First Day in Cairo- The protests

The day before I arrived in Cairo (so wednesday) there had been a flare-up in violence in the Coptic Christian area of Cairo that involved attacks by some Muslim extremists that resulted in the death of a few Copts. Since the revolution each of the friday protests had focused on a certain domestic issue, and this Friday the protest was focused on denouncing the violence and in support of a unified Christian and Muslim Egypt. I have no idea how many people were there, but it definitely numbered into the thousands, with people of all ages, social classes, and religious groups packed into the streets and the sidewalks around an improvised sound stage. There was chanting and cheering, songs were sung, and people marched about carrying signs depicting various images. I was able to take a position close to the side of the stage and get a few photos and even a video of the proceedings. The few people I spoke to there were so happy and friendly and all they asked was that I would share their message of a Christians and Muslims living in peace with the people back home. I told them I would and as a result here are my favorite pictures from the demonstrations.

These two pictures give a good estimate of the size of the crowd, just throngs of people in every direction. I also really like the design combining the cross and the crescent moon, which can be found over and over again in these pictures.

This is a great sign someone had next to me of Mubarak running off with a bag full of Egypt's money. Mubarak is suspected of being one of the richest men in the world, with all of his wealth coming from corruption, backdoor deals, or just plain stealing from the Egyptian people's coffers.

 I love this drawing. People in America need to have this attitude. And when I say "people in America" I really mean American Christians and xenophobes, not really Muslims who seem to be just as kind in the US as they are in the rest of the world.

 This picture goes to show the importance and respect held by the Egyptian army in the public's perception. Even though these troops were at Tahrir Square in an official capacity to ensure that everything was peaceful, this did not stop people from simply celebrating their presence and their role in the revolution. It would be incredibly difficult to concisely describe the reasons why Egypt loves their army so much in this blog because who books can be written on the subject, but suffice to say imagine how much America loves its military, then remove all the controversial wars and accusations of war crimes and add a revolution by the people which was actually supported by the military. That is a lot of love and respect and honor to be held by the army and I hope that they continue to deserve it as the country moves forward.

That pretty much sums up the revolution.

Finally I saw this spray painted on the wall while walking home and had to take a picture of it. It is obviously from during the revolution and really captures I think the sentiments of so many of the people during Mubarak's final days in office.:

"I want to see another president before I die"

So After I had my fill of watching the protests, i wandered back to the hotel to rest a bit and grab a bite to eat. I found a place with some Hummus and Foul (almost refried beans) and ate dinner while planning my next day- A trip to the Giza to see the pyramids and the sphinx! Just before sunset, I wandered over to the Nile to take a few pictures and enjoy the beautiful breezes of springtime in Egypt. While the city is massive, crowded, often smelly and dirty, there are still countless places to find peace and serenity.

First Day in Cairo- the museum

So I arrived in Cairo late in the evening, and caught a taxi to my hotel, which was pretty easy to find because it was one Talaat Harb, one of the main streets in downtown Cairo and about 2 blocks away from Tahrir Square. The hotel was on the 5 floor, and was definitely old, but very clean with tall doorways the evoked the colonial heritage of much of Cairen architecture. The hotel was simple, without any amenities really, but I had a bed and a sink in my room and, when combined with wireless internet, is pretty much all I need to get by for a few days.

I woke up the next morning and had a little bread and a hardboiled egg I had packed for the journey for breakfast before heading out the door to find a currency exchanger. I had intentionally planned my trip so that my first day there would be a Friday, the Muslim day of prayer (like Christian Sundays) and this would mean less congestion in the streets and it would be a little quieter. It took me a while to get my bearings, and I still was getting lost in downtown until the day I left but I eventually found a money changer and got an amazing deal. While Cairo still had businesses open and there were people in the streets, they were few and far between and it was peaceful and beautiful to walk in such a dense urban area with the sidewalks mostly to myself. I think one of the most amazing things about Cairo is the range of architecture than can be found nearly everywhere you look. In downtown alone, there are modern skyscrapers, cathedrals, soviet era monochromatic blocks, British colonial buildings, and French villas modeled after classic architecture complete with frescos and pillars. Of course there are also the many mosques representing various eras in Islamic culture, but those are harder to find in downtown, making them hidden treasures in such a modern city. I returned to the hotel for a bit to once again establish my bearings and decide on my next course of action. I figured that it would probably help me establish my understanding of the city to head to Tahrir Square made famous in the West through being the focal point of the recent revolution, and then mosey over to the Egyptian Museum for a day of mummies and antiquities.

In Tahrir Square the Egyptian Museum sticks out like a giant pink thumb. Walking up to Tahrir Square from my street required that I would have to cross the massive roundabout to get to the museum. Walking in Cairo is not for the faint of heart, there are no crosswalks and lanes of traffic can be up to 40 feet wide. I've gotten used to this in Palestine though, so I dodged cars and trucks while noticing that people were beginning to assembly along the sides of the streets. Friday protests were still going, Mubarak having left only about two weeks before I arrived. Once I got to the front of the museum's property I navigated my way through battalions of soldiers, walking past tanks parked casually along the street and the gates to the museum. Unfortunately you are not allowed to bring cameras into  the museum so I had to settle for taking a few of the various stone relics stationed across the park in front of the museum before checking my camera and heading inside. Some pictures from the outside of the museum:

Once inside the museum, you (if you are nerdy like me) are struck with the immediate sense of awe.The massive structure is packed as far as you can see antiquities as far as you can see in any direction. Stone columns and statues for the most part fill the bottom floor. Starting with a left turn down the first hall, you move through relics from each age of the ancient dynasties ranging from chunks of stone with heiroglyphics to highly detailed figures that have lasted thousands of years in limestone, granite and jet black rock of some material. There are even wooden statues that have been preserved over their existence due to the arid nature of the Egyptian landscape. The museum is daunting to say the least. A reed boat here, a complete excavated tomb there, it is archeological overload. Some things are not labeled at all, others have four or more labels each with a different story about what you are looking at. I must have spent about 3 or 4 hours just on the bottom floor before I was told that the museum would be closing early due to Friday prayers and the subsequent protests that would follow in Tahrir Square. I was glad to end my time at the museum when I did, and looked forward to visiting another day to see the second floor. In the show "An Idiot Abroad" the host  while touring the museum remarked that you can only see so many old rocks and mummies before they all look the same and I couldn't agree more. Two museum trips would help maintain my sense of wonder so I picked up my camera and headed out of the museum towards Tahrir Square to see what a revolution in progress looks like.

Time to start writing again / The Road to Cairo

Once again i must start a post by apologizing to the handful of people following this blog for the absurdly long time between posts. Once I returned to Palestine from Egypt I spent a few days trying to catch up on some rest and the last week or so rather ill. That said, I need to get my trip to Cairo recorded on here before it disappears into the deep corners of my mind. I suppose there is no better place to start then at the beginning.

Renewing a visa for Israel by crossing a land border is a pretty unpleasant experience, if not for the fear of the coming interrogation, then for the looming dread that you could always just get turned away at the border. If this happens, to have just become separated from the majority of your possessions  which are at the apartment and without the savings to exactly hop on a plane back home. No matter how excited I am to journey in the Middle East on these little breaks every three months, this gloom presses on my spirit and traps me in anxiety for the duration of each trip across the border.

Flying to Cairo, in regards to being affordable, was simply not an option. A ticket from Ben-Gurion in Tel Aviv to Cairo is between 350-400 dollars, while a round trip bus tickets in retrospect cost a little under 100 dollars. In the end, I had to choose between my time/comfort and ease of travel. I chose the bus routes, but I would never, ever recommend this to an inexperienced traveler. I left Ramallah in the mid afternoon, to catch the evening bus out of Jerusalem. I had to lug my baggage up to the mass transit bus system and then stack it on my lap before heading for the Qalandia checkpoint between the West Bank and Israel. This takes about an hour or so depending on traffic both in the cities and at the border. Once I arrive in Jerusalem, the final bus stop is near the Damascus Gate in East Jerusalem to the Old City. From here, I could have taken a taxi to the central bus station, but this would have cost me a good chunk of change (due to how prohibitively expensive Israel is on a Palestinian Salary), so instead I walk, with my bags, to the central bus station which is about 2 miles away. I arrive, sweaty and stinky I'm sure and next have to pass through metal detectors and a bag inspection to buy my ticket and wait for my bus.

This bus trip I've made before (when I had previously gone to the Sinai for a visa renewal) and besides that it was dark out, so there really is not much to tell about this leg of the journey. I arrived in the border city of Eilat at around 11PM and had decided to try a different hostel then the one I had previously stayed in. I had made reservation at a place named the Shelter Hostel, which was tucked away on a suburban street but looked to be in pretty good condition. That said, I really should have gone with the place from my first trip to Eilat. They had no internet (what kind of hostel doesn't have internet!?) and they locked the gates at 12AM, which is bizarre because I am used to hostels and hotels being open for late checkout and checkin. I was too exhausted to care though and once I got my room and blankets, i happily headed off to sleep. The next morning, I needed to go to the Egyptian Consulate to arrange for my visa. Visa's to the Sinai can be granted at the border, but if you wanted to head to the interior you had to drop your passport off in the morning and collect it again in the afternoon, after completing the application process. I got a little lost in Eilat (I hate roundabouts) but eventually made my way to the Consulate, where I think my Arabic impressed them slightly and made the process easier. They told me to come back at two, so I headed back to the hostel to kill some time and do a little more research on Cairo.

Back at the hostel, I came to a sharp awakening, apparently this was some kind of super christian hostel, complete with a daily bible study held in the only central location where I was hoping to do some reading. I politely declined to join the bible study the first time, the second time they asked I was much more blunt. I found it pretty intrusive and offensive to push religion on a paying costumer and was happy when the time rolled around to get my passport from the consulate. Passport and luggage in hand, I headed to the Eilat bus station to catch the next trip to the border.

Of course the woman at the Israeli border is a sour, rude person asking questions repeatedly and with a snide tone of voice. I made a mental note that I will not stand to be treated this way when I come back through the border and begin to make plans to avoid such treatment and dehumanizing behavior. After the Israeli border the Egypt border has always felt so pleasant. They are much friendlier and helpful, and treat foreigners as guests and not possible terror suspects. A couple hundred meters down the road I load up on the bus to Cairo, which takes around 8 or 9 hours. I try to sleep some on the bus, but there are checkpoints every 30 minutes or so which require you to wake up and show your passport to the soldier who boards the bus. It's well past sunset by now and I can see nothing out the window  but black fields and mountains, with the glow of the moon being the only way to differentiate forms in the darkness. There is another American on the bus, to be more specific he is actually another Washingtonian. He had formerly studied Arabic in Egypt and was now back in the region to try and get across the border into Libya to do some journalist work there. He was seemed like a nice guy, about the same age as me, and we talked sporadically between sleep and boredom.

The final checkpoint on the way to Cairo required us to gather our bags and get off the bus for them to be inspected. It is sometime around 10 or 11 at night by now and I have been travelling for over a day and a half from my home in Ramallah. The soldiers I must add, were very pleasant and respectful even when going through our things. One young soldier asked if I had a camera with me when he found out that I had come from Israel and asked me to show him my pictures (this is not uncommon here). I obliged by pulling out my camera and turning it on- only to reveal that I had completely deleted all pictures! There were also no pictures on my laptop, (which I had wiped clean of pretty much anything of importance). He asked me why I had no pictures to which I replied "because I knew people would want to see them" he smirked and told me to get back on the bus and enjoy my visit. I loaded back up and closed my eyes for the final hour into Cairo.

cairo

cairo

Cairo

Well I just tried to to this few minutes ago, but the page crashed so here we go again. I'm going to pout pictures up now and fill in the stories later so that I may enjoy this wonderful vacation. Here's the first set: The Giza Plateau!

43 39' 19"N, 75 27' 42"W