Cairo Day 1: Old Cairo and Egyptian Museum

Only a couple days after the tragic journal loss, we went to Cairo.  If the Curse of the Wadi Rum Scorpion could be broken anywhere, it was in Cairo.

OK, we didn't go to Cairo only to break the curse--we had already planned the trip in advance--but the timing was right to shed all that bad luck that had been following us around and regain our good luck, ancient Egyptian style.

Cairo was perhaps the most awesome place I've ever visited.  It is a city of contrasts. The city is dirty, dusty, gritty, polluted, over-populated, impoverished, and crumbling.  But, it is also spectacular, mysterious, moving, beautiful, and magnificent. It's ancient but modern, ugly but beautiful, hectic but mesmerizing.

When we arrived, we quickly checked into our Nile-view rooms in the Ramses Hilton . . .

view of the Nile from our hotel room

. . . and immediately set off to explore the city and see the Egyptian Museum.

On the way, we experienced the absolute craziness of driving and walking in Cairo--which occurs simultaneously in a huge tangled mess. Until I went to Cairo, I thought Amman driving was the craziest ever, but Cairo driving made Amman driving seem like taking a country drive on a Sunday afternoon. There were people everywhere: people riding, people walking, people waiting, people sitting, and people standing. People were beside the cars, between the cars, and all around the cars. The cars don't slow down for the people, and the people don't watch out for the cars. Add in some busses, carts, donkeys, and anything else you can think of, and you get an idea of the tangled mess moving in the streets of Cairo. We didn't see anyone get run over, but that was a miracle, it seemed to me, because the people and cars seemed to be in a constant clash in the streets.

Our first stop was in Coptic Cairo to see three churches, a synagogue, and a mosque. My favorite was Saints Sergius and Bacchus Church, which is built on the spot where Mary and Joseph supposedly hid out with baby Jesus to avoid Herod. I looked down into the 10-meter-deep crypt where Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus are said to have rested when they arrived in Egypt. We next visited the Hanging Church (pictured), and then Saint George Greek Orthodox Church.

Then, we visited Ben Ezra Synagogue, which is at the place where the Pharaoh's daughter supposedly pulled Moses out of the Nile.

Next, we visited Mosque of Amr ibn al-'As, which is the oldest mosque in Africa.  We went on Friday, so there was a lot of activity at the mosque while we were there. Maggie and I had to enter through a special door for women; our guide and Paul and Charlie went in the men's door.  We got to the door, took off our shoes, and we each put on one of the special robes to cover our heads and clothing.

We entered the women's side and went into a large open room, which had some benches scattered here and there mostly near the edges. We stood out like two sore thumbs.  Apart from the bright green robes that said "TOURIST" as clearly as if we had been wearing neon signs on our heads, we also didn't know what we were doing--we didn't know where to go or which way to walk.  We were met by curious looks, smiles, and even some laughs from the women there.  A couple of people said "hello," indicating that they identified us as English speakers. There was one group of women sitting in a group listening to another woman who seemed to be giving a sermon (but, of course, it was in Arabic, so we could not understand what she was saying).  Then throughout the rest of the very large room, women were scattered around either talking in small groups or resting on benches or on the floor.  There were some children playing at one end of the large open room. It seemed like, for the most part, there were just a lot of women taking it easy and enjoying rest and conversation with their friends.

The next stop was The Egyptian Museum. When you see this . . .

. . . you know you are in the right place to see awesome stuff. But, you have to actually go there to see it;  there is a strict NO PHOTOGRAPHY policy in this museum. We had to check our cameras outside and were not even permitted to bring them in.  But, . . . we saw a lot of cell phone cameras inside.

This museum was fabulous.  They have so much ancient Egyptian stuff, they don't have a place to put it all. There were stacks of things here and there.  There were boxes marked for shipping to other museums.  There were lots of things right out in the open where you could touch them and really examine the detail, but other things were locked up tightly in cabinets. Everywhere you looked in the museum, there were amazing artifacts from one of the most fascinating periods in human history.

There is a special mummy room in the museum.  This was the most creepy part of the museum because it had the acutal mummies intact and on display.  Some of them still had hair!  One thing I could not  help but notice was that these folks had extraordinarily long toes. The notes about one of the mummies said she had been obese and had bad teeth.  However, the years have been good to her: she is quite thin now and her teeth were all but covered by her upper lip. Perhaps she's one of those rare individuals that looks better after having been dead for a few thousand years; forget all that plastic surgery, just go for mummification! 

King Tut (actually pronounced "toot") himself was in the basement, so we didn't get to see his actual mummified body.  But, we did get to see all his stuff. There is a special King Tut room with his mask, two of his sarcophagi, and a lot of his jewelry and things. This room, along with the mummy room, were the highlights of the museum for me. We got the not-so-brilliant idea for Paul to take an iPhone picture of King Tut's amazing mask and just as he was raising the iPhone toward the cabinet holding the mask, a guard approached Paul.  Holy smoke!  I thought he was going to be hauled off to Egyptian Museum Jail--which could be kinda cool, actually (maybe it's down there in the basement with King Tut and some of the other too-awesome-to-display mummies).  But, no, he just got a stern talking to and he put away his phone for the rest of the day.  We didn't get any pictures.

Throughout the museum, signs and markers explain about Egypt's relentless efforts to reclaim all of the ancient Egyptian artifacts that have found their way into other countries and are being held by other governments, museums, and even private individuals.  For example, the notes accompanying the mummy of Ramesses II indicated that some of his hair and other objects related to his mummified body had appeared for sale on an internet website in France and had been retrieved (and by "retrieved" I do not mean "purchased") by the Egyptian government from the would-be seller.  So, here's a message to all of you people out there hoping to sell your ancient Egyptian artifacts on e-Bay:  don't even think about it! 

That evening we went on a super-tacky Nile dinner cruise. There was a buffet with marginally edible food and terrible wine. There was even a belly dancer and a roving photographer.  It could have been Las Vegas!

We had a great taxi ride back to the hotel.  As frequently happens, when the taxi driver realized we were American, he started playing American music.  This taxi driver started with some Backstreet Boys and moved on to 50 Cent's "Candy Shop." He cranked the music and sang along. The entertainment in the taxi was much better than the entertainment on the boat!

Stay tuned for Day 2, on which we saw the Great Pyramids.