A quiet Friday morning in Cairo, prayer day. Traffic is down, even the tourists in our hotel, the Grand Pyramids, aren’t stirring. My family is still asleep. Sitting on the 4th floor balcony of our room I can look out and see the pool in the large courtyard, the elevated ring road highway and . . . yes, two pyramid tops, Khurfu and Cheops, jutting above the city apartments. Folks here live in view of the pyramids daily and probably don’t think much about them as they try to get on with life. I can’t help being a bit awed, after all, this is what we came here for.
Now to talk about Day 4 in Islamic Cairo. A long day. A day that started well and ended, um, not so well. We left the hotel at 9 a.m. and in hindsight should have kept to our 8 a.m. departure time. That’s because we tried to find where we could cash American Express Travelers Cheques. Nowhere, it seems except at an AMEX office. So a word to the wise coming to Egypt, don’t buy AMEX Travelers Cheques, they are so passé. So that unfruitful excursion pushed everything back. We went to the Citadel of Saladin or Salah El-Din. The Citadel is on the highest land in Cairo and the panoramic view from its walls of the whole city is impressive. We sat in the Mohammed Aly mosque and listened to our guide, Mohamed Zakaria, explain about who Mohammed Aly was and features of the mosque. We saw the guest suites inside the Citadel and heard how Princess Eugenie of France was a visitor there. Then we left.
We went to Ibn Tulun mosque, walked around the colonnaded (and shaded) area around the great courtyard. I learned from Mohamed the connection of Ibn Tulun with Shia Islam. We climbed the minaret and at the moment Amani, Abby and I were at the top, the call to prayer began in 1000 mosques all over the city. I won’t forget that, I hope the girls won’t. Then we went to lunch.
Lunch at Felfelas or ‘Peppers’. It was still the same as it was 20 years ago and that is a good thing. The prices were reasonable and the food was good. The waiters were attentive. We ordered taumayia (falafel), kofta and kebab, lentil soup, mahshi (stuffed grape leaves) and they brought out a variety of dipping dishes and bread. The girls found ice cream on the menu, they said it was the best they have had (in Africa). All of that was so good for my soul. Wonderful familiar food. After 2 lunches of McDonalds and KFC (which I didn’t mind too much) it was great to have food I ate regularly many years ago.
We started our afternoon tour of the Khan Il Khalili late, about 3 p.m. Actually I wanted to see Al-Azhar mosque and the girls and Wanda agreed. This is surely the most famous mosque in the world, one of the most influential, no doubt. Al Azhar University is the oldest continuously functioning university in the world. We didn’t see the University but the mosque was open. Mostly men were lying around. Some studying but most sleeping. An imam was holding forth in the older section of the mosque in front of some ‘students’ and cameras. A bank of studio lights were on him as he lectured.
Finally we went to the Khan and headed down a street full of obnoxious vendors. But, as Mohamed said, the street became less so the farther you went. We wandered in and out of shops. The girls looked at things and eventually we bought some scarves and a galabeyya for me. No t-shirts though. We’ll need to look further.
I could see we were getting into trouble as Abby became more agitated the later the time. We were cutting into her swim time at the hotel. And indeed the ride home was long as we got caught in traffic. By the time we were at the hotel Abby was in a foul mood and the other girls were none too happy as well. In hindsight they were troopers most of the day but their outlet is the pool. Touring is strenuous even if it is done in the easiest format (which is what we are doing, a personal driver and van is amazingly less stressful than doing all these sites by public transportation, taxi or driving oneself), I found myself really enjoying the whole thing more than I remember from the past.
So the evening was spoiled. The hotel closed the pool even before sunset. The girls wanted to eat in the rooms and we felt we should eat down in one of the restaurants in the Grand Pyramids (there was no conversation at all about eating outside the hotel grounds). Long story short, nothing went well and we all learned some lessons. The girls learned that they need to be flexible and that life is not fair. Wanda and I learned that the day in Islamic Cairo, already was planned to be the longest day, was too long. Our itinerary looks less ponderous (for the sake of the girls) the rest of the trip. It seems that being able to swim washes away the stress of the day . . .
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