Unbeknownst to most everyone, save a few people whose advice I sought on the matter, right after leaving Morocco I flew to Cairo for a whirlwind two-day Egyptian adventure. My family (love you!) had gone on a letter (well, e-mail) writing campaign begging me not to go to Egypt as a result of the continuing political instability there so I decided to just get in and out as quickly as I could hopefully without anyone at home noticing I was there. In order to accomplish this, I needed to turn the location tracking off on my Google Latitude app (the way my dad is able to stalk me), which would turn out to later backfire on me.
I arrived at the airport in Cairo on the late afternoon of Tuesday, March 13th, and was picked up for free by a driver arranged by the hostel where I was staying. Apparently one way that they are trying to lure tourists back to the city is by assuring them they will be as safe and secure as possible. Once I had checked into the hostel, in an apparently famous old building where a book/movie about Cairo was set, I went to a packed “fast food” restaurant recommended by the guys at the hostel where I tried a traditional Egyptian dish called kushari. It's made of rice, lentils, chickpeas, macaroni and a topping of fried onions. In spite of the harried atmosphere of the restaurant with waiters rushing around to serve the multitude of customers, the food was delicious.
After dinner, I got in touch with the cousin of my former co-worker, Sarah, who is working in Cairo at one of the English language newspapers. Jake met me at my hostel and we walked together to a local alleyway coffee shop where we met two of his friends who are also ex-pats. We drank tea and shared a mint-flavored shisha pipe while they told stories about living in Egypt amidst the current political climate. Everyone besides me had to work in the morning so we called it an early night and Jake walked me back to the hostel before heading home himself.
In the morning, I had arranged through my hostel for the same driver who picked me up at the airport to bring me to Giza for the day to see the Pyramids. First, he made me stop at a papyrus store to learn about the ancient art of paper-making and hopefully spend lots and lots of money. Normally I get pretty annoyed by these schemes, but I actually broke down and bought a few things this time since I felt really bad about the sad state of the tourism industry in Egypt at the present time. Our next stop was Giza, where I again got roped into booking a horseback tour with a Bedouin guide, though I do feel like I got a decent deal since I was initially practically insistent on walking into the site on my own accord. Given what was to come, I was pretty glad in the end that I actually had the guide.
If you’ve never heard or read a description of Giza before, then you may not know that in the present day, the three Great Pyramids and Sphinx are located in an expanse of sand right beside a bunch of shops and restaurants just outside the city. It’s a very strange juxtaposition between the ancient and the modern. I think that under normal circumstances, the whole experience has the potential to take on a circus atmosphere, but since there are currently so few people traveling in Egypt, I fortunately didn’t feel overwhelmed by a huge mass of tourists. There were certainly other people there, but I’m sure it was a fraction of what it was before the revolution.
We entered the park initially from the far side and made our way past the site where they are currently excavating a number of the workers’ tombs. We had a great overview there of all three Pyramids lined up in a row. I got to gallop a bit on my horse and then my guide took some cheesy photos of me in various ridiculous poses before we got up close to the ancient tombs. It was really cool to be able to walk right up to the structures and touch the massive stones that were used to construct them. You had to pay extra to actually go inside any of the Pyramids and since my guide told me that they were basically just empty caverns from which everything had been removed, I decided to skip that experience. Instead, we headed over to the Sphinx where you are actually allowed to go into the temple that surrounds the mythical being.
My primary first impression of the Sphinx was that it was a lot smaller than I expected it to be. I think I had actually heard that somewhere, but it was still a bit of a shock. After the immensity of the Pyramids, one expects the infamous "half man, half beast" to follow suit. All the same, it was still really amazing to view this famous icon whose image is plastered everywhere, up close in person for the first time. My guide couldn’t join me inside so he waited with the horses while I walked around the temple for a bit. Then after I came back out and was shooting some video of the Sphinx from the gate out front, a woman approached me and started to tell me that I needed a permit for the filming. I shut off my camera immediately and started walking away back toward my guide. He told me to get on the horse as quickly as I could so we could get out of there before as soon as possible. Before we were able to get away, however, the woman reached us, followed by several other people who started to give me a bit of a hard time. I guess my little ole' camcorder looked a tad too professional with the microphone attached on top. Though I kept insisting I was a tourist just filming video for my friends and family, they didn’t seem to buy it. My guide argued with them in Arabic for a bit and they finally, rather reluctantly, let us go. We headed straight for the exit and even though I kept telling my guide that I really wasn’t using the video for professional purposes, I’m not entirely sure that even he believed me since I had told him previously that I worked in television. All the same, I’m really glad I had him there to help me get out of that close scrape.
As that basically signaled the end to my tour of Giza, I left with my driver to go to one of the step pyramids nearby on the way back to Cairo. As we drove, he made me stop at another shop where they were hawking essential oils and perfumes from lotus flowers and other native plants where this time I held strong and absolutely refused to buy anything that I truly didn't want or need. It cost money to get inside the site of the step pyramid so I just had the driver get as close as he could to the entrance and then took a few pictures before he brought me back to the city.
When we arrived back in Cairo, I had a few hours to kill before I had to meet up with Jake whose apartment I had made arrangements to stay at for the night. On the way back from Giza, my driver had driven over a bridge that crossed the Nile River before going through Tahrir Square so I decided to walk back there to check out the river once he dropped me off. At first I was a bit nervous to walk through the square, but the only thing that seemed to be out of the ordinary was a group of tents still set up with people camped out in the center of the circle. Instead of walking right through the tent camp, I just went around the outside of the plaza, walked halfway across the bridge and then went back through the square toward my hostel. Jake later told me that the bridge was the site where the protestors had finally managed to push the army out of the area and claim control of the square. The people still maintain control and as a result you don’t see any police officers patrolling the area.
In the evening, I took the subway over to Jake’s apartment, arriving rather late as I got a bit lost trying to find the place. When I got there, I checked my e-mail and found out that since my parents had noticed my Google Latitude app was disabled, they suspected that I was in Egypt. I called them and confessed, but luckily they weren't too upset when they found out I was staying with the relative of a friend. After talking to my parents, Jake and I went to a bar where we met up with many of his European and American ex-pat friends who are currently living and working in Cairo. It was quite interesting hearing their stories since a few of them were actually there when the revolution began nearly a year and a half ago. One British girl who works for an NGO that helps resettle refugees said that she was basically locked in her apartment near Tahrir Square the night the protests broke out and couldn’t leave, even to go to work, for about a month after everything started. She said that nothing really bad had happened to her, but that there were a few times when she and her roommate had had to run in the opposite direction when violence started to break out around them. After leaving the bar, we went back to an apartment where some of the girls lived and I stayed up far too late given my big plans for the following day.
On Thursday morning, I was supposed to meet up with my American friend Justin, who I'd met in Israel. He had just arrived in Cairo from Dahab where he'd been diving for few days. He was staying at the same hostel where I had been the night before so I took the subway back there to meet him. I went out a different exit from the one I had entered the day before, so at first I had no idea where I was. Right outside, two guys appeared to be arguing and then one started throwing rocks at the other. I didn’t know if the situation was going to escalate so I wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible, but had no idea which direction to walk. Luckily, I saw a few police officers and they were able to direct me where to go on my map.
Justin and I first took the subway to Old Cairo where we walked around the Coptic Christian area and went into a few churches, including the Hanging Church, before walking past what is apparently the oldest mosque in Africa. We then caught a cab to the Citadel, which is an old fortress on a hill that overlooks the city of Cairo with the view stretching as far away as the Pyramids in Giza. It contains a large mosque as well as several other old buildings that now contain the city’s police and military museums. We walked around the mosque and then went over to the military museum where we walked around the outside, but didn’t really have time to go in as we planned to spend the better part of the afternoon at the Egyptian Museum.
We thought the museum closed at 5:00pm, so given our time constraints, we hopped in a cab to bring us back to the neighborhood right near Tahrir Square. It turned out that the museum didn’t close until 7:00pm so we had a bit more time than expected, though I did have a flight to catch at about 11:00pm that night. Our top priority was the King Tut artifacts, but since we couldn’t find those on the map we decided to just make our way through the first floor and then up to the second floor, figuring we would find our way eventually. We walked past thousands of mummies, hieroglyphs, statues and other ancient artifacts before finally coming to the King Tut exhibit on the second floor, after circumnavigating the entire rest of the massive museum. Justin had told me the last time he was in Egypt about seven years ago, there was a line to get into the room where the artifacts are displayed. However, once again there was an advantage to being there at a time when many tourists have been scared away. We were able to walk in freely and stand for as long as we wanted staring at the golden death mask, jewelry, scepter and two inner coffins. I have to say that the iconic death mask was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. Even more so than the Pyramids or the Sphinx, any photographs that you see of it can absolutely not do it justice. It was definitely worth trip to go see it in person. Unfortunately, you are not allowed to take pictures inside the museum so you'll just have to take my word for it.
After leaving the museum, Justin and I stopped to have a bowl of kushari for dinner and then went back to the hostel to use the internet before heading over to Jake’s apartment to pick up my bags. Justin didn’t have anything better to do that evening so he decided to tag along. I got my things and then Jake invited Justin along to meet up with some of his friends before they hailed me a cab to get to the airport. I was running a bit late, but still figured I would get to the airport with at least an hour and a half to spare.
That’s when all my problems began. I no longer had the confirmation e-mail for my flight stored on my phone and hadn’t bothered to print it out either. All I knew was that it was a Gulf Air flight that left at around 11:00pm for Bahrain where I had a layover before catching a flight to Nairobi. I didn’t know the terminal number, flight number or any other pertinent information. Usually this would not be that huge of an issue, but in this case it was. The three terminals at the Cairo Airport are nowhere near each other so you really have to know where you’re going before you actually get there.
As we approached the airport, the driver asked me which terminal I needed, but since I had no idea I just kept saying I had a Gulf Air flight to Bahrain. The driver stopped every two minutes to ask every security guard and official he could find where to catch the Gulf Air flight to Bahrain. No one seemed to have ever heard of Gulf Air, nonetheless the Middle Eastern country of Bahrain. After driving around the airport for about half an hour, it was nearing 10:00pm--or just about an hour before my departure. Overtired and exhausted, I started to get hysterical and point at my watch, crying that I was going to miss my flight. I was still hysterical and panicky when the driver dropped me off at Terminal 3 where some very understanding porters tried to help me figure out where I needed to be. As a saving grace there was wifi inside the building so I was able to pull up my e-mail to discover that I was actually on a Gulf Air flight operated by Egyptian Air, leaving from Terminal 1.
Terminal 1 is nowhere near Terminal 3 and the shuttle bus would have taken forever so I ended up having to pay an obscene amount of money to take a cab to Terminal 1. I tried to offer the porter who piled my sobbing self into the cab a tip, but he graciously refused to take my money. Once I got to Terminal 1, still balling my eyes out, I couldn’t figure out where I was supposed to check in and breathlessly queried some wide-eyed officials who looked at me with expressions of utter shock and disbelief. I finally realized I had to go through security first, so with only 50 minutes to go before my flight departed, I put all my bags through the x-ray machine only to realize I had no idea where my camera was. Fearing it had fallen out of my bag in the machine, I asked them to check the monitor. They put my bag through again, claiming they could see it buried in the bottom of the backpack. I initially felt relieved, but later realized they were referring to a different camera and that the one I needed was probably left behind in the first cab I had first gotten out of at Terminal 3.
Disheveled and cried out, I dragged myself to the check-in counter where miraculously they me gave me my boarding pass with just 45 minutes to spare. I raced to the gate (though not before the check-in agent raced after me to confirm that my bag actually needed to go all the way to Nairobi and not just Bahrain--I had neglected to mention my final destination at check-in) and as I was going through another security check, I stuck my hand in my pocket only to discover my previously-given-up-for-lost camera. So basically all that anguish and teeth-gnashing was for nothing as I not only made the flight, but made it with my camera fully intact.
I flew first to Bahrain where we arrived at about 2:00am and I thus had to camp out until my next flight, which didn’t leave until after 11:00am. It was definitely not the most comfortable night's sleep since all the seats had armrests between them making it difficult to lie down flat and I just couldn’t bring myself to lie down on the floor. Also, even though I put an eye mask on to block out the light in the waiting area, there were boarding announcements going on all night long. By the time I finally arrived in Nairobi the next afternoon, I was definitely ready for a good night’s rest.
In the morning, I had arranged through my hostel for the same driver who picked me up at the airport to bring me to Giza for the day to see the Pyramids. First, he made me stop at a papyrus store to learn about the ancient art of paper-making and hopefully spend lots and lots of money. Normally I get pretty annoyed by these schemes, but I actually broke down and bought a few things this time since I felt really bad about the sad state of the tourism industry in Egypt at the present time. Our next stop was Giza, where I again got roped into booking a horseback tour with a Bedouin guide, though I do feel like I got a decent deal since I was initially practically insistent on walking into the site on my own accord. Given what was to come, I was pretty glad in the end that I actually had the guide.
We entered the park initially from the far side and made our way past the site where they are currently excavating a number of the workers’ tombs. We had a great overview there of all three Pyramids lined up in a row. I got to gallop a bit on my horse and then my guide took some cheesy photos of me in various ridiculous poses before we got up close to the ancient tombs. It was really cool to be able to walk right up to the structures and touch the massive stones that were used to construct them. You had to pay extra to actually go inside any of the Pyramids and since my guide told me that they were basically just empty caverns from which everything had been removed, I decided to skip that experience. Instead, we headed over to the Sphinx where you are actually allowed to go into the temple that surrounds the mythical being.
My primary first impression of the Sphinx was that it was a lot smaller than I expected it to be. I think I had actually heard that somewhere, but it was still a bit of a shock. After the immensity of the Pyramids, one expects the infamous "half man, half beast" to follow suit. All the same, it was still really amazing to view this famous icon whose image is plastered everywhere, up close in person for the first time. My guide couldn’t join me inside so he waited with the horses while I walked around the temple for a bit. Then after I came back out and was shooting some video of the Sphinx from the gate out front, a woman approached me and started to tell me that I needed a permit for the filming. I shut off my camera immediately and started walking away back toward my guide. He told me to get on the horse as quickly as I could so we could get out of there before as soon as possible. Before we were able to get away, however, the woman reached us, followed by several other people who started to give me a bit of a hard time. I guess my little ole' camcorder looked a tad too professional with the microphone attached on top. Though I kept insisting I was a tourist just filming video for my friends and family, they didn’t seem to buy it. My guide argued with them in Arabic for a bit and they finally, rather reluctantly, let us go. We headed straight for the exit and even though I kept telling my guide that I really wasn’t using the video for professional purposes, I’m not entirely sure that even he believed me since I had told him previously that I worked in television. All the same, I’m really glad I had him there to help me get out of that close scrape.
When we arrived back in Cairo, I had a few hours to kill before I had to meet up with Jake whose apartment I had made arrangements to stay at for the night. On the way back from Giza, my driver had driven over a bridge that crossed the Nile River before going through Tahrir Square so I decided to walk back there to check out the river once he dropped me off. At first I was a bit nervous to walk through the square, but the only thing that seemed to be out of the ordinary was a group of tents still set up with people camped out in the center of the circle. Instead of walking right through the tent camp, I just went around the outside of the plaza, walked halfway across the bridge and then went back through the square toward my hostel. Jake later told me that the bridge was the site where the protestors had finally managed to push the army out of the area and claim control of the square. The people still maintain control and as a result you don’t see any police officers patrolling the area.
In the evening, I took the subway over to Jake’s apartment, arriving rather late as I got a bit lost trying to find the place. When I got there, I checked my e-mail and found out that since my parents had noticed my Google Latitude app was disabled, they suspected that I was in Egypt. I called them and confessed, but luckily they weren't too upset when they found out I was staying with the relative of a friend. After talking to my parents, Jake and I went to a bar where we met up with many of his European and American ex-pat friends who are currently living and working in Cairo. It was quite interesting hearing their stories since a few of them were actually there when the revolution began nearly a year and a half ago. One British girl who works for an NGO that helps resettle refugees said that she was basically locked in her apartment near Tahrir Square the night the protests broke out and couldn’t leave, even to go to work, for about a month after everything started. She said that nothing really bad had happened to her, but that there were a few times when she and her roommate had had to run in the opposite direction when violence started to break out around them. After leaving the bar, we went back to an apartment where some of the girls lived and I stayed up far too late given my big plans for the following day.
We thought the museum closed at 5:00pm, so given our time constraints, we hopped in a cab to bring us back to the neighborhood right near Tahrir Square. It turned out that the museum didn’t close until 7:00pm so we had a bit more time than expected, though I did have a flight to catch at about 11:00pm that night. Our top priority was the King Tut artifacts, but since we couldn’t find those on the map we decided to just make our way through the first floor and then up to the second floor, figuring we would find our way eventually. We walked past thousands of mummies, hieroglyphs, statues and other ancient artifacts before finally coming to the King Tut exhibit on the second floor, after circumnavigating the entire rest of the massive museum. Justin had told me the last time he was in Egypt about seven years ago, there was a line to get into the room where the artifacts are displayed. However, once again there was an advantage to being there at a time when many tourists have been scared away. We were able to walk in freely and stand for as long as we wanted staring at the golden death mask, jewelry, scepter and two inner coffins. I have to say that the iconic death mask was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. Even more so than the Pyramids or the Sphinx, any photographs that you see of it can absolutely not do it justice. It was definitely worth trip to go see it in person. Unfortunately, you are not allowed to take pictures inside the museum so you'll just have to take my word for it.
After leaving the museum, Justin and I stopped to have a bowl of kushari for dinner and then went back to the hostel to use the internet before heading over to Jake’s apartment to pick up my bags. Justin didn’t have anything better to do that evening so he decided to tag along. I got my things and then Jake invited Justin along to meet up with some of his friends before they hailed me a cab to get to the airport. I was running a bit late, but still figured I would get to the airport with at least an hour and a half to spare.
That’s when all my problems began. I no longer had the confirmation e-mail for my flight stored on my phone and hadn’t bothered to print it out either. All I knew was that it was a Gulf Air flight that left at around 11:00pm for Bahrain where I had a layover before catching a flight to Nairobi. I didn’t know the terminal number, flight number or any other pertinent information. Usually this would not be that huge of an issue, but in this case it was. The three terminals at the Cairo Airport are nowhere near each other so you really have to know where you’re going before you actually get there.
I flew first to Bahrain where we arrived at about 2:00am and I thus had to camp out until my next flight, which didn’t leave until after 11:00am. It was definitely not the most comfortable night's sleep since all the seats had armrests between them making it difficult to lie down flat and I just couldn’t bring myself to lie down on the floor. Also, even though I put an eye mask on to block out the light in the waiting area, there were boarding announcements going on all night long. By the time I finally arrived in Nairobi the next afternoon, I was definitely ready for a good night’s rest.
I was looking at your map and wondering when Egypt would fit in the picture...especially since you have it at the top of your list of things to do. Glad to hear you made it in and out safely and hope you are enjoying Nairobi now!
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