Cairo To Luxor

Posted on February 12, 2015 by Paula Terrey

16 March 2000 (late afternoon)

Mena House Hotel. Courtesy of Paul Mannix, Wikimedia Commons.

After my walking tour of the Giza Plateau, I return to Mena House and track down Chaz. He’s by the pool with others from our group and eager to tell me about his own adventure. It turns out that while I was examining the requisite antiquities, he witnessed something he never, ever expected to see in Egypt: A tall, thin Mickey Mouse and a few other “something is a little off” characters, dancing on the grass to the delight of the hotel guest’s children.

“Mickey Mouse” and friends on the lawn at Mena House

Pierced metal lamps at Mena House cast a lacy pattern. Photo courtesy of joepyrek, Wikimedia Commons.

We go back to our room, collect our baggage, and then proceed to the main building to check out. I’m going to miss Mena House. The lobby smells like incense and pierced metal lamp shades cast lacy patterns on the polished marble walls and floors.

On the way to Cairo Airport, we pass the Giza Zoo and see goats and a flock of flamingos. The park is spacious and grassy, with light poles shaped like drooping flowers.

Old mansions hunker next to the highway, windows broken and shutters layered with dust. Some buildings are crumbling at the edges and visibly leaning, but there’s laundry hanging from the balconies.

We whiz by a horse track and basketball courts and then the Cairo Railway Station, which is built of light yellow stones and has keyhole windows with bright blue shutters. The rail yard is packed with passenger trains. Moustafa tells us it takes nine hours to go from Cairo to Luxor by train. In first class they serve at least two meals and have entertainment areas: It costs around $40 US. The third class train has no windows and costs about a dollar.

Al Nour Mosque in Cairo. With many thanks for this image to beautifulmosque.com

Moustafa points out (it’s hard to miss) the Al Nour Mosque, with its green copper domes and two outsized minarets. It was started by the people in the neighborhood, but they ran out of money and for a long time it sat unfinished. Apparently King Fahd of Saudi Arabia would pass by on his way to and from the airport, and asked why it was languishing. When he heard the locals were broke, he donated enough to wrap it up.

The next highway-dominating feature is a billboard photo of President Mubarak, looking dapper in a suit and tie. The Nile is gray-green in the late afternoon light.

At Cairo airport things are much calmer than when we arrived, since the Hadjis are all in Mecca by now. We board our plane and most of the group nods off, although I can’t imagine why when there is so much to think about. I’d like to peel the cabin wallpaper and take it home with me: It’s a cream background with a repeating design of a golden scarab topped with a sun disk, surrounded by feathers and sitting on an ankh.

Luxor airport has only one baggage carousel and there are more taxi drivers outside than personnel inside. The air is balmy and there isn’t much traffic. Already I sense the pace of things here is slower than in Cairo… unless you are with our group.

We check into the New Winter Palace, which is next to and shares grounds with the Old Winter Palace. Once again our bathroom is fit for a pharaoh, with a tub the size of a sarcophagus and marble everywhere. Because Egypt is a desert country, I expected the hotels to have those conservation-friendly Eastern Bloc shower heads that emit needles of water so sharp they take the skin off your back. But these faucets flow in such a luxurious stream, I can almost imagine I’m in an ancient villa with servants pouring the water over me from earthenware jugs.

Historic Winter Palace Hotel. Photo courtesy of H. Grobe, Wikimedia Commons, with changes to suit the look of this blog.

Giza Plateau

Posted on January 16, 2015 by Paula Terrey

16 March 2000 (morning)

Our routine has been 6:30 wake-up call, 7:00 breakfast, and board the bus by 8:00, but today we must be on the bus by 7:30. We’ll tour the Giza Plateau as a group this morning, then come back to Mena House for lunch. After that there’s an optional walking tour.

The Great Pyramid as seen from Mena House grounds

The entrance to the Giza Plateau is just around the corner and up the hill from Mena House. Makes sense, given that the Great Pyramid has been looming over us these past few days. We’ll take the bus in spite of the short distance because we’ll want it later.

First stop is a security checkpoint. There’s a police station on our left and a tiny mosque to its right, a crescent moon topping its obelisk-shaped minaret. A greasy looking shop called the “Pyramids Bazaar” is next to the mosque, donkey stables behind it.

Guard House, Giza Plateau

After security we go up the hill and wait. When we get the okay to proceed another bus challenges us to a camel race, but our driver is both ruthless and invincible and we don’t miss our chance to be first in line for Great Pyramid tickets. To prevent scalping, visitors must buy tickets themselves, so Bill stands next to the booth and gives us our allotted pounds.

Guards at the base of the Great Pyramid

First impression of the Giza Plateau: it is immense. Human hands have modified every inch of rock under our feet and it’s an uneven minefield of potential twisted ankles.

Black basalt paving, Great Pyramid

Basalt paving stones are still in place on one side of the Great Pyramid and for a moment I’m able to capture what it must have looked like originally: brilliant angle of seamless white limestone set against a turquoise sky and surrounded by a smooth, black stone lake.

This is the start of Eid al-Adha and there are swarms of picnicking families on holiday. Moustafa tells us they don’t allow Egyptians into the Great Pyramid for the first three days of the feast because there wouldn’t be any tickets left for tourists.

Guards & Camels, Giza Plateau

Camel-riding guards are assembled and ready to head out on patrol. Their uniforms look unbearably hot: black woolen jackets with lots of gold braid looped over the shoulders, thick pants, heavy boots, and berets. The camels make a noise that sounds exactly like an accelerating motorcycle.

Egyptian Museum

Posted on December 7, 2014 by Paula Terrey

14 March 2000 (afternoon)

Admission to the Egyptian Museum is twenty pounds, with an extra forty pounds to see the royal mummies. We’ll pay for that but there’s a steep fee for cameras too. We decide it’s not worth it for the quality we’d be able to achieve and leave them on the bus. The museum closes at 4:30.

The Egyptian Museum. Photo courtesy of Christophe Badoux, Wikimedia Commons.

A ten-foot iron bar fence with star and spear-shaped finials surrounds the museum garden. Garden renovations are underway. The grass is brown and dotted with piles of rubble and the papyrus fountain is boarded up. We pass through security (bag x-ray and metal detector) at the outer gate and step down from street level onto a path to the entrance.

The museum is built of salmon-colored limestone blocks and is overwhelmingly big, even from the outside. An arch and flanking columns of white stone, perhaps limestone, frame the entry. There’s a carved Hathor head at the top of the arch and two queens or goddesses on either side. Their flowing robes and shapely bodies are decidedly non-Egyptian, but their headgear is traditional. More decorative iron grille work covers the windows.

Once inside we pause for another set of x-ray machines and metal detectors. The museum smells like creosote, paint, and sawdust. There’s a Tourist Police office on the right and two small gift shops on the left. There’s no information counter, no coat or package check, no brochure or map. Birds come and go through broken window panes.

Overwhelming scale of the Egyptian Museum. Photo courtesy of Kristoferb, Wikimedia Commons.

Moustafa takes us on a highlights tour and then turns us loose for a couple of hours. The highlights exhaust us, however, and we need something to drink, so before exploring on our own we head for the museum café, which requires exiting the museum and going up a set of stairs.

We sit at a table overlooking the park. The café menu is a miniature wooden obelisk with drink prices and images of Nefertiti and Tut printed on the sides. We order the hibiscus tea called Karkady and they serve it hot. Not exactly what we had in mind since we were picturing the cold, sweet, red drink we were served upon our arrival at Mena House, but with plenty of sugar and a chance to cool off it’s still refreshing.

The Mugama’a. Photo courtesy of Vyacheslav Argenberg, Wikimedia Commons.

From our vantage point we can see Tahrir Square and, in the distance, the looming hulk of the Mugama’a, that infamous black hole of Egyptian bureaucracy. They must have finished the work on this side of the park because the grass below us is green and there are daisies mixed with agaves around the bases of the palms. The top of an obelisk marks the center of four converging granite pathways and statues of various gods — Horus, Sekhmet — are strategically placed on limestone pedestals.

Pectoral: Goddess Nut mounted on a gold plaque. Photo courtesy of Alice, Wikimedia Commons.

Back inside the museum, treasure lust draws us to King Tutankhamen’s jewelry. It’s in a special, vault-like room with yet another iron grille across the entrance and a guard at the door. The windows are closed and covered but the room smells of cooking oil and traffic fumes.

Next we visit the royal mummies. Guests are asked for silence but our fellow humans can’t resist the urge to comment and between the talkers and the shushers any hope of quiet contemplation is lost. The mummies are surprisingly small and delicate, like little dried birds. Rameses II is bald but there’s a fringe of wispy ginger-colored hair around the side of his head. Most of the mummies are lying on linen pads in hermetically sealed cases, not in coffins.

Our time is up and we’ve seen only a fraction of what we wanted to see. The closing bell is a persistent “brrrrrrrrring.” It follows us all the way out to the street.

Coptic Cairo

Posted on November 30, 2014 by Paula Terrey

14 March 2000 (morning)

We start with breakfast in the Khan al-Khalili restaurant at Mena House and are on the bus by 8:00. The plan is to see Coptic and Islamic sites this morning, the Egyptian Museum this afternoon, and the Khan al-Khalili bazaar tonight.

It’s a hazy day. The median strip of the highway is sand and rubble and the Nile looks small and crowded, cruise boats stacked along its bank. There are fields on islands in the middle of the river.

Moustafa lectures as we go. The most expensive apartments in Cairo overlook the Nile. Maadi is the name of the American district. The Arabic word for Egypt is Misr. Of the 65 million people in Egypt, 15% are Christian. St. Mark brought the gospel to Egypt in A.D. 60.

We pass the Tura limestone quarries, source of the Fourth Dynasty pyramid casing stones. Hundreds of statues, garden ornaments, architectural ornaments, and bags of cement line the roadside in front of each establishment. Freshly worked limestone is as white as snow.

Our bus driver is a whiz. He somehow negotiates the narrow Old Cairo streets and we park near the “M” subway station. The subway is relatively new to Cairo and Moustafa tells us it’s helping ease the traffic nightmare. We’ll have to take his word for it.

Coptic Cairo: brickwork of the Roman fort

We walk through a door in the walls of the so-called “Babylon Fortress” (Roman) and down a narrow alley, irregular limestone cobbles under foot.

First stop is Ben Ezra Synagogue, the oldest synagogue in Egypt. There’s a sacred well next to the synagogue that’s thought to mark the spot where pharaoh’s wife/daughter plucked Moses from the Nile.

Columns in the synagogue are painted faux marble, the walls are lined with bookcases, and high overhead the windows are stained glass. The pulpit stands smack in the middle of the room. The oldest Torah in existence, written on sheepskin, was discovered in the upstairs library.

Next we retrace our steps a short distance to the Coptic church of St. Sergius. It’s famous because, among other things, one of the interior pillars has a carved cross decoration that dripped blood in 1967 and didn’t stop until prayers were said over it. A piece of protective plastic covers the dark stains and people have written notes, presumably prayers, on scraps of paper and tucked them around the edges.

There’s an underground crypt/sanctuary but it’s filled with water due to the general rise in the water table. Tradition holds that the church was built on the site where the holy family stayed while in exile. In keeping with this theme the church also has “escaping shafts,” used by the congregants during the Roman era for obvious reasons. The ceiling beams are deeply curved, like the inverted hull of a boat, to represent Noah’s ark. A flock of noisy sparrows lives up there.

The “Hanging Church” under restoration

The pulpit is marble and there’s lovely wooden marquetry everywhere, but the painting of Mary and Jesus at the front of the sanctuary is a modern work on velvet and the floor is covered with old carpet. We’re told an interesting bit of trivia: the word Coptic comes from the ancient Egyptian “House of Ptah” – “Ka-a-Ptah.”

Next we go to Al-Muallaka, the “Church of the Virgin” or “The Hanging Church,” so-called because it’s suspended between the towers of the old Roman fort. It’s under restoration so things are torn up, but there’s still plenty to see. Every surface is either painted, carved, or inlaid with mother of pearl. It, too, has an “ark” ceiling, an intricately carved marble pulpit, and escaping shafts.

“Ark” ceiling and icons in the Hanging Church

A bit of symbolism is pointed out to us: the pulpit is decorated on the side with a cross carved inside a circle.

Cross within an Egyptian “shen” sign?

The circle is the ancient Egyptian sign meaning “forever,” therefore the cross within the circle means, “the cross will live forever.” Another interesting tidbit: regular priests in the Coptic Church must be married, but the Coptic Pope cannot be married, so popes come up through the monastic ranks.

Altarpiece of the Hanging Church

Saqqara

Posted on November 27, 2014 by Paula Terrey

13 March 2000 (afternoon & evening)

We leave the Memphis open air museum and stop at the Saqqara Palm Club for a buffet lunch of chicken, rice, tahini, and several other dishes. After that it’s a short distance to the Step Pyramid.

Djoser’s 3rd Dynasty step pyramid, Saqqara

The French archaeologist Jean-Philippe Lauer (pronounced “Lew-aire”) devoted more than thirty years to reconstructing the enclosure wall and subsidiary structures of the pyramid complex. The guards at the enclosure entrance wear black woolen uniforms, boots, berets, and machine guns.

Djoser pyramid complex, entrance colonnade. The stone columns have been carved to resemble bundled reeds.

We circumnavigate the pyramid and stop to examine the serdab, where the famous statue of Djoser was discovered in situ. It’s now one of the crown jewels of the Egyptian Museum, but a passable replica is in place here. We go by the entrance to the substructure and I’m itching to take a peek but it’s not open to the public.

It’s impossible to feel lonely at the Step Pyramid. We’re accompanied every step of the way by donkey boys shouting, “Taxi! Egyptian Cadillac! Taxi! Egyptian Cadillac!”

After the Step Pyramid we walk to the tomb of the “two brothers,” royal manicurists Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep. Then we walk past the 5th Dynasty pyramid of Unas and down his causeway. The causeway covering has been partially reconstructed. There are stars on the ceiling and some of the blue paint still shows.

Next we visit the 6th Dynasty Pyramid of Teti. This is the second pyramid to have “pyramid texts” (Unas was first) and we can go inside. Access to the burial chamber is via a quasi ladder/staircase made from metal rails fastened to boards that cover the steeply sloping surface of the passage. Teti’s sarcophagus is still in place (minus Teti of course) and it’s HUGE, much taller than I am and even taller than Chaz at 6’8″. A corner of the lid is gone, presumably the work of tomb robbers.

From there we go to the tomb of Mereruka. Mereruka was Vizier (Prime Minister) under Teti and a statue of him is still in situ. Then it’s the tomb of Ptahhotep with its raised relief scenes of daily life: acrobats, winemaking, a lion attacking a cow, and a gazelle nursing.

The highway between Saqqara and Giza is two lanes. It’s up on a levy so we look down from our bus onto fields, plant nurseries, and canals. People from Cairo have summer homes out here; one house has a huge satellite dish on top.

“Thirst is an ancient feeling”

A billboard with the slogan, “Drink Coca Cola – Thirst is an Ancient Feeling.” A Volkswagen bug packed with sheep. Donkeys braying. Little kids running. Narrow paths among the palms and weeds. Mud brick huts with thatched roofs. A house smothered in a painted design of vines and leaves. Crude wooden ladders to roof tops. Green shutters. Blue shutters. Thick orange dust on my boots.

It’s late afternoon when we return to the hotel and Chaz wants to rest. I’m too wound up so decide to walk to one of the papyrus “museums.” Getting there, however, proves to be easier said than done. There are no traffic lights and no crosswalks. The papyrus museum I selected from the bus is closed but a helpful gentleman suggests another place across the street and demonstrates the correct method for dealing with the murderous traffic. Simply step into the path of speeding cars and trucks, hold up your hand, smile, and hope they’ll stop for you.

Hand-painted papyri for sale at the “Sobek Papyrus Institute”

The Sobek Papyrus Institute has a colorful tent-like awning and a basement gallery. When I walk in I wonder if they’re really open because the lights are out but they promptly turn them on for me. It turns out this is typical – it saves on electricity.

Back at Mena House I retrieve Chaz. We go to dinner at a hotel restaurant called The Greenery and call it a night by 8:30.

New York to Cairo

Posted on November 20, 2014 by Paula Terrey

12 March 2000

The Great Pyramid from Mena House. The tower on the right is part of the hotel.

We are over the Mediterranean as I write this and the next land we see, forty-five minutes from now, will be Egypt. We’re late but it couldn’t be helped. Air Traffic Control put us in a holding pattern as we approached JFK. A fifteen minute delay became half-an-hour, then stretched to two hours with no explanation.

Because we were so late they wouldn’t let us leave the plane in New York. We stood and chatted with the woman behind us, whose name is Huda. She’s originally from the Sudan and was raised Muslim but now she lives in Santa Barbara and is a Native American Sundancer.

Chaz has had yet another mid-air pen disaster. There’s a splotch of ink on his passport control card and the tips of two fingers are black, but considering all the henna around here he looks quite fashionable.

At 7:10 pm we arrive at Cairo International Airport. The airport –- or at least this terminal of the airport –- isn’t nearly as large as I expected but there’s no doubt we’re in the right place. The ceiling panels are aluminum but the floor is granite and the square pillars are encased in alabaster. The Hadj is just starting so the place is packed with well wishers from the countryside, seeing their loved ones off on their great religious adventure.

Twelve of us are assembled and waiting for the Museum Tours representative, Khaled, to shepherd us onward. Khaled has thinning wavy hair, boundless energy, and a cell phone glued to his ear.

Once outside the airport we board a bus/van hybrid and are introduced to Moustafa, our guide for the duration of the trip. Moustafa is young, exuberant, friendly, and speaks English with a clear accent. He will be perfect.

The ride from the airport to our hotel is a blur of sights: cars and motorcycles driving without lights (why do they do that?!), trucks piled high with bulging sacks of grain, and cattle on the way to the butcher.

We pass a replica statue of Rameses II and then the City of the Dead, an Islamic cemetery that’s home to thousands of squatters. It’s sprawling and spooky, walled off from the main road but we can see down the narrow streets as we pass. Cooking fires flicker in front of darkened tomb doorways. Moustafa tells us the government can’t force people already living there to leave, however they offer interest-free loans and help getting apartments. There are 65 million people in Egypt, 18 million in Cairo.

At 8:30 pm we arrive at Mena House, an astonishing island of tranquility. We’re in room 163, ground level of the newest section of the hotel. Our room is furnished with two comfortable chairs, a low table, several lamps, an old-fashioned wardrobe, and an up-to-date looking television. The beds and windows are draped with tapestry-like material and the bathroom has a marble counter and floor. The tag on our room key is thick, heavy brass.