 2nd Anniversary

What better way to celebrate two years of marriage than at the pyramids of Giza? :) We got an early start and drove across the bridge to the West bank of the Nile and the outskirts of the city of Giza. There sits the Great Pyramid of Giza (belonging to the Pharaoh Khufu) along with a number of other impressive pyramids belonging to his son, grandson, and their wives. Not to mention the Sphinx of course. We spent the morning roaming the site and marveling at the history and ancient construction of these near-perfect structures. There they have stood for more than 4,000 years...despite earthquakes, sand storms and tomb robbers. Truly breathtaking.

We spent the second half the day at the Egyptian museum where there are thousands of relics - statues, mummies, coffins, jewelry, and all sorts of other treasures. There is almost an entire floor dedicated to what they found in King Tut's tomb - the only intact tomb ever discovered. We had been to the traveling King Tut exhibit in San Francisco just a few days before we left and let's just say that it didn't come close to the grandeur of the King Tut display at the actual Egyptian Museum. It's amazing that so many of the relics of ancient Egypt still exist and have been so well preserved through the ages. It certainly was a mighty and long-lived civilization - and one that's customs, art, science, lifestyle and religion has shaped our current day more than one can imagine.

The only downside to the day was that Eric was battling a stomach bug he most likely picked up from some of the food...so he unfortunately didn't enjoy it as much as he would have liked. But he was a trooper and made it through the day. That night, we boarded an overnight train to Aswan in the south of Egypt. Luckily, he was able to sneak in a few hour nap to recover from the day before we endured 13 hours on the train (without a sleeping cabin).

Stay tuned for more soon...