Last night we had dinner at a small outdoor cafe walking distance from my grandparents’ apartment. They’re living in a small access controlled community of only 200,000 people with their own shopping, restaurants, schools.
Today, my grandfather is playing tour guide for some of the local sights he’s visited previously. I had mentioned that watching a travel special about Cairo had done an excellent job of convincing me not to rent a car here. His response was that they had one for the first few months they were here, but taxis are cheaper. Have I mentioned that he’s a bad-ass? They use the same taxi service every time, so all the drivers know them. The one we got today knows very little English so most interactions involved a cell phone call to his polyglot boss.
Everything you have heard about the drivers here is true. There aren’t traffic signals at intersections and the dotted lines on roads are basically decorative. The strangest part may actually be that pedestrians don’t even seem to notice the number of near death incidence that happen to them as they cross the street. And by pedestrians, I mean people, donkeys, horses, dogs. Yet it all works out to fairly predictable driving times because in spite of the appearance of chaos, it is actually a system which most of the drivers understand.
Our first stop is the Egyptian Museum in downtown Cairo, next to Tahrir Square. The halls are stacked with sarcophagi, base reliefs, statues in various states of preservation. We only saw a small portion of what was on display in our two hours of wandering. Along one wall we could view hieroglyphics on relief adjacent window with a view of the remains of a building burned down during last year’s revolution. I got to check out something I have wondered about for a long time: the insides of sarcophagus lids are also ornately carved, but those carvings aren’t ever on display. One partially restored sarcophagus had some Plexiglas panels and a bit of space between the box and the lid so I could get on the floor to see under. There are a lot of mummies on display upstairs. Including creepy mummified children with realistic faces painted in front of their heads. There was also a mummified animal exhibit that included a fish I expect to have nightmares about for the rest of my life.
We next headed across the river to Giza to see the pyramids. Wow are the guys offering tours and camel rides aggressive – pounding on the car window on a few occasions trying to make sure we are aware of their services.
The pyramids are so much bigger in person. I know we got a lot of pictures that include people and animals for scale, but they just aren’t conveying how enormous these structures are. We walked around the area for a while ignoring camel ride offers before heading down to the Sphinx at the base of the hill. I think morning would have been better because the sun was in just a terrible place. Morning would have been a lot colder and windier, though, and the few times the wind did pick up were educational on the subject of why sand storms are bad.
Dinner was pigeon stuffed with frik. Dessert was something called pumpkin gratin which was grated pumpkin cooked in a sweet sauce with dried fruit and nuts and topped with a crème brule filling. Egyptians smoke a lot.
My brain keeps trying to read Arabic as though it were cursive writing viewed in a mirror.
Stop it, brain.
Today, my grandfather is playing tour guide for some of the local sights he’s visited previously. I had mentioned that watching a travel special about Cairo had done an excellent job of convincing me not to rent a car here. His response was that they had one for the first few months they were here, but taxis are cheaper. Have I mentioned that he’s a bad-ass? They use the same taxi service every time, so all the drivers know them. The one we got today knows very little English so most interactions involved a cell phone call to his polyglot boss.
Everything you have heard about the drivers here is true. There aren’t traffic signals at intersections and the dotted lines on roads are basically decorative. The strangest part may actually be that pedestrians don’t even seem to notice the number of near death incidence that happen to them as they cross the street. And by pedestrians, I mean people, donkeys, horses, dogs. Yet it all works out to fairly predictable driving times because in spite of the appearance of chaos, it is actually a system which most of the drivers understand.
Our first stop is the Egyptian Museum in downtown Cairo, next to Tahrir Square. The halls are stacked with sarcophagi, base reliefs, statues in various states of preservation. We only saw a small portion of what was on display in our two hours of wandering. Along one wall we could view hieroglyphics on relief adjacent window with a view of the remains of a building burned down during last year’s revolution. I got to check out something I have wondered about for a long time: the insides of sarcophagus lids are also ornately carved, but those carvings aren’t ever on display. One partially restored sarcophagus had some Plexiglas panels and a bit of space between the box and the lid so I could get on the floor to see under. There are a lot of mummies on display upstairs. Including creepy mummified children with realistic faces painted in front of their heads. There was also a mummified animal exhibit that included a fish I expect to have nightmares about for the rest of my life.
We next headed across the river to Giza to see the pyramids. Wow are the guys offering tours and camel rides aggressive – pounding on the car window on a few occasions trying to make sure we are aware of their services.
The pyramids are so much bigger in person. I know we got a lot of pictures that include people and animals for scale, but they just aren’t conveying how enormous these structures are. We walked around the area for a while ignoring camel ride offers before heading down to the Sphinx at the base of the hill. I think morning would have been better because the sun was in just a terrible place. Morning would have been a lot colder and windier, though, and the few times the wind did pick up were educational on the subject of why sand storms are bad.
Dinner was pigeon stuffed with frik. Dessert was something called pumpkin gratin which was grated pumpkin cooked in a sweet sauce with dried fruit and nuts and topped with a crème brule filling. Egyptians smoke a lot.
My brain keeps trying to read Arabic as though it were cursive writing viewed in a mirror.
Stop it, brain.
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