Sunday, March 8, 2015

A sandstorm in Cairo


I will hopefully catch-up with writing the end of my cycle tour in Rwanda, but for now, I'm on to new adventures. They started with Egypt and are currently in Australia.

I love it when the media blows things out of proportion. While abc is headlining “Epic Sandstorm Suffocates Middle East”, the reality is Cairo never blinked an eye. Now I can’t speak for other affected countries, like Iran, but life could not have been more “normal” in Cairo during the sandstorm. In fact, I’ve been told by several people now that this is to be expected at this time of year. Don’t know who’s right, NASA or people that live here. One thing is for certain, it didn’t stop people from going about their merry way or me from hitting up some tourist spots!

I had a wonderful tour guide the whole day who not only made me feel very safe (not that I hadn’t already felt safe, so perhaps the correct wording here is: maintained my safe sentiments), but he was also very informative, educated and made me laugh the whole day. First, we visited the mighty ATM, luckily the second bank worked. Then, we visited the age-old Citadel in Old Cairo (a.k.a. Coptic Cairo, for it has the largest Coptic Christian population in Egypt). When I say “age-old” I mean it, and it’s the truth for most things around these parts. The Citadel was built by Salah al-Din in 1176 A.D. to ward off the crusaders. Not only is this thing still standing with little wear and tear, but its other half across the street is so strong that it is currently used by Egyptian military as a base. The sad thing is, someone decided to build a highway right through where the Citadel and the current military base used to connect. Too bad there wasn’t enough infrastructure, funding and foresight to build a tunnel under a 900-year old structure built to fortify and has been doing so for, literally, a millennia.  Fascinatingly, Saladin decided that instead of taking from the stone mountain, Mukattam Hill, on the other side of the valley (now the other side of the highway) where workers sought stone to construct the Pyramids in Giza some 10km away, Saladin decided he would deconstruct the smallest of the pyramids during this era and built his fort lego-style with pre-made stone blocks. What a guy. The Mosque of Mohammed Ali was built at the summit of the citadel in the 19th century. It is quite huge and magnificent. You are supposed to be able to see all of Cairo from the mosque, but because of the sandstorm, I could barely see directly below it.


Muhammad Ali mosque in the Citadel. Note the lack of sky due to sand!

A well in the mosque.

Muhammad Ali's tomb.

Intricate detail over the tomb.

Where prayers are called out.

A mosque has to stay clean somehow....especially after all that dust!


The mosque is completely made out of marble.



The view from the Citadel onto Cairo. Usually you can see a lot more!

Salah al-Din's castle in the Citadel.


Muhammad self-admiring.

The fortress.



My tour guide asked if I liked mango juice….do I like mango juice? Ha! What a silly question. He assured me there was no sugar added, no water, nothing, just pure mango. Yes please! My lovely tour guide treated me to the best mango juice ever. It was so fresh and pure that strings of mango kept sliding out of my glass and sticking to my chin. I felt like a little girl eating a candy apple –sticky and elated. We didn’t even have to get out of the car! Drive-through pure mango juice; and they say Canada is civilized….Tim Hortons has nothing on this guy in his wall-less shack on the side of the road selling orange gold (for nothing, might I add).

Next stop was the “Hanging Church”, a Coptic Christian church. They call it the “Hanging Church” because it was built on top of another fort! Apparently not just any fort, but the southern gate of the Roman Fortress: Babylon. There are stairs leading to the fort below as well as cut-outs in the floor with thick glass panes to see right through to the fort. This church was built somewhere between the 3rd and 8th century and is still used by Coptic Christians today. Although there were hoards of screaming children frolicking around on a field trip while I was there, I’m sure the little old ladies who come there to receive a blessing every once in a while find ancient peace somehow. For those of you who do not know (as I did not until watching a 60 minutes episode last year thanks to Mom and Dad, and reading Wikipedia right now), Coptic Christianity is the largest Christian denomination in Egypt and maintained a Christian majority in Egypt even after Muslim conquest during the 6th century. Most notably, I think, is Copts invented monasticism (I.e. Anthony the Great did). Monasteries, cells and caves popped up all around Egypt and people came from the Middle East and other parts of Asia to fulfill their monastic callings, such as forming rules for the Eastern Orthodox Church (Saint Basil the Great) or translating the Bible into latin (Saint Jerome). Small chores really; you could equate them to doing the dishes. Communities formed and monks were then and are now referred to as “Desert Fathers” and nuns “Desert Mothers”.


Babylon fortress.

Ground elevated 6m since Roman times, hence doesn’t look all that “hanging” now.


Lots of art, marble and wood on the inside. The ceilings are said to mimic Noah's arc with wooden arches that look like a ship upside down.

Staircase to the fort.

Occasional glass floor panels to reveal the fort underneath.

Also went to a Greek Coptic church next door.

The Greek church is built on top of the same fort.


My best friend Ashley joined me a couple of days after my arrival and we did some hard-core touristy things for a few days. Rode some camels around the pyramids and sphinx, bought some papyrus paper and Egyptian oils/perfumes and visited the King Tutankhamun mask at the Egyptian museum. Despite resisting, our tour guides insisted we take cheesy photos of us jumping over the pyramids and “squeezing” them with our hands, among others. It was almost an insult to refuse. Funny the expectations tourists have given the locals and vise versa over the decades these historical wonders have been visited by countless people from all over the globe. The stereotypes Westerners give their fellow travelers seems like an endless list of tragedies. I do my best to avoid tainting the white traveler’s name, but this is often out of my control, albeit I do conform to such stereotypes from time to time. Who am I to judge.

Couldn't refuse, I would insult the guide...felt pretty silly. But notice the limestone on the top of the left pyramid. This is the only pyramid with evidence that there was at some point a limestone casing on each pyramid. 
Part of the tourist "fun photo" gimmick. 

Regardless of how touristy the pyramids -as a destination- are, there’s no denying the awe that they bring. They are so ancient and there is so much history, it’s overpowering. The sad thing though is that tourists and locals alike completely disregard any kind of rules. People, including myself and Ash, were climbing the pyramids, you can touch anything you want and there is etched-in graffiti all over tombs and ancient hieroglyphics writings. Apparently the graffiti did not show up until after the revolution in 2011 and enforcing rules to respect ancient relics was more prevalent before the revolution in general. We’re told it’s the younger generation of locals who carve-in the graffiti. It’s true, we only saw these sad etches in Arabic, no English, no German or French, only Arabic. Terrible how a young people can disrespect thousands of years of history so obliviously.

Ash and I on a pyramid.
An ignored sign.

An ignored fence.

I must say, approaching the pyramids by camel was a real experience. It seemed like we were the only ones in the whole of the desert, just Ash, myself, our 15-year-old camel leader and our history guide. The desert is so vast and the dunes high enough that there is barely sign of human existence right up until you approach the pyramids. Even then, all you can see are horses and camels running around at the base of the pyramids. You feel like you’re on some kind of Arabian expedition, like you are one of few who have seen these triangular giants. There is a road when you approach the furthest of the three large pyramids (there are also 6? Or 9? Small pyramids for the queens) to allow easier access for tourists, but this goes unnoticed until the last minute when you are within a few meters of the road.  It took 30 years to build these pyramids. The stone came from Mukattam Hill, where the Coptic cathedral in the cave is and the Garbage City (or Zabbaleen) is. We had the luxury of going to see the pyramids by day and then again during sunset. The sunset tour was rather remarkable as it is technically not allowed for tour companies to take tourists on camels to the pyramids at sunset, so we were the only tourists around at this time. It was Friday night, (their Saturday-like night), so there were lots of locals out on their horses and camels. Lots of the Egyptian men who own horses like to go out there to run their horses fast in the wide open desert. Some people were out in what looked like temporary tents or shelters. Music was playing and people seemed to be enjoying themselves. What a way to spend your Friday night. Watch the sunset by the pyramids with your friends and ride out there on your horse or camel. What a life to lead.


We did our best to assess whether these camels lived happy and healthy lives before supporting this industry. Apart from one or two small cuts, these camels look relatively happy. Of course, they'd rather be free and in the wild...

Cairo in the background.

You can see a road approaching the larger pyramid on the right (King Khufu's pyramid).

Inside one of the pyramid tombs. 

What's called a false door in a tomb to trick thieves.

Hieroglyphics on the wall of a tomb.

Hieroglyphics indicating a voyage down the Nile in a canoe-like boat.

The tomb engineer.

Large hieroglyphics entering a family tomb.

One of many kings.

The detail is remarkable.


The sun setting behind a pyramid.


A crumbling queen's tomb in the foreground of the pharaoh's pyramid.

Where one of the three pharaohs sat, monitored and probably yelled at his slaves as they built his pyramid.

Our fearless leader.

The sphynx -part human to represent intelligence and part lion to represent strength.

Meditation structure in the foreground.



Our rides!

Cairo from our camels.



Apparently I didn't have my scarf on right.

Bedouins.

Such amazing animals.




Again, not my idea.

Patient camels, patient boy.

Nothing like a desert sunset.



The Egyptian museum is an interesting place. There are hundreds of thousands of artifacts and probably 100 written words. You need a guide in order to know what anything is. A lot of the things in the museum are simply of unknown origin. Those who collected these objects clearly know where they were found, but might not know what their purpose was. There is very little in the way of regulating touching anything in the museum. The best kept artifacts are those belonging to King Tut. Nonetheless, you can walk by mummies that are hundreds and thousands of years old nonchalantly and see mummified cheese, fruits, and organs -or what's left of them.

The front door to the Egyptian museum, built around 1900, the only place you can take a picture is outside.
In addition to seeing the pyramids in Giza, we saw the oldest of all the pyramids in Saqqara. This pyramid was designed and executed by the engineer Imhotep (sound familiar? If you've watched any of the Mummy movies, you will recognize that Imhotep was the mummy that came back to life). The Imhotep museum was actually more impressive than the Egyptian museum in Cairo in that it was far more organized, well kept (helps that it is a much newer building) and more informative.

Entrance way to Imhotep's pyramid.

The oldest pyramid in the world. Not nearly as large as those in Giza.


The city of Cairo in the background.

A meditation structure to pray for the sun.

A lot of ancient rubble you can just walk on.


A secret tunnel to enter the tomb.

Complete with stairs.

Ash made a friend. Note the Giza pyramids in the background.

A series of tombs.

King Una's Dynasty.

Sometimes there was colour in the carvings, but no one really knows what the ancient Egyptians used as pigment.

Someone reading out a scroll.


A boat on the Nile showing plenty of fish to be caught.

Another false door.

Note the blue and greens in this carving, rare to see these colours.

Entrance to some of the tombs are covered by sand.


We also went to the “Garbage City” to see the Coptic Cathedral built into a cave; a very fascinating place and the largest church in the middle east, seating 15,000 people (10,000 every Thursday night). About 70, 000 locals live in this village, a.k.a. Zabballeen, at the base of Mukattam Hill, where their main source of income is collecting garbage and turning it into something new. The locals recycle anything they can and use it themselves or sell it. The church is impressive in size and architecture. There are several smaller churches in smaller caves in the area that have different purposes, for example one is more enclosed and, therefore, used when it is raining outside. The church was designed by a Polish-Egyptian architect who was clearly very passionate about the project. After the community came together and cleaned out the historic cave (said to be where a minister was spoken to by God to teach the holy word), which took 16 years, the cave was further excavated to make bigger. The architect had many holy images carved into the cave and surrounding walls. The Zabballeen people needed a place to practice their faith since they were ordered to move to the Garbage City from Cairo by the government back in 1969 and had no where to worship.

Typical street in Garbage City.

Garbage stacked on the side of each street.

Stacked garbage.

Transporting the garbage in any way they can, even if it means over-loading a truck.

Sometimes the garbage isn't stacked so nicely.

No matter where you are it seems Egyptians find a way to make their homes look colourful. I always found that there were colourful aunings, laundry or decorations on balconies and walls.


Their vehicles are pretty colourful too.

The first of many carvings in the rock outside the Coptic Cathedral.

Some of the carvings were pretty large.

The chapel at the entrance of the cave cathedral.

There seems to be little blank space on the rock walls.




Seating 15,000 people.


A painting showing Mukattam hill miraculously moving.




Carving of the Virgin Mary on the ceiling of the cave.

Saint Simon the Tanner with one eye. It is said that he misinterpreted Matthew 5:28,29: "But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell."

Saint Simon's relics.

The top of the cave.

A screen is used to project the mass ceremony to the 10,000 attendants every Thursday.

Garbage city from the Cathedral.

Coptic Christian Pope.

The chapel at the cathedral entrance.







It was apparently popular to get a religious tattoo in the scariest tattoo parlour I've ever seen, but conveniently directly across from the cathedral doors!

Entrance to one of the other cave churches.

Ceiling of the long entrance.

Tile art.

A nice alternative for rainy days.

The movement of Mokattam Hill.




Apparently a biblical passage blew up from a pile of garbage onto a minister's shoulder that encouraged him to built the cathedral in this cave.



A pillar supporting part of the cave.

Some Sunday School performances are held here.


Ashley and I went to the infamous Khan el-Khalili market, a large collection of souks in Islamic Cairo. Unfortunately, our tour guides marketed this place as the “New International Khan Khalili market”, but really this means that half is Made in China and the other half is authentically made in Egypt by Egyptians….or so I was told by a random local. It’s hard to know what the market really is and where things are from because it’s hard to know who to trust. The first day I went to the market I didn’t even know there was a section across the highway that had authentic Egyptian merchandise. Unfortunately, the second day I went to Khan Khalili, was a Sunday, the first day of the week and a rest day for shop owners/workers. The Egyptian side had very few shops open, but the Chinese side was still just as bustling as the day before. I didn’t see a single tourist on the Egyptian side, whereas I saw more white people on the Chinese side of the market than I had the entire 6 days in Egypt. Some merchants on the Chinese side claim their products are not Chinese made (like the lamp guy I bought a hanging candle holder from), but there’s no guarantee. I would love to be able to know what is from where and who to believe. I think this would take some time. Wikipedia is an OK source for the history of the Khan Khalili site, but says nothing about what is being sold. I’m not sure what would be a reliable source for this sort of information at this point in time. Entering the Egyptian side of the market, you walk through giant, spectacular gates.  It’s truly remarkable that a place with such rich and ancient history is so simply a place of buying and selling, and in the case of the Chinese side, a tourist attraction. The buildings themselves are beautiful, with intricate detail, something you would never find in the “Western World”, and if you did, it certainly wouldn’t be integrated into the local community as it is in Khan Khalili. It would likely be locked up and made into a museum, something that would benefit a handful of folks. I met a local who had grown up on the Egyptian side of the market and new the history of every building. He showed me where Muhammed Ali (the same one who built the mosque in the Citadel, see above) was hung on “Blood Street”. This local man makes jewelry boxes and portable game boards made of precious stones, metals and camel bone. He showed me his factory, a hole in the wall, behind doors only the suicidally curious would open without knowing what was behind them first. The conditions under which him and his friends work in would of course never be heard of in the privileged world, but this is how he provides for his family because, since the Revolution in 2011, he cannot find a government job teaching English –what he studied to do. I could not buy any of his products because I was running out of room in my bags and I had to buy another carry-on bag as it was. I did, however, buy some spices from the oldest spice market in Egypt (perhaps the world?) and shamelessly went back to the Chinese side as I was curious to see what it was like on a Sunday. As I said, just as busy as the day before. There is a bookstore on the Chinese side that claims to have been leaders in binding books for the past 70 years and claim that they are authentically Egyptian. Looking at the website, I must say I have to believe them: http://www.hussamabdelzaher.com/. So, this is what I’m trying to portray, that it is difficult to know what really exists in this market. This bookstore seems more authentic than anything, yet it is located on the side of the market that seems to be saturated with Chinese-made items. I most certainly want to go back to the Khan el-Khalili market and find out where things come from. It is a wonderful place to walk around, so visually stimulating. So colourful, lots of things to look at that you will likely not see anywhere else in the world (unless, I suppose, you wonder into a Chinese sweat-shop). You can wind in and out of narrow alley ways, find random mosques (that you can step into even if you’re a woman, as long as you cover your head), or find yourself in large open squares. No matter where you are in this large market, you are walking through ancient history.

Mystery spices and seeds that I recognize from South and Central America on the Chinese side of the Khan Khalili market.





An archway leading to a mysterious door in the Khan Khalili market.


A fish stand at the market.




Hookah pipes.

The market sign on the Chinese side.

Inside a mosque on the Chinese side. 

You must cover your head and take off your shoes to enter a mosque.

The Egyptian side of the Khan el-Khalili market on a Monday.

The entrance way to the Egyptian side of the market.

An old Turkish bath on the Egyptian side of the market.

A medieval gate built around the 11th century that used to be guarded by Berber warriors from the western desert. It is the southern gates built as part of the second wall built around Cairo. A historic event occurred between the Mamluks and the Mongols here in the 13th century. 

The street in which the jewelry box maker's factory was.

Spices on the Chinese side.


You would think these are the real meal deal from Egypt, but it's hard to say.

Part of an open square on the Chinese side of the Khan Khalili market.

Pretty lanterns on the Chinese side of the market.

Henna for 20 Egyptian pounds (less than 3 USD).

Look closely and you'll see a goat being skinned on the streets of the Khan el-Khalili market.



I also visited the Al-Azhar park, which is a very peaceful place full of locals taking a nice walk and many wedding photos being taken there. It seems to be a popular place for young people to hang out and also for music to be sung. The views of Cairo are pretty amazing from here as well. It was Valentines Day when I visited the park, so I may not have gotten an idea of what the population is like usually, but it was a pretty spectacular park to be in the middle of such a crazy urban place.

Many points of view in Al-Azhar park:






The Citadel in the background.




Just some goats on a roof.

Valentines enjoying the view.

"The city of the dead" in the background.


Young people playing.


You can see the Giza pyramids far in the distance behind the two sky scrapers.






I had probably the most interesting journey to the airport I have ever had when traveling from Cairo to Doha on Qatar airways. I have been on hundreds of airplanes and never have I ever been so flustered on my way to catch a flight. First it started with my driver not showing up –the first time this had happened the entire time I was in Cairo, this lead to much stress as we crawled through typical and expected Cairo traffic for about an hour and 15 minutes. By the time we got to the airport I had only an hour and 20 minutes before my flight took off. This is not a lot of time when you have a huge bicycle and a giant backpack, but it is especially not a long time when your taxi drives into the parking lot instead of the drop-off and drives around in circles for a little while. By the time I reach the airport doors, I had about an hour until my flight took off. Then, something that I have never seen before appeared before my eyes: a giant crowd of people outside the airport doors, trying to get in. Picture this if you can: one white girl, a hundred arabs, one 1.3 meter wide bike box. It was not pretty. I might have been overwhelmed had I not had experience with large foreign crowds thanks to my childhood. I wiggled my way through the crowd and into the shorter “line” where people were going through security. By the time it was my turn to go through security the guards told me I was in the wrong line, that Qatar airways is the huge line and I would have to go back outside. No way Jose! I begged and pleaded and for some reason because they were letting me in the “wrong” doors, this meant I didn’t have to put my luggage on the x-ray belt nor walk through the magical archway…I’m used to this kind of logic and, in this case, the logic worked in my favour. So I weaved inch by inch arooouuund the security machines running into restrictive doorways here and there, taking my bike off the trolley, putting it back on, etc. It took me probably 5 whole minutes just to get across a distance of maybe 5 meters. Once I got inside the airport, I knew I had to veer left to get to Qatar Airways check-in counter (yup, still haven’t checked-in, it’s now less than an hour until my flight leaves), which meant another security area. The guards told me the same thing, to go back outside and get in the other line. I don’t think so. I begged and I pleaded while throwing my bike and bags onto the x-ray belt, so there wasn’t much choice. (Being a lone white female really pays off in these situations I think). I finally squeezed my way through there. Once speeding around several corners with my overloaded trolley I reached the check-in counter. No line, but who needs one when one employee can deal with several family’s problems at once. No worries, or “Mafi mushkila” as they say in Arabic. I ask the man helping me, “Am I going to make my flight?” “No worries, no worries.” Typical response. After about half an hour of looking at me, looking at my bags, looking at how much they weigh, consulting everyone working that day, making a few phone calls, looking at me again, looking at my bags again, consulting some more dudes, looking at me again, they finally decided that my bags were A-Okay, they were going to put them on the plane and I wasn’t going to get charged extra for them (I think another product of the magical white girl power). Shukrun! Thank you! I proceed to run to the next step: passport check. With only 30 minutes until my flight leaves, I am really not interested in yet another massive line-up, but such is life in a country of 90 million not including visitors. So I wait again for at least 10 minutes, spend another few minutes in the post-passport check line (What the ****) only to look at the next line to the gates and decide that I wasn’t going to make it. The line was so long you couldn’t see where it began and where it ended. Thankfully there were some whities in the line, so I asked if they knew what the line was for. They didn’t know, but they were going to Dubai. Fantastic! I’m not going to Dubai, I’m going to Doha! So I wiggle my way in and out of this line to find the front of it and discover a totally different and much shorter line to my gate. Thank goodness! I pass this last security nonsense (I don’t know what the point of going through four security areas was when I beeped every time I went through those magical arches, probably because I’m wearing safety boots, they never asked me to remove my laptop and there’s no way they took a proper look at all the other electronics I had in my bags) and then, there was just one more thing: a bus. Of course this bus was full and I had to wait until the next one came. At least at this point I was pretty sure all the people around me waiting for the next bus to leave were on my same flight, so if it took off, then Qatar Airways was going to get a mouthful from a lot of people. The bus did not lead us astray, we got to the airplane and it felt like seconds after I sat down that we started on our way. Something in the powers that be wanted me to make that flight. I have no idea how I made it. It was damn near a miracle. Missing the first in a series of three flights is never good, so I was extremely grateful to be sitting on that plane. However, I was going to miss Egypt. I was only there a total of 6 days, but it left a great impression on me. I'll be back!

I started with pointing a figure at bad media and I’ll end on the same note. Despite the only news we’re hearing on the other side of the world about Cairo, I could not have felt safer. Oh yeah, did I mention my hostel was a block or two from Tahirir square? Drove/walked through the infamous danger area several times, life seems to be going on as usual, perhaps with a couple of extra tanks, but such is life in the Middle East and I think a few other places in the world. GO TO EGYPT! Don't let the media fool you!


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