Cairo, Day 1

June 19^th

Alexandria > Cairo

Fresh fruit and fruit juice, grilled tomatoes, cheese, sausages, bacon, French toast, honey, waffles, pancakes, scones, Danish, yoghurt.. Remember the spread Julian, Dick, George and Anne used to have? Breakfast in Radisson Blue reminded me of them. One of the best breakfasts I’ve ever had! I’ve not mentioned the complete list here, coz there were tables and tables of things and I could sample only so much, but you get the idea, right? Anyways, this post isn’t about food, so let’s move on.

After breakfast we checked out of Radisson Blue and we were off to Cairo. 3 hrs road trip. Did I mention that Thareeq stopped a truck loaded with fresh tomatoes so that he could get some for us the day before? Well, he had. It was so nice of him and we enjoyed having it. But we weren’t too keen on having tomatoes after breakfast, but Thareeq stopped a Tomato van and a Grapes van on the way so that we could taste them.

Somewhere in the middle of the journey we stopped at a small motel kind of a place. There was a souvenir shop where everybody went to. Thareeq went straight to a tabled and settled down with a hookah. You don’t see much of alcohol out in the open in this country, but smoke, yes, you see it everywhere.  Of course I couldn’t resist when he offered me, so I had to try :P (It was amazing!)

When we reached Cairo, Sameer a.k.a Sam, our guide for Cairo joined us and he quizzed us a bit about Egypt. He wore a locket with some hieroglyphs that caught my eye. He explained that it was a Cartouche. Pharoes got their name written in oval brackets to protect them, as a symbol of power etc. And if any common man dared to wear one, it was “off with his head!” in those days. I made up my mind to get one for myself.

He first took us to a Papyrus shop. Guess everybody knows that papyrus was the first form of paper ever, made from the papyrus reed. We saw how it was being made. And do you know why the papyrus reed was used? The cross section of the reed’s stem has triangles (Triangles>face of the pyramid>ray of the sun)! There were a lot of replicas of ancient Egyptian paintings here for sale. The judgement day, Tutankamun, Nefertiti, the Egyptian calendar, Horus, Cleopatra, Nut, Isis and Osiris...they even had Christian imagery on Papyrus. These people do know their tourism industry :P

After that was Pyramids. What I reaaally longed to see. Sam kept saying things about it as we neared it, but I was too busy gazing at them to hear much of what he was saying. He got us the tickets and we were walking out in the Egyptian sun towards the Pyramids.

You don’t realize how huge they are until you reach quite close to them. They look as if they are made up of small stones from a distance, but the height of the lowest array of stones is almost up to my shoulder and weigh tonnes. And they are arranged in perfect symmetry with no mortar or cementing, just placed one on top of the other.

There is more about the three great pyramids of Giza. Do you know Orion’s belt? The hunter that appear in the night sky with three stars that form his belt? The three pyramids of Giza and the three stars in Orion’s belt are aligned in a way. The biggest pyramid is of Khufu, the smaller of his son Khafre and the smallest of Menkaure. Khafre made his smaller than his father’s out of respect. So his son menkaure followed suit and built his a little smaller than Khafre’s.

The entrance to a Pyramid is small, narrow, and people with claustrophobia were advised not to enter. Because it is a small narrow tunnel which you have to crouch and climb down by wooden plank steps, walk straight a bit and then do the crouching –climbing thingy up to see the Pharaoh's sarcophagus.  I went in.

This was the tunnel through which the Pharaoh’s body was taken in by the priests and mourners to be placed safely for his afterlife. The small room up had the cold stone sarcophagus. The coffin and mummy were taken elsewhere, you could only see the ancient king’s resting place made for him millenniums before. This room held all his treasures and belongings. This small room was the reason for the gigantic architectural marvels.

How the pyramids were exactly built is something Egyptologists are not too sure of. True, there are theories, of rolling the stones over logs, lifting the stones manually and bizarre ideas of aliens helping them out, but how they could build these colossal structures with each stone that weighs tonnes in an age so ancient and create it so perfectly?

After the Pyramids, we went to a point where the three pyramids could be seen together from a distance. This is where all the songs scenes that involve shots with the pyramids are taken. Then we saw the temple where the mummification was done. It’s a 72 days process. First thirty days is purification and the next forty days is mummification. In the purification part, the body is cleaned, the internal organs are taken out and salts are used to cleanse it. The 4 vital organs according to the ancient Egyptian tradition that are required in the afterlife are the lungs, stomach, intestines and stomach. They are placed in 4 jars. You must’ve seen it in The Mummy, right?

Then the body is embalmed with oil and essences, armed with amulets and other magical trinkets and placed in the coffin. Mourners, musicians, priests and people carry the Pharaohs body into the pyramid and place there all possible things he might need in the afterlife. Sam said that grave robbers opened the graves mainly for food. Gold and treasures were sought after that.

Next we saw the sphinx. Human face and Lion’s body. Khafre’s face to be exact. Like a guardian of the great pyramids. Its nose was smashed by a ruler who wanted to prove that he was powerful than Egyptians.

After taking in all this, we went for lunch. On the Nile! It was a floating restaurant. Food was Egyptian again coz we wanted to try that. Chicken cooked with their special spices, kebabs, meat rolled in grape vine leaves, salads and desserts with dates.

Then we checked in at Le Meridian, Cairo (Yes, I got to stay in there!).  After nice long rest we went back to the Pyramids area again. But this time, we were there for a light and sound show. No walking around. It was presented like the Sphinx telling a story. It talked about Egypt’s history, stories from the past, the pharaohs of the pyramids and the glory of the ancient Egyptian civilization. It was a lovely sight. And there was a cool breeze and it was pleasant to sit out there and watch the show.

Dinner was on a rooftop restaurant. Food was great as usual, not going into details. I could still see the outline of the Pyramids from where I was sitting. I still had one more day in this city, close to the place I’ve longed to see.

Alexandria

Prologue

Is there one thing that you always wanted to do? Something you kind of dreamt of since forever? For me it was Egypt. My folks still find it crazy, but even as a kid that is one place I wanted to visit. 

Now, my School's library is in the new building that connects the Lower school to the Upper school. Back in the ancient times when I used to be a school girl, it used to be right next to the Office room. There, near that window which overlooked Lourdes Cathedral, there was a shelf with an awesome book on Egypt which some of my Egypt crazy friends and I used to read up and be amazed. The glory of the giant pyramids, ancient stories from an age old civilization, the details of the mummification process, names of their multitude of gods- I was under the spell of the Gift of Nile. 

June 18^th, 2014

Cochin -> Mumbai -> Sharjah -> Alexandria. 

It was a really bright and sunny morning when I landed at the Alexandria airport. Not many people would be overjoyed about leaving the air-conditioned airport to face the hot dry weather, but I couldn’t wait. I was finally at Egypt! Think happy, and multiply it by 1000. That’s the kind of feeling I’m talking about.

As soon as we stepped out, we were met by a chirpy, bubbly Shima, who was our guide at Alexandria, and Thareeq , the ever smiling driver. Though we all were tired and sleepy after some 12 hrs of travelling, Shima didn’t give us more than 20 minutes to quickly freshen up and go for the city tour. She was as proud of Alexandria as I was of Thrissur, so it showed when she talked about each place she pointed out.

First stop was lunch and we wanted to try the local cuisine. I forget the place’s name, but what they served was simply wonderful. First was Koshidi- A blend of rice, noodles, and pasta topped with tomato puree, fried onion and chick peas. Then we had Shawarma. Not the fast food types you get on the streets here, the real deal. Beef. Was lip smackingly good.

After lunch we were off to see the Citadel of Alexandria. It was originally the site of Ptolemy’s light house. But after an earth quake destroyed it, they built this citadel there. By the way, a citadel is a fortress on top of a hill. Next stop was the library of Alexandria. Though we were still full from lunch, Shima insisted we try ice cream from one of her favourite stores nearby. And since her favourite flavour was vanilla, I had to get a scoop of that plus what I wanted! But I don’t regret it. It was one of the richest, creamiest Vanilla ice cream scoops I had had.

Still holding ice cream cones in our hands, we reached the library. It was an elliptical dome. Shima, a PhD student talked about how cheap the membership fees was for students and how helpful she found the place, about the types of books and artefacts in the library, about how Alexandria got its name from Alexander the great...There was a sun dial and a planetarium in the premise too.

Then we visited a mosque. I had never been inside one before, so it was something new for me. There was a section for the ladies and another for the men. A Quran recital competition was going on when we entered. The wooden ceiling had beautiful carvings. I saw the side of the mosque facing Mecca.

And now Shima declared that the scheduled places at Alexandria were done, but if we wanted to go anywhere else, she was game to take us. But as rest was inevitable at this point, we headed back to Radisson Blue where a hot shower and a huge bath tub beckoned me. I wanted to be up and about the next day, for 19^th June, 2014 is when I would go see the Pyramids.