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Egypt
September 2003
A three week journey around Egypt. I wrote a full account of the trip, to record both the memories I want to keep and the historic facts I want to remember.

Part 1: Cairo
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Intro
I wanted to make a big trip outside Europe this summer, but didn't know anyone with the time and money to accompany me, so I booked a trip with Joker, a somewhat alternative travel agency that organises adventurous trips. Only a few people (11 in this case) can subscribe for each trip; they get a plane ticket and the company of a group 'leader' who has hotel addresses and other useful information. Nothing is fixed (or paid for) in advance; in theory the group travels around the country freely with local transport and decides where to go when.

I chose Egypt as my destination primarily because I'm a history nut and Egypt is like a gigantic theme park for history nuts, but also because I wanted to see the desert. On top of that I'd be able to meet my Egyptian friend Salma. The trip delivered in all domains :)

As always I prepared for the trip by studying the country's history rather than reading travel guides. I especially enjoyed Chronicle of the Pharaohs by Peter A. Clayton, which gives a complete chronological account of the history of ancient Egypt, pharaoh by pharaoh, listing what is known and not known about each period without skipping anything. This is how all history books should be! I also learned quite a bit of ancient Egyptian from the book's translations of pharaoh names :)

To Cairo
We were gonna fly via Amsterdam, but the flight to Amsterdam got canceled so on the last minute we had to change our flights to go via Milan instead. Earlier I had almost decided to take a train to Amsterdam and meet the group there, luckily I didn't do that :)

The twelve of us arrived in Cairo at 1.30 am. The airport was full of soldiers carrying machineguns, which felt unusual at first but soon became a familiar sight all over Egypt.

In the hotel I got to share a room with Danny, and we got along well in no time. He woke me up when he started talking in his sleep, but since I didn't realise that I kept asking "what?" which in turn woke him up. We agreed I'd ignore anything he'd say after lights out from then on :)

The Egyptian Museum
We spent the morning of the first day in the Egyptian Museum, which houses all the treasures from the pharaonic age. Eva (the group leader) had hired a guide who started leading us around. I got enough of that after about three minutes; he was mostly telling stuff I already knew and I hate being led around anyway. So I told the group I'd meet them at the exit at noon and went off on my own.
Tutankhamen
I first went to the section with the treasures from Tutankhamen's tomb on the first floor. I had read that it is best to go there first before the museum gets too crowded, and indeed there were only a handful of other people that early.

Tutankhamen was a minor 18th dynasty pharaoh who ruled from 1334 BC until his death at age 18 in 1325 BC. His only historic significance is that he was a successor of the rebel pharaoh Akhenaten (see below). It's the discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb in 1922 that made him famous, because his was (and still is) the only pharaonic tomb found intact; all others had been plundered long before archeologists found them.

Tutankhamen's mummy was laid inside a series of coffins and shrines which enveloped each other much like matroshka dolls do. The inner coffin was made of gold, the next two coffins of wood covered with sheet gold. These were laid inside a stone sarcophagus, around which four wooden shrines were built. The outer shrine was only the size of a bathroom, but several museum halls are needed to showcase all the shrines and coffins separately.

Considering the fantastic treasures found in the tomb of this insignificant boy pharaoh, it boggles the mind to think what great treasures must have been robbed from the tombs of the great pharaohs, like Tuthmosis III and Ramesses II.
Museum tour
Akhenaten
The Mummy Room
In a dark room of the museum, about 15 mummies of famous pharaohs are exhibited. I once saw Lenin's body in his mausoleum in Moscow and was impressed to see such a historic figure with my own eyes, although he had been dead for only 70 years then. What then about being face-to-face with great historic figures who died over 3000 years ago? It required a relatively expensive extra ticket, but I wasn't gonna miss this.

The mummy room is only about 10 by 20 meter. Each mummy lies in a glass case, covered by a sheet so that only the head and sometimes the hands are visible. A spotlight shines on each mummy, and these are the only lights in the room. I went from mummy to mummy, rereading the history of each particular pharaoh to remember who he had been and what he had done, and then having a good long look at his face. Great experience :)

 
Cairo
I met up with the group for lunch, after which the same guide took us to Coptic Cairo, a southern part of Cairo which was already inhabited in Egypt's christian times, i.e. before the Arabs conquered Egypt in 639 and founded Cairo itself. "Coptic" really means "Egyptian" but is always used to refer to Egypt's christian era and current christian minority.

Coptic Cairo
Next he told us that a shining image of Maria had once appeared in this church, pointing to a blurry newspaper picture for proof, I kid you not. The reason for all this bull-shit is probably this: in the 5th century a Coptic patriarch had a 'vision' which revealed all the places Jesus' family had visited in Egypt. Recently the Egyptian government decided to revive that story to draw christian tourists to these places. Our guide, who must have assumed we were all devout christians, played his role well; we also got to hear how kind muslim rulers have always been to Egypt's christian population, and he adamantly claimed that christians are still 30% of Egypt's population, while in reality they are 6% or less.

When he took us to yet another mediocre church, I decided I'd had enough, so I told Eva I'd see the group in the hotel and went off on my own again for the rest of the day. This might be my only day in Cairo, one of the most important cities in the islamic world with plenty of islamic monuments to show for it, and I wasn't going to waste it visiting christian churches.

Islamic Cairo
I spent the afternoon and evening exploring the southern part of old Cairo and had a wonderful time; these were my very first steps in a totally different culture (this being my first trip outside Europe) and everything felt different and interesting. Considering I was totally unprepared and didn't have a decent map, I think I managed to visit a lot of interesting places.

The mosque of Mohammed Ali on the Citadel
I first took a taxi to the Citadel. This huge fortress was built on a hill in the south of Cairo in 1179 by Salah ad-Din, better known as Saladin, the muslim leader who repeatedly kicked crusader ass. In the 19th century, Mohammed Ali put a huge mosque on the Citadel which I wanted to visit.
The City of the Dead
In my guide I had read something about inhabited graveyards, and on the way to the Citadel the taxi driver had pointed towards a slum we drove past and called it the City of the Dead. After wandering around the Citadel I decided to walk back to this area and check it out.

The area was originally a cemetary on which the Mameluke sultans of the 14th century built their tombs. Egyptian families used to spend holidays on the cemetary near the graves of their loved ones. To accomodate them, little buildings were built around the graves. This custom is rather unislamic and may have been a surviving trace of ancient Egyptian culture. After the Arab-Israeli wars of 1948 and 1967, homeless refugees from the war zone started inhabiting these buildings, and thus the cemetary became a city. That is how this surreal landscape of medieval tombs, graves and miniature houses came into existence.

I was fascinated by the place and wanted to explore it, but was also acutely aware that I was very much out of place there. Being worried that the inhabitants wouldn't take kindly to a tourist checking out their shabby homes, I stayed out of their sight as much as I could and didn't take pictures when someone was near, in case they'd take offense. I probably needn't have worried, but this was still my very first day in Egypt; just 24 hours before I had still been in Belgium and now I felt like exploring another world. It was exciting to be there and I was much impressed.
Cairo Traffic
When it got too dark for sight-seeing, I decided to head for the hotel. Although it was a couple of kilometers away I wanted to go on foot to see some more of the city along the way.

This is a good time to tell you about the traffic in Cairo, which is an attraction in itself. I've driven a car in Italian cities and used to think the traffic there was crazy, but compared to Cairo that was just a stroll in the park really. In Cairo, the traffic is truly and totally insane.
The main streets have about 5 to 10 cars driving next to each other, and many have viaducts with more roads in the middle, sometimes on two or three levels. Thus Cairo has a network of highways above the streets; quite a spectacular sight.
There are some faded markings on the roads, and there are traffic lights in a few places, but these have absolutely no function; noone pays any attention to them ever. The streets are also full of traffic police in white costumes, but noone pays any attention to them either, except to make fun of them openly, so most of them just hang around all day and do nothing.

So what manages Cairo traffic? After careful study of the chaos, I've discovered some unwritten rules. For drivers they are the following:
  • Don't ever let another car go first if you can go first yourself.
  • Squeeze your car into any gap that's available between other cars, anywhere on the road.
  • Don't bother to look behind you; if someone crashes in your side or rear it's always his fault, no matter what manoeuvre you just made.
  • When it looks like a crash is unavoidable, wait until the very last moment before you break; maybe the other cars will chicken out before you do. It's all a matter of who has the most guts really.
  • When you see a car or pedestrian who might get in your way, use your horn to alert him of your presence. In practice, this means every car hoots about once every 10 seconds, so you always hear the sound of hundreds of cars hooting, 24 hours a day, wherever you go in Cairo. It's maddening at first but you get used to it.
Pedestrians seem to adher to the following rules of thumb:
  • Walk on the streets; the sidewalks are only for shops. Crowded streets with empty sidewalks are a normal sight in Cairo, because everyone is walking between the cars.
  • To cross a street, step in front of some cars and assume that they will break to avoid hitting you. The flow of traffic will never stop if you don't make it, so this is the only way.
  • Never, ever hurry across a street; even when a car in the furthest lane is approaching at high speed you may not run the last few meters! You are to continue gracefully at your current pace and not show the least sign of awareness of any danger around you.
For a tourist, crossing the wider streets is a difficult task at first: picture an uninterrupted flow of 5 to 10 rows of fast-driving, zig-zagging cars who will only slow down as a last resort to avoid a crash. At first I always looked for an Egyptian who was gonna cross the same street, put myself a little further downstream and then crossed the street when he did, so at least I wouldn't die alone if the cars wouldn't stop. One time I found myself stuck in the middle of the Nile boulevard alone however, and it took me 10 minutes before I could cross. The Egyptian I had crossed the first half of the street with laughed and clapped his hands when I finally made it across too :)

Eventually I got the hang of it though, and by the end of my trip I was truly walking like an Egyptian, crossing the streets elegantly at a casual pace, oblivious to the cars brushing against my legs.

Back to the hotel
I never made it to the hotel on foot; I got about halfway and although I knew exactly where I was (a huge chaotic square full of viaducts), I couldn't figure out which direction was where. There are virtually no street signs in Cairo, and every Egyptian I asked pointed me in another direction. Strangely, none of them could find our current location on a city map; I guess they never use maps or they put south on top or something.

In the end I gave up grudgingly and just took a taxi. I had the weirdest conversation with the taxi driver: he asked me if people in northern Europe know what love is, because we all seem so cold towards each other. I tried to say something about different ways of expressing emotions in different cultures, but his English wasn't good enough to get it.

Back in the hotel I exchanged stories with Danny. The group had seen some more semi-interesting buildings in Coptic Cairo, then after dinner went to see a show of dancing derwishes. Since I don't like touristy stuff I was glad I missed that.



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