Walk like a Brit

This update covers Cairo part 2 and, while we became somewhat accustomed to the place, most of our favorite things (and the minor irritations) remain as Megan described them. Fortunately though this post should be saved the usual fate of sequels, at least as far as photos go, because Tuesday was PYRAMIDS DAY!

We took a taxi bright and early and for 45 minutes sped through the sprawling Cairo suburbs on our way to the Giza plateau. From the elevated roadway we could see mile after mile of rough concrete and mud brick apartment towers but it was not until we were close to Giza that we finally saw the great pyramid in the gaps between the modern construction. Not even our taxi driver's love of the Vengaboys could take away from the shock of seeing such an iconic structure for the first time and the size and stillness of the pyramid was an amazing contrast to the teeming streets below.

The plateau itself is higher than Giza and while it's an enormous area it is heavily secured and joins the desert in every direction other than north east. As a result, once we'd escaped the tour buses and eluded the trinket sellers and camel ride touts, it was actually very peaceful and at some of the less well marked areas including some fascinating tombs we were completely alone - which may not have been a good thing:

While it's not always the case it was possible to go into all three pyramids when we visited and we chose to visit the second (built by Khafre the son of Khufu who built the great pyramid) which, while slightly smaller, actually appears much bigger by virtue of being on higher ground and having a small part of its limestone case still in place. There isn't much to explore inside any of the pyramids as a tourist or otherwise and your entrance fee now gets you a stifling and extremely tight clamber down into the burial chamber and back up which even for the non-claustophobic would not take more than ten minutes. Despite most of the treasure now being in various world museums or lost to grave robbers the experience is still worth it to imagine what it must have been like for the early explorers - venturing into these same tunnels without the benefit of electic lights or climbing boards.

The other big draw on the plateau is the Sphinx which is best viewed from within the ruins of the temple built to hold Khafre's body prior to its final journey along a massive causeway to his pyramid. The temple was overrun with dancing camel and alabaster pyramid sellers but they didn't take much away from the extraordinary view - it's mind boggling to think that only last week I was marvelling at the craftsmanship of a 10 foot long 1200 year old church in Dingle while the Eygptians were building these structures 5000 years ago. My favorite guidebook statistic is that the 230m long sides of the great pyramid are aparently within 4cm of equal length at every point!

Baksheesh?

After taking it very easy for the rest of Tuesday we woke up with big ambitions of rounding of our time in Cairo with a trip to the Citadel - a walled city within the city founded by Saladin (of fighting the Crusaders fame) in 1176 AD following his defeat of the Fatimids. We had originally planned to visit on Monday only to find the whole area shut for a visiting dignitary and unfortunately the fortifications were to prove impenetrable once again though this time it was entirely our fault. Sidetracked when we woke up by the arrival of our wedding photos (some of you will have got an email already otherwise there's a link below if you're interested) we got a very late start and by the time we'd meandered through Islamic Cairo yet again and arrived at the ramparts it was close to 2pm. Spoilt by New York's ATM obsession we keep forgetting to stock up on cash and realizing yet again we didn't have enough to pay the entrance fee we set off on a bank hunt that took us almost back where we started. Sweaty and disheartened we finally got back to the ramparts around 4pm only to find that our "guide"book's dot for the citadel, while technically within its boundaries, was a good 4 uphill kilometers from the actual entrance which we proceded to hike just in time to see it shut.

Facing the prospect of a complete strike out we consoled ourselves with a relaxing cup of tea, a bit of souvenir shopping in one of the more relaxed areas of town and the thought that even the bad days are 'good blog material'. Little did we know however that the evening was about to provide the highlight of our trip so far.


Chastened by our earlier failure we made our way to the wikala of the Al-Ghouri Complex well in advance for that night's performance by a Mawlaiyya sect of the Sufis - more commonly known as the whirling dervishes. Megan and I had both seen low key performances of this type before in Turkey and while we'd found the dances entertaining we both wondered how the performers would fill the announced 90 minutes running time. Things started gently with a line of musicians playing traditional instruments warming the crowd up before building to a riotous crescendo which dispelled any misgivings we might have had. Soon afterwards the first of the true dancers appeared and spun for 45 enthralling minutes with his bright woolen skirts creating hypnotic, kaleidoscopic patterns which left the whole audience dumbstruck. After a brief musical respite three more dancers took the stage and I'm not sure we blinked for the next half hour! Photos will never be able to do the performance justice suffice to say we left the venue in stunned silence unable to digest what we'd just seen:

Having rescued the day we found a decent restaurant for a delicious koshari-free meal before heading back to our hotel for our bags in time for our night bus to Hurghada.

Wedding Photos:

http://www.laurenslusher.com/darkroom/proof/#name=&state=&index

The password is Megan's maiden name followed by her new name, no spaces and capitalisation counts