I don’t think I will ever get tired of hearing the locals roam through the residential areas in which we typically live announcing their goods for sale from the back of their cart. Sometimes the carts are led by donkeys or horses, sometimes, the owner is walking the cart, sometimes the carts are on the front of bicycles, and sometimes they are in the beds of small trucks or engine-driven carts. They might be calling out khubz (bread), byd (eggs), khas (lettuce), or even iitar (a spare tire). And if someone needs what they are selling, they will holler out their window and they will negotiate window to street. There is something so timeless about the process. Love it.
This week was our last full week in Cairo and we saw more interesting places and continued to enjoy living as Cairenes. Last Saturday, we took an Uber to the Cairo Tower in the Zamalek neighborhood. The Tower was built in the 1950s and stands over 600 feet tall in the shape of a lotus flower. It is the tallest building in North Africa and offers wonderful views across northern Egypt. Unfortunately for us on our day (and most days, I think), it was hazy and we weren’t even able to make out the Giza pyramids, which are not that far away.
We left the Tower and walked to the Corniche to do our four-mile runs and then took the metro home for Greek salad and to watch the Olympics. We worked on some things at home and then eventually made our way to our Saturday night Cairo spot – Buffalo Wings n Rings and we were back home before 8pm. We did our grocery shopping when we got back, watched more Olympics, an episode of Frasier, and we were asleep by 11.
We decided we would make Sunday the start of our Valentine’s Week celebration and it was such a great day. We got to dress up again and head to the Opera House, this time for the ballet called Princess of the Nile which started at 11:30 am. We enjoyed the show and the story. It is so cool what they can do these days with digital imaging to make the stage come alive with whatever scenery is required.
The ballet tickets ran less than $9 each – a steal for this kind of quality entertainment. After the ballet, we walked 15 minutes over to the corniche and back to La Pacha 1901. We had eaten at this boat a couple of weeks ago when we had sushi at their Asian restaurant. Today we went to Le Steak, which is a French restaurant (there is also an Italian restaurant in the same place as these other two). It was very quiet when we arrived and got busier as the afternoon progressed. It is Sunday, which is a workday, so more business lunches were filing in. The whole meal was perfect. We shared a bottle of Chateau Grand Marquis (a mid-range Egyptian red wine), halloum fried cheese, safayeh (spinach dumplings), and bread. I had a bowl of onion soup. We each had a delicious filet – mine was with herb butter and Sandy’s was with bleu cheese sauce – and mashed potatoes. For dessert, we shared chocolate mousse and a molten chocolate lava cake and vanilla ice cream. Just great! We then went home to work on our journal and reservations for our next destination after Egypt and went to bed at 11.
Monday morning, we watched the recording of the Super Bowl (it started at 1:30am this morning in our time zone). We ate all of our meals at home today – bananas and cereal, Greek salad, and eggs and toast for dinner. We went to the gym for our workouts. I have picked up a cold – cough and runny nose – so we laid low. I gave myself a haircut and Sandy touched up the areas that I missed. Not much else to report for Monday. Tuesday was more of the same, although we did head out to the corniche (metro there and back) so that Sandy could do her four-mile run. I didn’t have the energy, so I just had a nice two-mile walk along the river.
Wednesday was a big day this week. We arranged with one of our earlier Uber drivers to spend the day with us and take us to two areas a little over an hour south of Cairo. Kareem picked us up at 8 and we made our way south. Dahshur and Saqqara are two significantly important pyramid and temple areas from ancient Egyptian times. The plan was to visit Dahshur first, but Kareem was unfamiliar with the area and we were having trouble figuring our where to go based on Google Maps. As the day went on, it was fascinating to watch Kareem pull up next to tuk-tuks or microbuses, even driving at full speed down the road to have a conversation about how to get where we were trying to go. While we were driving through the village of Memphis (a capital of Egypt more than 4,000 years ago), we realized how close we were to Saqqara, so we decided to go ahead and take care of those monuments first. There is a small museum at which we started called Imhotep Museum. Imhotep was an architect amongst other roles, and he is credited as the first builder of the pyramids. He served under King Sneferu. Following the museum we went to the most important site in Saqqara, which is the Step Pyramid. This was the first pyramid built and thus, is most likely the oldest building anywhere in the world today. It’s roughly 4,500 years old. Prior to the pyramids, pharaohs and other officials of importance were buried in mastabas. These were usually made of mudbricks or limestone and had a flat rectangular structure. The step pyramid (built as the tomb for Zoser) shows what seems to be a clear evolution to the pyramid shape as designed by Imhotep. It appears that a large mastaba was built, followed by a smaller one on top of it, and eventually there were six levels in descending size. Time has smoothed out the edges, but the steps are still very clear when looking at the pyramid.
We walked around the pyramid and chose not to go inside, we explored the large funerary complex surrounding the step pyramid, and then we went to the Mastaba of Ti. We had not planned to see the Serapeum but it was right next to the Mastaba of Ti, so we took a few minutes to explore it. Our guidebook calls it the weirdest monument at Saqqara as it was built in celebration of the Apis bulls, which the people of Memphis believed to be a manifestation of one of their gods’ blessed souls. The Serapaeum is filled with sarcophagi that once held the mummified corpses of those bulls. They were large tombs and the lids must have been a bear to move.
Ti was a pyramid overseer and he built himself an elaborate tomb, which, to this day, includes some of the best frescoes. They tell important stories that have helped archaeologists better understand Egyptian life at this time.
We were hungry and started the adventure of finding a place to eat. We were fine to go to a tourist-targeted kind of place, but Kareem thought that was too expensive, so he suggested we keep looking. We found a place called Green Palm 30 minutes later that was fine. They didn’t have a menu, so we just ate what they served. The food was very good – we had chicken, kofte (minced beef), bread, salad, tahini, and waters and then we were off to find some gasoline and Dahshur. Lots more asking for directions driving down the road and we were successful in both endeavors. We had a full tank of gas and we found Dahshur.
The two pyramids on our list at Dahshur were the Red Pyramid and the Bent Pyramid.
We stopped to gaze at the Red Pyramid first. It’s the second largest pyramid, only behind Khufu’s Pyramid in Giza, but it stands alone so there isn’t anything to compare its size against. You can enter the pyramid, but we again chose not to do so. It gets its name from the red limestone from which it is built. It’s not unique in that material – it’s just that this one happens to be one where people took the white limestone from it to burn later in history leaving a more reddish or pinkish color at this pyramid. We then drove ½-mile to the south and we took a walk around the Bent Pyramid. The Red Pyramid, the Bent Pyramid, and one other pyramid located elsewhere are all attributed to Sneferu’s reign and it is not known why he had three pyramids built. There are theories, but no conclusive answers. This one is quite interesting because of the steep angle at which it was built initially but then my opinion is that they realized the angle was going to be too steep to successfully get all sides to meet at the top and so they decreased the angle toward the top. There are plenty of theories about the reason for the “bend,” but again the reason is not conclusive. Each pyramid we have seen in this area and in Giza has been uniquely interesting. This brought us to the end of our time in Dhashur and we slowly made our way home to Cairo. Lots more asking people on the roads about how to get where we needed to go and lots of traffic when we were back in Cairo, so it took about 90 minutes to get home, but it was a fantastic day of exploration with our friend, Kareem.
Thursday, we worked on plans for post-Cairo. Getting transportation and lodging worked out. We watched the Olympics and made spaghetti at home for dinner. Not much to report at all on Thursday’s activity. Friday morning, we went out to Chantilly for breakfast – it’s a Swiss restaurant and the breakfast was very good – I had Eggs Benedict and Sandy had an omelet. The air quality was terrible on Friday. Gusty winds resulted in dust blowing and obscuring visibility all day long.
We went to the Cairo Pickleball Academy to watch some of the tournament taking place. We were there at the time of the ladies doubles tournament and so we unfortunately did not get to see our friends from Jordan because they didn’t have any matches at that time. From pickleball we Uber’d to the Cairo Festival City Mall. This is one of the larger mall complexes in Cairo and is filled with higher-end shops, restaurants, a movie theater, a nice outdoor area with fountains that are usually filling up the sky, but they were undergoing maintenance today. We explored the mall and we decided to see Hamnet at the theater. We chose the VIP experience because the start time worked better for our schedule. The tickets were $6 each and that gave us a more exclusive entrance area, refreshments counter, and reclining seats for the movie. Our large bucket of popcorn cost $3. The movie was very good and after our time at the mall, we were off to Bob’s Bar once again for our Friday burgers and beers. This would be our last visit for our time in Cairo, but we planned to come back during our last couple of days before we leave Egypt. Unfortunately, Bob’s closes for the month of Ramadan and so Gamel informed us that they would be closed when we get back. That’s very disappointing. They are so kind there. Since it was our last time, they brought us tequila shots with limes and salt, but also with oranges and cinnamon. We had not seen that addition before and that was a perfect match.
Sandy caught my cold. Neither one of us still feels all that great. Lots of coughing and nose congestion. We took it easy over the weekend. Breakfast on Saturday down at Tres Bon. We did light workouts at the gym on Saturday. We originally planned to go to Buffalo Wings n Rings on Saturday but staying in our neighborhood was more appealing so we were back at Tres Bon for salmon teriyaki. We did make it to BWnR today and my wings were awesome, as usual. When we got home, Sandy washed all of our clothes so they have time to air dry before we pack. We finished our evening watching the first two hours of the 1963 movie, Cleopatra. We plan to finish it on Monday night. That’s about it for this final week in Cairo. We’ll move to a new location in Egypt with our next update.
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