Cairo 1

It's been a pretty fascinating few days in and around Cairo. It has been difficult to imagine the city as the setting for so much incredible conflict and emotion over the past year, as our stay seems to have overlapped with a bubble of calm. Walking through Tahrir square offered some residual energy from the intensity that its seen, but for the most part the main signs of what has past so far is the wealth of graffiti, a handful of tents for the most dedicated protesters, and depressingly large number of vendors who have turned a revolution into a tshirt. From the handful of people I've talked to about the current mood and prospects for moving forward, there seems to be an overwhelming sense of frustration and aimlessness at this moment. There seem to be so many factions vying for so many futures for Egypt with no clear voice cutting through. 

As some of the rare tourists visiting the area at this point, we've been welcome by a mixture of friendly surprise (and a number of people asking if we were scared to come) and what feels like an increased intensity from the many touts that are trying to scrape a few Egyptian pounds in a practically dead tourism environment. We've been following our hostel hostess's advice to ignore them completely, as in some cases any interaction whatsoever can turn unpleasant. Even some of the ignored touts have been surprisingly persistent, but many are (seem) good natured and humorous. I've had more than a few guys shout "welcome to Alaska!" at me. I can't even imagine what that's about. 

Monday morning brought us over to the US Embassy to drop off our passports to get extra pages added (a good feeling to only have a few tiny spaces left for stamps). For some reason this costs $82 each. Leave it to the US embassy to be the source of the biggest rip off of our trip so far. On the walk back we followed our noses into a bustling little bakery that we had walked by a few times by that point and jostled our way through the thick crowd of customers, gawking at the myriad pastries, cakes, gelatos and other delights. We flagged down an incredibly friendly employee who helped us put together a small box of cookies, navigated the multiple counter paying system some how, and made our way out. The cookies were awesome - we're going back for ice cream tonight.

So many choices

The ones with the dark and white fillings are the best.

This guy is on walls all over town. Would love if someone out there can offer a translation

We then spent the entire afternoon at the famous Egyptian Museum of National Antiquities. No cameras allowed in the museum, so you're all going to have to book your own trips, but it was an absolutely wonderful experience wandering slowly through the incomprehensibly rich collection. Part of the charm of the museum is how gently curated it is. It almost feels as if the exhibits were simply carted straight from ancient tombs and dropped off unceremoniously, organized based on historical epochs. I'd feel generous in guessing about a third of the items on display had any sort of label (arabic or english/french). It took us a good 15 minutes once we were in the right section to find the Rosetta Stone hanging inconspicuously in a dusty old, unlabeled case in a random corner pillar. There was a steep extra charge to enter the Mummy Room (although it turns out there was a second mummy room that we stumbled upon included in the price), but I've got to say, seeing Ramses II and his fellow ghastly royals (and non royals), blackened, crisp skin and unnervingly white teeth and all, made me forget pretty quickly. Seeing the incredible opulence that was dedicated for the deaths of the various Pharoahs and their relations shed some perspective on their concepts of afterlife and eternity (Tut was buried in the famous mask inside a golden coffin, inside another guided coffin, inside another coffin, inside a giant gilded boxer chamber, which was inside about three or four more equally ornate gilded chambers), and were a pretty good precursor to yesterday's trip to the pyramids. We're starting to feel pretty glad we shrugged off any nervousness about visiting Cairo at this time.

It seems the ancient Egyptian reverence for cats has carried over  - these guys are everywhere

After leaving the museum, about 4 or 5 hours later, we wandered back to the nearby street where we had looked in vain the night before for a restaurant that came with our hostess's highest recommendations. A turn down an alley a few feet further than we had looked before brought us to the front door of Shalaby. The restaurant had a sort of faded grandeur to the decoration that seemed to imply a history that we knew nothing of. There was no menu, just a friendly waiter who pointed us to the huge portions of braised lamb and container full of crisp stuffed pigeon asking which we wanted. One of each please. The lamb was perfectly tender, easily pulled from the enormous bones and lent itself wonderfully to making little pita sandwiches with the complimentary hummus, lightly pickled cucumbers, and marinated onions, tomato and parsley. The pigeon was nice itself, and I have a soft spot for any place that will specialize in these little guys. It was stuffed with aromatic, clove and cinnamon scented rice and was a delicate contrast to the intense meatiness of the lamb. The crowning jewel of the meal may have been the surprise bonus course of "pigeon soup": a murky brown, steaming liquid dotted with rice offered to us randomly halfway through our meal in glass mugs. Savory, deeply flavored, and with game-y undertones that hinted that it was used to braise the lamb. I just need to figure out how to arrange it for breakfast for the cool mornings here.

So good.

Who doesn't love soup in a mug?

Yesterday morning we started off with a quick breakfast in the hostel (complimentary bread, cheese and fruit), sorted out a bit of confusion with the guy on duty about what room we'd continue to stay, and hopped in the car we hired for the day to see the nearby Pyramid sites of Giza, Dahshur, and Saqqara. Our first stop was at a "Papyrus Museum" which naturally was a shop with standard souvenir style art on fresh pressed papyrus paper. We felt sort of bad for the salesman who gave us the full song and dance, it was never clearer how much their hurting from the lack of tourism. Then on to Giza. Our initial excitement upon seeing the pyramids rise in the distance from the gloomy fog that was just our luck to have the whole day was forestalled when we were next taken to one of a kajillion local places to hire horses/camels/guides. Eager to get moving, we quickly negotiated a semi-reasonable price for a guided (sort of) trip on horseback. We had enough camels (as if there is such a thing) in Rajasthan and I was eager to dust off the years of equestrian experience I accumulated when I was younger. I was asked if I wanted a "easy" one or a "good" one. Turned out good meant clever and strong willed. I was soon reminded how much I enjoyed how wonderfully obnoxious horses can be. Not a ton I could put into words about the pyramids. One of the huge rewards of taking whatever risks we are in coming to Egypt at this time was that one of the world's biggest tourist destinations was practically deserted. Even in the smaller area around the sphinx, various locals who normally feed off tourist business seemed to outnumber the actual visitors. I'm sure a clear day would have been great, but I think I'm okay that my memories will include the enhanced sense of mysticism and mystery that the gray smog offered. Our guide seemed too eager to hurry the tour back to the shop, and my horse was clearly in on it. After insisting on taking a longer route up to a higher viewpoint on our way back, my horse (Aziz) wizened up when we turned from the shortcut back and protested by trying to buck me off. Luckily I had a few buried instincts from my earlier years to keep me firmly in the stirrups, and after taking our guide's whip, was able to win the battle of wills. Cindhu's "easy" horse (Charlotte or Shalok or something) was a bit skittish (and possibly dumb), but for the most part we made it back just a little sore.

Da Nile

Excavation 

We got back in the car and proceded the 20km or so to the Dahshur site. The Red Pyramid here offered the chance to go deep inside. The narrow, low ceilinged passageway down from the entrance halfway up the face of the pyramid seemed impossibly long and it slowly got stuffier, warmer, and staler inside. Once inside, the feeling of being surrounded by so many tons of limestone in one of the oldest structures on earth is indescribable. Inspires all sorts of fantasies of going back in time as one of the explorers to rediscover these wonders - I'd even grow back the mustache if I had to.

The long climb down

The air got really stuffy in the upper chamber and smelled distinctly like windex

A bit short on time, and a little car/pollution sick, we cut our time seeing Saqqara sadly short - as it offers what sound like pretty amazing tombs to explore - and just drove around the site to take in the outside. We spent the rest of the night taking it easy. We grabbed a few beef shwarma sandwiches, enjoyed them in the comfort of our room, and called it a night.