Egypt Day 1

We left Kenya early Monday morning. The flight to Egypt was about a five hour flight and we arrived in Cairo in the late afternoon. Hers and I breezed through the terminal before anyone was in place to do a preliminary check of our papers. A short distance later, we met our contact, Mohammad, in the hall. We paid him for our entry Visas (which look like postage stamps and are the coolest visas in my Passport to date). After that, we breezed through immigration to make our Visas official and met our guide, Hany, in the van. It sounds silly, but one of the first things I noticed was that the steering wheel in our van was on the American side of the vehicle. After a month or so, it was nice to ride on the right side of the road.

Hany briefed us on the itinerary for the day, which consisted of checking into our hotel and then catching a Nile dinner cruise (complete with belly dancer). In the morning, we would be off to the Pyramids and the Sphinx.

Cairo is a fairly metropolitan city and rather well developed. After almost a month in Kenya, we especially appreciated the smooth, well maintained roads. The airport is out in New Cairo, which looked very western (if you ignored all the Arabic) with bland office parks and hotels. The city began to age as we made our way across it. Cars shared the roads with donkey carts. Eventually, we came to the City of the Dead. In Islam, people are buried in crypts that contain a grieving room for visiting family members. Many of the city's homeless moved into some of these empty visiting rooms. As Hany pointed out, your neighbors there are generally quiet. The cemetery itself was huge.

Next, we came to the Citadel, built in the 12th century (a little newer than the Tower of London). Atop the Citadel is an alabaster mosque that we'd come back to visit on Sunday.

The Nile passed into view without comment from our guide. Hers asked if the body of water to our right was the Nile. "Oh, yes, that is the Nile." Hany responded in his Egyptian accent as if it were no big deal. We crossed the Nile and suddenly, ahead of us, we saw the outline of the Great Pyramid! That's when it really hit me that we were in Egypt (as if the Arabic wasn't a dead giveaway).

As we approached Giza (one of Cairo's many neighborhoods and the location of the Pyramids), we noticed more and more unfinished apartments. They made this portion of Cairo look poorer than others we had driven through. Hany pointed out that apartments were often left unfinished for two reasons. First, unfinished, unpainted apartments met less in taxes. Secondly, the custom was for a son to move into the same building with his parents after he married. Leaving part of the apartment building unfinished allowed the son and his bride to built their own apartment when the time was right.

We stayed at the Grand Pyramid Hotel. From every balcony you could see the outline of the Great Pyramid through the unfinished apartment buildings in the background. We didn't have time to shower, so we simply dropped off our bags and met everyone in the lobby.

The highlight of the dinner cruise was the Nile itself. The food wasn't that great and the belly dancing got old fast. Unfortunately, I got roped into dancing with the belly dancer, but I like to think I showed her a thing or two. Afterwards, Hers and I went out onto the top deck with a few of our friends and enjoyed night time on the Nile.

After the cruise, we headed back to the Hotel. We had an early morning coming up that would start off with a short trip to the Pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx.