Port Said, Egypt
At eery street we cross there is a road block with a police officer holding up traffic. Naively I ask if that is for our little caravan of buses. Everyone laughs at my conceit, yet the guide assures us it is for us. After a few buses of tourists have been bombed the Egyptians are taking no chances with their main source of income. We have armed police escort all the way from Port Said to Cairo. I should feel safer with so many guns protecting me, but instead I feel the danger more intensely. The idea that I am in enough danger to need protection scares me a bit.
We pass coffee shops with old men sitting outside smoking their hookahs. Women with brightly colored scarves wrapped around their heads walk to work. Police and guards are everywhere. Egypt strikes me as a dirty place, far far past its prime and kept alive only because the world is fascinated by the work of its' ancestors.
Cairo
Houses made of brick crumbling into eachother. Roofs unfinished and falling down. The Nile jumps into view. The longest river in the world, fed by rains falling in the far off Savana. Moving from Cairo to Giza across the Nile we cross from the City of the Living to the City of the Dead. And closer to the pyramids, my first of the seven wonders of the world.
The Pyramids
Huge. Massive. Overwhelming. My mind is surprised and can't take in the concept that they were constructed by mens' hands. Each brick is nearly my height. We laugh, take pictures, joke around and suddenly I am back on the bus. At the next pyramid we repeat. This time the added excitement of some camels. Then the Sphinx, but it's like a race-- in and out. Not that I needed more time to take pictures, I got plenty. But I did need more time for contemplation. I wonder how different the experience would be if the pyramids were treated with reverance. Rather than campes and vendors, benches for quiet contemplation and honoring what man has been able to create. I had fun, but I was more worried about taking pictures in our limited time than gaining understanding.
Wandering around the markets of Cairo afterwards I was more concerned with shopping than history. Suddenly there is an invitation into a mosque, which is happily accepted. The mosque is 500 years old and the upper floors were at one time a school for the Koran. Now the school, the rooms are abandoned and a thick layer of dust covers everything. We are taken through all the rooms on a private tour by an older man dressed in a robe sipping Chai tea. His smile is missing some teeth but he lacks nothing in happiness. He educates us. We go to the roof and then enter into another stone staircase spiraling upwards. As we climb all light disappears and we blindly continue, all sense of sight gone. Suddenly the light reappears and like being reborn we are bathed in sunshine, a gentle breeze and a spectacular view of Cairo awaits us. I am impressed by the sense of peace that permeates the mosque, radiating from the walls, conveying the prayers of 500 years. It’s the same feeling I get in every place of worship—churches, temples, shrines. They all possess a sense of peace and sacredness.
At eery street we cross there is a road block with a police officer holding up traffic. Naively I ask if that is for our little caravan of buses. Everyone laughs at my conceit, yet the guide assures us it is for us. After a few buses of tourists have been bombed the Egyptians are taking no chances with their main source of income. We have armed police escort all the way from Port Said to Cairo. I should feel safer with so many guns protecting me, but instead I feel the danger more intensely. The idea that I am in enough danger to need protection scares me a bit.
We pass coffee shops with old men sitting outside smoking their hookahs. Women with brightly colored scarves wrapped around their heads walk to work. Police and guards are everywhere. Egypt strikes me as a dirty place, far far past its prime and kept alive only because the world is fascinated by the work of its' ancestors.
Cairo
Houses made of brick crumbling into eachother. Roofs unfinished and falling down. The Nile jumps into view. The longest river in the world, fed by rains falling in the far off Savana. Moving from Cairo to Giza across the Nile we cross from the City of the Living to the City of the Dead. And closer to the pyramids, my first of the seven wonders of the world.
The Pyramids
Huge. Massive. Overwhelming. My mind is surprised and can't take in the concept that they were constructed by mens' hands. Each brick is nearly my height. We laugh, take pictures, joke around and suddenly I am back on the bus. At the next pyramid we repeat. This time the added excitement of some camels. Then the Sphinx, but it's like a race-- in and out. Not that I needed more time to take pictures, I got plenty. But I did need more time for contemplation. I wonder how different the experience would be if the pyramids were treated with reverance. Rather than campes and vendors, benches for quiet contemplation and honoring what man has been able to create. I had fun, but I was more worried about taking pictures in our limited time than gaining understanding.
Wandering around the markets of Cairo afterwards I was more concerned with shopping than history. Suddenly there is an invitation into a mosque, which is happily accepted. The mosque is 500 years old and the upper floors were at one time a school for the Koran. Now the school, the rooms are abandoned and a thick layer of dust covers everything. We are taken through all the rooms on a private tour by an older man dressed in a robe sipping Chai tea. His smile is missing some teeth but he lacks nothing in happiness. He educates us. We go to the roof and then enter into another stone staircase spiraling upwards. As we climb all light disappears and we blindly continue, all sense of sight gone. Suddenly the light reappears and like being reborn we are bathed in sunshine, a gentle breeze and a spectacular view of Cairo awaits us. I am impressed by the sense of peace that permeates the mosque, radiating from the walls, conveying the prayers of 500 years. It’s the same feeling I get in every place of worship—churches, temples, shrines. They all possess a sense of peace and sacredness.
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