Walk Like An Egyptian

Last updated on February 11, 2022

Warning! Super long post! So much to say!

Two epic travel days to reach Egypt:

• Honolulu to LA, left at 7:30 AM–> 5 hours
• LA to London Heathrow, overnight flight–> 9.5 hours
• LHR to Cairo, arrived at 11:00 PM the next day–> 4.5 hours
• TOTAL Hours traveling: 39.5 hours; TOTAL Hours in a plane: 19 hours

Needless to say we were done when we arrived in Cairo. The only thing thing that got us through this ordeal was that we splurged for business class on the LA to LHR leg and it was so worth it! Lay-flat beds and exceptional food (for airplane food) and service made it bearable. We did have a small nut scare for Sy when he was served a pastry with barely identifiable nuts on top. He is pretty careful and had only taken a tiny nibble of the pastry part and fortunately had no side effects. The stewardess was freaked out and came back to check on him every few minutes. While we registered him as “no nuts” on the menu page on-line apparently you have to tell them in person when you get on so they flag his seat as no nuts. Whoops. The kids loved their sleeping pods and the unrestricted access to movies and video games.

A good length layover at LHR with a trip to the Harry Potter store, the BA Club Europe lounge and the candy shop (of course). Trey stocked up on extra large bags of Haribo. Turns out their gummy pacifiers look very much like the Egyptian ankh. The kids were walking around Egypt for the next 10 days asking for the key of life. The flight to Cairo was only eventful in that Griffin immediately fell asleep laying down across 2 seats, woke with a start, sat up, banged the tray table and spilled my tomato juice all over his face, hair and pillow. What a mess! Fortunately, he was too tired to care and I was able to half-heartedly wipe most of it off of him with the tiny, paper, non-absorbent napkins that come with your mixed nuts and drink.

We were met at the airport in Cairo by Belal, a very nice employee of Kensington Tours. He shepherded us through several checkpoints and made the process less stressful. When we passed the last checkpoint and had our bags we finally gave a sigh of relief. All the paperwork went through…visas, Covid tests, vaccination cards, immigration cards, health declaration form…all approved. Phew! We had an hour drive to the hotel in the van with Muhammed and Menna who pointed out some sights on the way. By then it was almost midnight Egypt time and we had been traveling for a long time. Trey, Sy and Griffin fell asleep in the van on the way to the Marriot Mena House Hotel, which was first opened to the public in 1886.

Some initial observations from my sleep deprived brain: airport employees don’t smile a lot and are a little intimidating, the number 1 in Arabic is basically the same as ours (one line), the lane lines on the streets are just a suggestion, not a rule, beeping your horn is part of communicating with your fellow drivers, security is tight especially around tourist hotels and you tip for everything.

When we got to the hotel, we had to stop at a large metal gate with several guards who walked around the van with a police dog and spoke with our driver before letting us through. The driveway was long and circuitous to the drop off area. There was a several hundred foot path to the lobby lined with shallow pools of water with fountains and well placed little white lamps. We had to go past more guards and through a metal detector to enter the hotel.

Despite eating multiple plane meals over the past two days everyone was hungry when we arrived, so we ordered room service and ate deliriously at 1:00 AM before collapsing into bed. I had no idea what time schedule we were on at the time. I think Hawaii to Cairo is a 12 hour difference so it’s a total day/night switch. We slept from 2AM to 8 AM and went to the hotel breakfast which was seriously THE BEST breakfast spread I have ever seen. You could eat here for days and never eat the same thing twice. We all tried some new things in addition to eating a ton of familiar foods: Marin tried fresh honeycomb and a cup of decaf coffee with lots of milk and sugar. Sy had strawberry juice and 17 kinds of unknown cheese. Griffin had what we think was guava juice combined with mint. Trey had ful mudammas which is a stew of cooked fava beans served with olive oil, cumin, and optionally with things like chopped parsley, garlic, onion, lemon juice, and chili pepper. I had all the kinds of hummus and dips with marinated tomatoes.

This hotel is right next to the pyramids. We can see them from our balcony and we also sat staring at them through breakfast. Lots of multi-level water fountains lead to 85F heated swimming pools. It was raining a bit which was great as we wanted a lazy day to recover from jet lag and get some school work done. We went to the on-site Italian restaurant for an early dinner which turned out not to be early enough. Sy was asleep curled up in his chair before we ordered (pretty impressive even for a nocturnalist’s son) and Griffin lasted until the end of dinner and then was out like a light.

The next day we met our tour guide, Samah, and she showed us around the pyramids at Giza, took us for a camel ride and taught us about the Sphinx. The Giza pyramid complex includes the Great Pyramid of Giza (#1), the Pyramid of Khafre (#2), and the Pyramid of Menkaure (#3), and the Great Sphinx of Giza. All were built between 2600 and 2500 BC. The Great Pyramid is by far the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the World and the only one still in existence today.

The pyramids were built by ancient Egyptians. They were one of the first civilizations to believe in an afterlife. They believed that a second self called the ka lived within every human being. When the physical body expired, the ka enjoyed eternal life. Egyptians who ranked high in status often wanted to take their most prized possessions with them in death so the ka could enjoy them in its next life. Gold, silver, and bronze artifacts were loaded into the interiors of the pyramids as well as fine linens, Canopic jars, mummified family pets and animals, jewels, etc. These were placed with the mummified body of the VIP being entombed. Each pyramid was created during the lifetime of the king or queen and held one body. Of all of the pyramids (there are over 118) and tombs in Egypt, only that of King Tutankhamun’s was spared from tomb robbers who removed everything of worth.

The pyramids were built out of limestone in horizontal levels, one on top of the other. The exterior of the pyramids was smooth, but only a small portion of the exterior, casing stones remain in place at the bottom of #1 and the top of #2. The remaining casing stones were taken over the years for other projects throughout Egypt. Evidence from tombs surrounding the pyramids indicates that a workforce of 10,000 laborers working in three-month shifts took around 30 years to build a pyramid. It is likely that the laborers were paid workers and not slaves. The sides of all three of the Giza pyramids are astronomically oriented to the north–south and east–west within a small fraction of a degree.

The Sphinx is a monolith limestone statue of a reclining mythical creature with the head of a man and the body of a lion (some think it may actually be a jackal). It faces directly from west to east and the face of the Sphinx appears to represent the pharaoh Khafre suggesting that it was built during the time of pyramid #2. It is thought that it was built to protect the pyramids and the temples surrounding them. However, it is possible that the architects arranged for solar events to link the pyramids, Sphinx and surrounding temple. There is some evidence that all three are connected when the sun rises and sets twice a year during the equinoxes.

The kids especially liked going down through a long, low tunnel that extended about 50 feet down into the earth under the pyramid at a steep angle. I did not do this one as I kept thinking about the thousands of tons of 4500 year old rock over our heads that have to fall down sometime! I think my exact words were, “Oh, hell no!” I waited until my favorite people were out to give a sigh of relief.

The camel ride was also popular. We took three out and were told that their names were Mickey Mouse, Yankee Doodle, and Michael Jordan (I suspect this was just to make the tourists happy). I was proud of Griffin as he has never wanted to ride things in the past and this was way more scary than a pony ride! It is definitely not like riding a horse. Trey and Sy nearly fell off when the camel first got up as no one warned them to lean WAY back.

Tip: Ages for successful engagement with a tour guide. Marin (12) is very engaged and interested, Sy (8) is sometimes able to pay attention and Griffin (6) is looking for someone or something to play with and really only pays attention if its something short, active, gross or about dead bodies.

We had lunch overlooking the pyramids, the Sphinx and the street below the restaurant. We ate pita with tahini, yogurt/mint sauce, baba ganoush, grilled marinated chicken, mesa’a’h (eggplant in fresh tomato sauce) and rice.

The next day we went to Saqqara which served as the necropolis for the ancient Egyptian capital of Memphis. It contains ancient burial grounds of Egyptian royalty consisting of numerous pyramids including the Step Pyramid of Djoser. This pyramid is the oldest complete stone building complex known in history. Its architect was Imhotep, chancellor to Pharaoh Djoser, and the bad guy in the 1999 movie The Mummy. It is a 6-tier, 4-sided structure built in the 27th century BC and is the central feature of a vast mortuary complex in an enormous courtyard where the king battled a bull in front of his people. Who knew? The stones here were polished with sand and it feels smooth like granite countertops. Another sixteen Egyptian kings built pyramids at Saqqara which are now in various states of preservation. The entire family went into the Pyramid of Unas (I went too!). The tunnel into this one was much shorter (maybe 25 feet) so I sucked it up and ignored the thoughts of collapse and saw hieroglyphics on the walls depicting the food and supplies that the king would be taking to the next life. The guide called this the magic pyramid because when you turned off the lights and looked at the walls from the side you can see secret reliefs of the king carved into the walls.

We also went into the 4,000-year-old Tomb of Mehu belonging to a high-ranking official. The ancient tomb was originally discovered back in 1940, but was closed to the public for 80 years until the completion of restoration work. Its vivid wall illustrations depicting scenes from daily life shed light on how Egyptians lived more than a thousand years before the pyramids were constructed. The detail is just incredible given the age of the tomb. The photo on the top left is the false door to the tomb. The top right is women weaving rugs and the other carvings depict the food and animals that would be coming with the deceased to the afterlife.

We went to another pyramid that the tour guide did not recommend we go into, but the kids and Trey wanted to run off some steam so they hiked up to the opening and went down, through and up into some small antechambers inside. They all said that I would not have liked it as there were lights out in the very steep shaft in and it was even longer and darker than the one I did not do yesterday. Summary: hot, dark, smelled bad with very steep and long tunnels.

Our final site of the day took us to the Open Air Museum of Memphis where we saw an enormous limestone colossus of King Ramses II, well, half the statue. They found it laying in a stream bed missing its legs and the half that was exposed to the air was severely eroded. The cartouche for Ramses II (an oval containing the hieroglyphic name of the person indicating that they are a royal) was engraved in multiple places all over the statue. You can see it on his right shoulder. Apparently he was very fond of himself. He had more than 90 kids…with a wife and multiple mistresses during his 67 year rule. There is also a giant alabaster Sphinx of Queen Hatshepsut, Trey’s favorite of all the pharaohs. The kids were happy to see the litter of adorable puppies roaming around the grounds.

We finished the day with a visit to an outdoor restaurant for lunch which was really good. There was an impromptu band that started to play when we arrived and left. The kids tried a lot of new foods including rice with tomato and potato stew, grilled marinated chicken, grilled ground lamb/beef, baba ganoush, and rice wrapped in cabbage.

We have the same driver each day and some outings we had a security guard also. Apparently the US embassy requires tourist groups of more than 2 people, driving more than a few miles (but apparently only in Cairo), to have a security person with them for safety. We felt safe today with him (he is carrying 2 guns per one of the kids who spotted them strapped to his sides) and due to the safety measures the Egyptians take at all the tourist sites (big metal gates to get the van in, inspecting under the van with a mirror, dogs sniffing around all the entering vehicles and many security people around with large guns). Our guy was nice and gave Griffin a few small rocks which were quickly pocketed as found treasures. I noticed he always brought up the rear of our group and was watching out for the kids.

The drive to the sites through Cairo was VERY interesting. Cairo is a huge city with 35 million people, but it is not completely a modern city. I would say the overwhelming feeling is one of dichotomy. We saw big buses driving by small donkeys being ridden by old men and women in boots and leather jackets walking past women in full length robes with baskets of grass or vegetables on their heads. There are thousands of brick homes in various stages of completion. It is often hard to tell if they are being built or knocked down. You can usually tell that they are inhabited if there are clothes hanging from a line outside or if there is an air conditioner or satellite dish on the wall. We also learned that Egyptians often add floors to their homes in hopes that their children will move “upstairs” when they come of age and get married. Because of this the foundation for the next floor is often started, but not completed so as to not pay any extra taxes.

…And the trash! The trash gets its own paragraph. We are all a little horrified. There is a channel of water alongside a busy main street that is “no longer used” per Samah. The reason given is because it is FULL of trash. We have never seen anything like it. There were bodies of dead cows and horses floating in the water. Many small white egrets were standing on the trash…fishing? I cannot imagine there are live fish in this water. I also am not sure why it did not smell worse. Sy was on the canal side of the car ride and watching out the window. He kept asking why is there so much trash in there? Why isn’t anyone picking it up or recycling it? Don’t people care about the earth? It is a hard discussion to have. I am not 100% sure why it isn’t seen as a bad thing or something to fix. I assume it is our lack of understanding of the issues facing a developing country. We asked Samah about it and she said this area of Cairo is so full of people who have not traditionally had good trash disposal services. It seems to be engrained in the psyche to just drop trash on to the street. We saw multiple people do this. The city has now hired private contractors to do trash pick up, but it isn’t going well and there are huge logistical issues. At this time the problem is so massive that the solution must be daunting. The sheep (middle photo above) were “grazing” on top of a trash heap.

The traffic gets its own paragraph also. There are so many cars, vans, buses, tuk tuks, and motocycles, plus horses, wagons, and carts being pulled by donkeys and horses. If you ignore the lines on the road, a 5 lane road really can hold 10 cars abreast…we counted. There is a continuous cacophony of beeping horns helping the drivers communicate with each other. The horns are not as loud and obnoxious as the ones in the US. You can imagine these are just saying, “hey, I’m over here, coming by you”… instead of “hey A-hole, FU!” like horns in the US. You will definitely see vans pulled over on the side of a 10 lane road letting passengers out of shared “taxis”. Pedestrians will just walk across the highway and somehow no one gets hit or killed. We did not see any fender benders, but did see a few broken tail lights. Our van driver did hit one motorcycle driver and a pedestrian at a slow speed and then complained that they were at fault (they probably were). The highways have speed bumps on them. There are numerous speed bumps so you can’t really go very fast. Our driver Muhummed (There are many Muhammeds here), is a super star and somehow navigates this with poise.

Dogs and cats warrant a mention. There are a LOT of stray dogs around and a few less cats, but maybe they just hide better. On a given street block you might see 3-5 middle sized, generic stray dogs in varying condition, but none in great shape. They seem to peacefully coexist alongside humans. None really interacted with us despite the kids trying to lure them closer. There is certainly enough trash for them to eat.

Trey here…I need to comment on a few things that are pervasive in Egypt…the tipping culture, haggling, and the persistence of vendors. Everyone wants a tip in Egypt. It could be the guy who opens the door to the bathroom or the museum guide who takes a picture for you. You could tip 50 people by the end of each day. As our guide said when we arrived..Nothing is for free! Initially it was hard to not give something, but it became easier over the course of the trip to use discretion. It is also hard to figure out how much to give. We were definitely giving too much initially (50 Egyptian pounds or 3 dollars) instead of the more appropriate 5-10 pounds. Nothing has a price here because every price is negotiable. The vendors clearly know when a tourist has arrived and they try to extract the greatest price.

We asked the guide to stop for some snacks and he would not let us come into the store. We actually really like going to grocery stores in other countries. It’s always interesting to see what is on the shelves. So we were a little disappointed and thought maybe it was a safety issue. At the next stop for snacks, Trey got out and followed the guide in. Mistake! We realized why we were left in the van. Our Egyptian tour guide bought the groceries for us and tried to bargain for a better deal, but the vendor saw Trey and did not budge. We payed a lot more the second time! This is very annoying and hard to get around when you don’t speak the language at all We realized why the guides were doing all of the purchasing for us and taking us only to their usual establishments.

Finally, everywhere you go there are vendors trying to sell you things and they are very persistent. We learned how to say no thank you in Arabic (la, shukran), but it doesn’t really help. It is something that you just need to get over, walk past and put on your blank face.

On our last day in Cairo we went to Old Cairo, a historic area in Cairo which includes the site of a Roman-era fortress around which many of the Egyptian Christians’ oldest churches were built. We went into the The Church of Martyrs Sergius and Bacchus in The Cave, also known as Abu Serga. It is one of the oldest Coptic churches in Egypt, dating back to the 4th century. It is said that the Holy Family stayed here for 3 months seeking sanctuary. Frankly, I am surprised that there wasn’t more of a big deal made about this. The stone cradle on the left wall was Jesus’s. The wood carvings were intricate and a mix of several religions due to Roman influence, Christitanity, Judaism and Islam. Egypt is 80% Muslim, 20% Christian and there are only about 50 (!) jews left. The majority left after the Suez Crisis, the Israeli invasion of Sinai in 1956, because of persecution/antisemitism, political instability, poverty and expulsion.

Then we went to the Hanging Church which also dates back to the 4th century. There is nothing nefarious about the name…the church is literally suspended upon pillars over a Roman fortress, hence hanging. We learned a lot about how Christians, Jews, and Muslims, all coexisted with tolerance and when they did not. Countries with such long histories are very complex and I feel that an outsider would always struggle to understand. We actually found out that a significant number of Egyptians favor Trump over Obama because it is perceived that Obama supported the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in order to oust Mubarek and Trump supports travel to Egypt, the lifeblood of the country. Go figure!

We went to lunch at a local place in Cairo and had koshary, Egypt’s national dish and a widely popular street food. The dish combines Italian and Arab culinary elements and is made of rice, macaroni, and lentils mixed together, topped with a spiced tomato sauce and garlic lemon vinegar and garnished with chickpeas and crispy fried onions. Hot sauce can be added as a bonus. We passed on the hot sauce, but it was still delicious! Trey has had it a few times since.

Our last night there we went on a Nile River boat cruise for dinner and entertainment. We saw an energetic belly dancer dancing to live music in the traditional Egyptian manner and a guy who, I have trouble explaining, twirled in a circle maybe 10,000 times while his costume lit up in colors. He spun the large colorful cloak over his head in different patterns. It was quite entertaining. A day later, Google had no trouble explaining that this is Tanoura, a traditional Egyptian dance performed by men only. There is religious significance and the spinning represents the earth spinning around the sun and man’s connection to God. Samah brought her 6 year old daughter which was fun. She and Marin traded a sticker for an origami crane.

Belly dancing is an ancient Egyptian tradition and Samah says she and her daughter can do it. Little girls take lessons to learn how to dance when they are very small. All the Egyptian women on the boat were enthusiastic dancers when the band would play and drum. There were a lot of old timey American standards on the playlist.

We threw the kids into bed at 11 PM and packed up quickly for our 530 AM pickup for the 1 hour flight to Luxor.