Giza pyramids

Today Scott, Mike, and I visited the pyramids at Giza with our very own personal Egyptologist Valentina. Scott & Mike are professors (political science and sociology) at AUC here as Fulbright scholars. Valentina is completing her PhD in Egyptology from a university in Bologna, Italy and is spending October studying at the French Institute in Cairo before leaving for an archeological dig down south. The guy above was one of the legions of locals hawking useless trinkets to western tourists visiting the site. He has some connection to Italy, however, because when he found out Valentina was from Bologna he became very excited, chatted energetically with her in Italian for several minutes (so I have no idea what was said) but then he insisted that I take the headdress at no charge and also insisted on having this picture taken with me.

The pictures that follow are somewhat out of order, but they are all on the same site. There are three large pyramids here, several really small pyramids, the Sphinx, and the solar boat museum, among other things. We took a taxi from Maadi to Giza (about a 25 minute ride and a cost of about $9), arrived at about 12 noon, and it was really, really hot, a searing Lawrence of Arabia desert hot. But we made the most of it and it is a fascinating site. It is completely overrun by tourists, and the army of cheap trinket vendors are distracting, but in spite of that it is still quite an amazing place to visit. And with Valentina along we were able to learn a lot interesting things about the history and archeology of the place.

Below is inside the solar boat museum. This was one of several boats found buried near the pyramids. They were found very recently, in the 1950s I think. It was in a hole covered with huge limestone slabs, which I found amazing, because the work it would take to load just those limestones covers (you can still see them in the museum) is unimaginable without modern equipment. The boat is made of cedar wood and is held together only with rope; no nails, glue, etc. It was not stored in one piece but cut up to fit in the hole, so the team that found it spent some time putting it all back together, using only the original wood and modern rope.

The boat was important to the ancient Egyptians because they believed that the sun god (Ra, I think) sailed in a boat across the sky every day, carrying the sun, and then fought "bad guys" at night in order to bring the sun back the next day. The Pharaoh, since he was considered a deity too, would need a boat in the afterlife to go join Ra. After he died, Pharaoh's coffin was probably floated up the Nile channel to his tomb in a boat like this one, but whether or not it was THIS boat in the picture is not known. I don't know how the thing would float because I cannot see how they could seal it up, but evidently there was a way.

Here are pictures of two smaller pyramids just beside one of the big pyramids. They were constructed for the close relatives of the Pharaoh, and one was left empty to house the soul of the Pharaoh.

Two pictures of Scott, Mike and Valentina by the middle pyramid:

Here is a brief video of us between the middle and third pyramids:

The Sphinx, with Cairo in the distance. When you are standing there, you can see the Pizza Hut and KFC signs across the street.

It occurred to me that Napoleon was here (Mike said the story is that the French soldiers used the Sphinx as target practice). So I mentioned walking in the same footsteps as Napoleon, and one of the locals mentioned that he saw Obama here (I guess when he gave his address in Cairo) and we also know that Winston Churchill was here, and a lot of other famous people through the years.

Below are pictures of us by the pyramids. I'm wearing the gator hat I don't really like, but it is my spare hat. I gave the Jelly Belly hat I had on earlier to the trinket seller in the first picture because he gave me the headdress. I wish I had given him the gator hat...

Me and Scott and Mike:

See? I like the Jelly Belly hat a lot better. This was also earlier in the day so we were not so hot, sweaty and tired:

Here I am trying to get a view of the desert. You really can't see how it is in the pictures. It really is Lawrence of Arabia, just a vast expanse of desert as far as you can see.

Here is a hole where they pulled one of the boats out.

Miscellaneous pictures at the site:

And finally, pictures of the golf course at the Mena House. We played this course a few weeks ago:

Here are some pictures I just never seemed to get around to putting up.

Below is a group of kids I met at Al-Azhar park near the Citadel. The park is a beautiful large green space, which is very unusual in Cairo. The place was very crowded and they were actually turning people away, but they let us in entirely because we were Westerners. And while I hate to feel like the crass colonialist, the real reason I wanted in the park was it is the only public toilet around for miles, and man when you gotta go you gotta go!

Anyway, the teens there were terrific. And that seems to be true all over Cairo. They are fascinated with me because I am from America and can speak English. So there were pestering me non-stop by coming up to me and saying "How are you?" "What's your name?" "Good afternoon." All obviously in page 1 of their learn English book. But they are so sweet and genuine in their warmth toward me, and they truly mean it when they say "Welcome to Egypt." I had fun with a group of them by taking pictures on my digital camera and then showing them the pictures, which they thought was fantastic. Not that they don't have those cameras here, but most of them cannot afford them. After a while, however, I had a large group of teens around me, about 30 or 40 I would say, and the pressing crowd was making me uncomfortable. So I started to say "emshee," which is the Arabic word for Go Away! but I was afraid that was too negative. They weren't being hostile, just crowding me too much. So the only thing I could think of to say was "helas," which means finished, and I was afraid that might be a little too negative too. But not knowing what else to say, I held my hands up in the air and kind of made a finished! sign and shouted "Helas!" And they cheered me to the stars! Because I was speaking Arabic, and used just the right word. Then with a few more "Welcome to Egypts" and some "ma salaamas" (go in peace) they quietly retired and left me alone.

While walking in Islamic Cairo with Valentina we were invited into a mosque. The guys at this mosque were especially nice and welcoming, and they didn't ask Valentina to wear this awful green overcoat to cover her entire body like some of them do, but let her in with just a head scarf. The man there couldn't speak any English, but managed to show us around. It wasn't much, really, but there was a tower on the top that he took us up in so it offered some neat views of the city from up high.

From the tower you could also look down onto the roof of an apartment building. Which is strange, because in the West we would classify this as high end property: near downtown, in the historic district and close to popular tourist areas. But in Cairo I think some of these apartments have been in families for years, and they continue to live there.

Here is a video of me and Scott taken by the El Hussain mosque in Islamic Cairo. We walked from here down to the old city gate, which was built around 1000 AD.

We left there and took a cab to Zamalek where we had a few drinks at the Marriott Hotel. This is a neat place, I think it used to be a palace for one of the Egyptian rulers in late 1800s or early 1900s. We walked back over the Nile to catch the subway, and here is a video of us on the Nile bridge.

October 6, 2009 The Khan and Cairo Tower part 2

October 6 is a holiday in Egypt similiar to our Veteran's day. It commemorates Egypt's victory over Israeli forces on that day in 1973 in what is called (among other names for it) the Yom Kippur war. Actually, the days following that didn't go so well for the Egyptian forces, but the events of October 6 did result in Egypt regaining possession of the Sinai peninsula and gave Egypt some bargaining power that resulted in the Camp David peace treaty.

Since I had this day off from the university, I headed downtown with my excellent tour guide Valentina:

Valentina is getting a PhD in Egyptology (of all things) and is only in Cairo for a few weeks before going to an archealogical dig in Fayoum, Egypt and then back to Italy. So she knows an awful lot about ancient Egypt and has taught me a lot about the historical sites here.

Our first stop was the Khan el khalili market in Islamic Cairo. I think this used to be an important market for the residents of Cairo, but now it is mostly a tourist trap, but still very interesting. It is a maze of alleys where there are shops selling everything from t-shirts to spices to silver and gold jewelry to trinkets of Cleopatra and the pyramids. Walking around it is really like being in an old movie, because as a westerner everyone is constantly pestering you to buy a watch, look at this fabric, come into my shop, etc. One of my favorite alleys is full of spices so it smells terrific to walk through. Here are some pictures:

After walking through the Khan, we took the Metro to Mar Girgis (St. George) which is the Coptic area of Cairo, and toured the Coptic Museum. One of the most interesting things here is a papyrus of the Gospel of Thomas (one of the gnostic gospels) dating from the 3rd century. So it is one of the oldest examples of Greek Christian manuscripts that we have.

Outside the museum is an old wall that was built by the Romans. Here is a picture of me in front of it:

After the Coptic museum, we took the metro back to downtown and then took a cab to the Cairo Tower in Zamalek. Here are some pictures I took from the tower. This is the second time I have been up in the tower, but this time was later in the day and it was neat to see the sun set and the city lights come on from the tower.

In the picture below you can see the Cairo Opera House:

We walked back from Zamalek across the Nile to downtown via the Lions bridge. That isn't the official name of the bridge, but I call it that because of the lion statues at the entrance, and because it reminds me of the bridge in St. Augustine. Here are some pictures of me by the statues at the entrance to the bridge, on the downtown side of the Nile:

A few days earlier I was wandering downtown just exploring, and I came across this koshary place near Talaat Harb square. This is the place where Anthony Bourdain ate in Cairo on his TV show "No Reservations." (I know because I double-checked the copy of the TV show I have on ITunes.) I haven't eaten here yet, but I will soon. Koshary is a staple in Cairo because it is cheap and filling. It is rice, corn, pasta and beans with a little tomato sauce. I have learned to love it, although I get sick of it after a few days in a row. There is a place on campus that serves koshary, so I have it about 3 days a week. For 10 Egyptian pounds I get a huge bowl of koshary and a bottle of water, so that is lunch for under $2, which is not a bad deal. The 10 pound price is probably high by Egyptian standards, I suspect koshary goes for about 2 or 3 pounds in Cairo.