Egypt!

A bit about the area were staying in; it's the Muslim neighbourhood of downtown Cairo. I am probably the only female over ten without my hair covered I've seen in this area of town. Grocery stores? Hah. English speaking shop-keepers? Hah. People who don't gawk at long blonde hair? Hah. The girls all seem to giggle when they see James's ponytail too, it's cute when they do it though. They guys are kinda creepy about it. That said though, after staying here a few days I've grown pretty comfortable with the locals. Everyone has been very kind to us, and a few have even greeted us on the streets in English.

Our first day of sightseeing we went to the Egypt Museum, the repository of Egypt's artefacts, open for a hundred and fifty or so years. The building is huge and packed with pottery, statues, sarcophagus, and papyrus manuscripts. The galleries with King Tutankhamun's treasures and the jewellery were my favourites.

James outside the Egypt Museum

James outside the Egypt Museum

Outside the Egypt Museum

The coolest part of this day though came later in the evening. The terrace of our hotel was booked for an engagement party that evening and the music started blaring before the sun went down. And when I say blaring, I mean making stuff in our room several floors from the roof rattle sorta blaring. Have I mentioned yet how much I'm digging the local music? I've always got the TV in our room turned to a music channel :). When the celebrants arrived they did en mass, the women doing that cool allllalalalalala thing in super high voices that for some reason western women seem incapable of copying. The party had been in full swing for awhile when the hotel's owner invited us to go up to the terrace and watch the festivities with another employee of the hotel who we'd chatted with a few times. The roof was packed and I felt pretty awkward being up there, but we found some seats out of the way and watched the dancing, which was a total treat. The guys were on the floor and danced soooo expressively, using their full bodies and rather sensuous movements in a way I'm more accustomed to seeing women dance. A gentleman, a relation of the couple I think, even came over and offered James and I some sodas. It was a once and a life time chance to get a glimpse at the Arabic culture. One thing I can say for sure, these people know how to party.

The next morning we were up early as we had booked a tour to go see the pyramids!! Our driver for the day collected us from the hotel and we headed out to Dahshur to see the first pyramid of the day, The Red Pyramid of Sneferu.

James and I in front of the The Red Pyramid

This is one of the few pyramids you can go into without making special arrangements so we hastily climbed our way to the entrance to be meet by a hysteria inducingly small tunnel which led into the inner chambers.

James climbing into the The Red Pyramid

Climbing into The Red Pyramid

Thighs burning, we made it down into the first chamber where we could look up at the interior structure of the pyramid.

Inside the The Red Pyramid

View of the Step Pyramid from afar

Inside the tomb of Mereruka

Me inside the tomb of Mereruka

James outside the tomb of Mereruka

Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs inside Teti's Pyramid

At one point a worker invited us to take some photos on the sly and then took us into another tomb beside the first we went into and allowed me to snap a couple good shots in their while telling us a bit about the reliefs.

James and I Inside the tomb

This would have been awesome if he didn't expect an exorbitant basheesh in return.

On our way from Saqqara to Giza our driver stopped at one of the many hand-woven carpet schools and we were given a demonstration of the three kinds of woven carpets the students learn to make before being taken to the sale room/gallery upstairs.

Giving carpet making a try at the carpet school outside Giza

James at the carpet school outside Giza

Here James and I came to the realization that were weak in the face of gorgeous material objects and not the best bargainers. We came away with a good-sized rug woven of all natural un dyed wool with a rather modern linear design. Sure we don't have a house, but we have a damn fine Egyptian hand woven rug to put in one. :P

Continuing on our way we came to our final destination for the day, the Giza plateau, home of the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid.

Pyramids of Menkaure, Khafre, and Khufu, and wives/childrens in front

By this point in the day our moods had taken a down turn due to the constant barrage of people expecting money. We tried to set this aside though and booked our camel ride around the pyramids.

Camel Jockey

The pyramid complex is quite large and to attempt to get all the vantage points I wanted for photographical reasons on foot would have been exhaustive. On our way out of the stables my mood started taking even more of a down turn when I saw the state of some of the animals kept in the stables not authorized by the government as ours way. Horses with saddle sores and way to many bones sticking out. The animals were in no condition to be worked but all had saddles on their backs. Making our way along the trail to the pyramids we came across the most unsettling part of the trip. In the not so far distance were the well picked over but still fleshy skeletal remains of a horse. I looked away and tried to shove it out of my mind so I could enjoy the pyramids but at this point both James and I were feeling morally filthy.

By being tourists here we were inadvertently encouraging a system where men relied on underhand and dishonest practices to weasel money out of ignorant tourists and animals were apparently underfed and overworked for the amusement of tourists and financial benefit of their owners.

We continued on our tour of the pyramids, but at this point neither of our hearts were really in it. I wanted more than anything to leave Cairo after our visit to Giza and get to India stat.

James and I in front of Khafre and Khufu's pyramids

Being silly at the Pyramids

Riding camels in front of the Giza Pyramids

Gazing up at Khafre's Pyramid

Chilling on the Pyramid of Khafre

On our way back to the hotel though we ate a nice lunch with our guide and then he stopped at a papyrus gallery so we could see how papyrus was made and look at the paintings. A really nice guy gave us a demonstration of how papyrus was made, which by the way is really easy and we plan to try it when we get home, and then explained some of the stories behind the historical and religious painting reproductions they had. We viewed the gallery for awhile and in the end selected a few for ourselves and as gifts. I wish I could take pictures of them to show you how cool they are but the paintings are all in a tube being mailed to the states as we speak. They, like the rug, will look splendid in that house we don't have hehe.

As we were checking out we got into a conversation with our salesman and the other clerks about American politics and how distorted the media's representation of Muslims and their quality of life really is. Sure Egypt isn't Iraq, but their ways of life aren't to dissimilar, though totally foreign to an American. That was one of the more rewarding moments of the day.

written by  Slade's Elucidation on October 26, 2008 from Cairo, Egypt
from the travel blog: Slade's Elucidation
tagged Pyramids, Cairo and Egypt
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