Last Day in Cairo

Wednesday January 4 2012

Our last day in Cairo. We were scheduled only for a visit to the bazaar for last minute shopping but arranged with Ahmed to visit The Citadel, a walled fortress situated on a hill overlooking Cairo. We left the hotel at 9am and went via a roundabout route to the Citadel. I haven't written much about driving in Cairo. Well it is an experience. Cars and trucks drive all over the road ignoring any lane markings. People cross the road, even multi-lane highways, wherever they want. Vendors with coffee carts set up impromptu coffee shops on the outer lanes of highways and roads. And the roads are so full of traffic that they are stretched to capacity and beyond. Even more strangely, it is often impossible to make a left turn on main roads so that cars are forced to drive way beyond where they want to go in order to do an allowed U-turn (where the central concrete barrier is not present) and then drive back to make their turn. Our drive to the Citadel involved all of this type of driving and so it took a long time to get there.

Once we arrived Ahmed told us about the history of the complex including the arrival of the Arabs in Egypt in about 600AD. Throughout the trip we've been learning about the history of Egypt and how it has been a land occupied by a string of invaders for over 2000 years. I can't begin to recite them in order but they included the Persians, the Greeks, The French and British, the Turks and the Arabs. It's funny to realise that they Egyptians, whom we now think of as Arabs, originally were a different people. The Ancient Egyptians, of course, weren't Arabs. Now, of course, the people of Egypt consider themselves Arabs.We visited two mosques--both not used for worship anymore. The second mosque was very large, made of white marble (which is very dirty and desperately needs a sandblasting) and the floor was fully covered with many Persian style carpets. Ahmed gave us a very personal insight into Islam and both explained and showed us how Muslims worship in the mosque. I really appreciated him speaking so openly about his religion and I think this gave me a better understanding about Islam.

We took some photos outside within the complex then returned to the van for the drive to the bazaar for shopping. All of us had some last minute souvenirs in mind and we shopped hard to get them. Poor Paul is still looking for an Egyptian style tie which he hasn't been able to find anywhere. After shopping we were supposed to go directly back to the hotel but as it was lunch time we asked for more time to eat at one of the many cafes just outside the bazaar. While we were eating we were visited by a number of street cats. I will write more about them in a separate post.

At about 12.45 we returned to the hotel to re-pack our bags and have a rest. We also had arranged with Ahmed to take him out to dinner before we left Egypt. We met up with him at 5.45 and walked out to the road in front of the hotel to try and flag down a cab because booking a cab through the hotel would have cost around 170 Egyptian pounds (LE) compared to hailing a cab for about 20LE! The hotel is on the main highway to Alexandria and the traffic is heavy and fast moving with few cabs. It took us about 10 minutes to get a cab but we were very lucky as the guy who stopped held up traffic in his lane and was furiously beeped by the cars behind him. We went to a shopping centre and ate at a food court. This was a very different sort of place to all of the other places we've seen in Egypt. Other than our hotels I think this is the cleanest public space we've been in for two weeks. With 40% of Egypt poor, and shopping centres like this built for the small middle class, this is a privileged space and not one for the masses.

We are very sad to be leaving Ahmed who during our tour became like a member of our family. We plan to keep in touch with him.

We rested again at the hotel after dinner. We had arranged to be picked up at midnight. (Our flight out is at 3.40 AM!) But Mohammad, the same guide who met us on arrival, came early to pick us up and we ended up leaving at 11.30.