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decourcy4

Still in Vienna

Our flight is delayed from 9:30 AM till 12:30 PM, so I'm still at the hotel in Vienna. I found the exact three hour delay amusing. Over 3 hours, per EU regulations, we will get compensated, unless they make up some time on the flight west. The exception is for things out of their control, like weather, but we can hear and see other flights taking off, so I don't think that's it. It doesn't matter to Lynn or me, as we don't have to be anywhere. I did book a hotel near Dulles for tonight, as it will be too late to drive home. Hmm, I think we get compensated for that too. Hmm, maybe my travel insurance will pay for it...


I'm still walking like a cowboy. I definitely need to do more stretching, if 20 minutes on a camel can do this to my inner thigh muscles. We are also both still coughing, though it's better than yesterday. Between the smog and the cigarette smoke in Cairo, my lungs are not happy!


I don't think I talked about the cigarette smoke yet. Many years ago, when I was in grad school (1994, to be exact), I got to go to a conference in Tokyo. In the US, smoking restrictions were already in effect, with non-smoking areas in restaurants, etc. You could avoid smoke easily. When I went to Tokyo, I was struck by the amount of cigarette smoke everywhere! The hotel elevator opened on a conference floor and the elevator filled with smoke. Well, that was almost 30 years ago. Cairo was much worse. We were around smoke all the time. It seemed like most Egyptian men smoked—not sure about the women, as they didn't smoke in public. Huh. I'm wrong. I just looked it up, and it's only 20% of the population that smokes. Well, it seemed like more. We even smelled it in the fancy Ramses Hilton.


Anyway, we are now out of the land of smoke and smog, lazing in our hotel room for another hour before heading to the airport.


Ah, the hotel! It's called the Moxy. And it's a little weird for my tastes, though the room is comfortable and the food is good. I was going to say avant-garde, but I don't think that's it. Lots of weird colors and they are very into people taking selfies and tagging the hotel.


Random picture of a Cairo sunrise


I started this while I was stretched out of the bed in our Vienna hotel, the Moxy, and now I'm on the plane. Anyway, our flight was delayed for 3 hours, and the problem turned out to be the toilets—two of the toilets were not working on the plane, and with a 10 hour flight, that’s definitely an issue. We meandered to the airport at 10 AM, and browsed. Unfortunately we were in a different terminal than the one we were in on the way to Cairo, and couldn’t access the shops we had visited, but I guess that’s just as well. I don’t need to buy more junk. Because of the delay, we had a 7 Euro credit at the restaurant, so I got cherry cheesecake for a midmorning snack. We were soon on our way, and they say we are only 2 hours behind schedule, so no free money for us. I am still glad that I got the hotel for tonight, as we will be getting to DC around 5 PM and it will take at least an hour to get through customs and get our luggage. Then we’ll still have to take the shuttle to the car. That’s still just 6 or 7 PM, but that’s 1 or 2 AM Egyptian time—driving home would not be a good idea.


I did mention that I had had a visit two days ago from the traveler’s least favorite friend (💩, though that emoji is not exactly accurate). Anyway I took meds and started the antibiotics I had brought, and all is well. I have to wonder if I would have been okay without the antibiotics, but I think I’m glad that I didn’t take that chance. And if it was the ice in the strawberry mojito…well, it was a really good drink and I do miss ice so much when I’m traveling—I am such an American that way. BTW, one of my fellow travelers—we were all from the US or Canada—used ice at every meal and ate salads the whole trip and he was fine!


A few overall reflections on the trip, then I’ll go back and talk some about the earlier days of the trip that I didn’t write about contemporaneously. I had a wonderful time! Lynn and I traveled well together, and amused our fellow travelers when we mentioned that we didn’t really know each other very well before the trip. We were friendly acquaintances, albeit for 15 years or so, but that was it. Saying, “We weren’t friends before,” really did confuse people. (The other travelers were a husband and wife, a mother and daughter, an uncle and nephew, and two solo women.) But Lynn and I traveled well together and will travel together again. We found the same things amusing and soon were communicating with glances (and attempts not to laugh). We were both comfortable doing our own thing at times—we are both confident travelers and comfortable being on our own. She exercises a lot more than I do, but I birdwatch more than she does. We did have some food conflicts…well, not conflicts, but we were going to split two entrees because we both wanted to try them, and I will not eat a well done steak if I have any choice, and she will not eat one not well done. But that was easily settled, as we just each ordered our own meals. (The medium rare filet that I got in the rooftop restaurant at the Ramses Hilton was one of the best steaks I have ever eaten. Another traveler got the same thing and he and I were moaning in bliss at our end of the table.) Anyway, Lynn and I had a great time together.


Egypt was a wonderful place to visit. I think we were lucky with our tour director, but all three of the Trafalgar tour directors (2 Mohameds and a Wahil) that I interacted with (although only for short times with the other two) were very knowledgeable about everything Egyptian. They know their topic (Egyptology) and they love their country and want you to love it too. Mohamed watched over us like a mother hen, making sure we were safe and happy with everything, and putting up with a lot of antics. Our group got along great, and I think we were a handful, even though there were so few of us. Mohamed has a much more spiritual view of the world than I do, and I don’t mean just his Muslim faith. He answered all our nosy questions about his personal life with honesty and patience, which I appreciated, as knowing what his life is like gave me a much fuller image of Egypt that I would have had otherwise.


As I have already said, not one time did I feel like my safety was in question. There were armed guards all around. There were checkpoints when we entered sites or some locations (bridges, dams, etc.) and I saw the underside of the bus being checked with mirrors several times. At these checkpoints, the police had long guns. The police (or the army, in some cases) were in booths by the road or guard towers. I did not feel threatened by them, but protected. Some of the Nile villages we passed had armed guards sitting at the village entrances—their guns often looked like they were quite old, but they were clearly well maintained. Then there were guards at the tourist sites, “blending in” with the tourists and clearly keeping an eye out for any issues. Blending in is heavy sarcasm, as they were wearing suits and had ill-concealed weapons under their suit jackets. BTW, we saw the same thing in some places in Morocco, but as I recall, the suits were better fitting and they made no real effort to conceal the handguns under their jackets.




As I have said, Egypt has a vested interest in keeping its tourists safe and they are quite serious about it, as evinced by the guards and checkpoints. Airport security was good too—I took 4 internal flights on Egypt Air. We had to have our bags scanned and walk though a magnetometer at the entrance to every archeological site we visited and at both of our hotels (both Hiltons). There was also a magnetometer when we got on the boat. The two Hiltons seemed serious about security. Besides getting checked at the entrance, you couldn’t get to the hotel entrance without going through some serious security. The hotels were within gates and walls. Coming back from the bazaar yesterday, our Uber driver had to open his trunk for inspection before they would let him drive into grounds to drop us off.


But at most of the archeological sites, it was a bit of a joke. Rarely was anyone actually looking at the scanned bags, and we all set off the magnetometer and no one even blinked. After a while, we all stopped taking our phones, etc., out of our pockets because no one seemed to care. But, as I said, there was security to even drive into the locations. I don’t think a car full of Egyptian men would have found the security lax like a tour bus full of non-Egyptian tourists did.


Oh, we did see Egyptian tourists throughout the trip, particularly at the museums where large groups of schoolchildren were present. (Mohamed noted several times how much he liked seeing Egyptian children learning Egyptian history.) Oh, and as I said previously, the school children loved it when we said hello and talked to them, from the rambunctious boys to the shy older girls. Lilian, a fellow traveler, also found that they liked having their pictures taken.


The Egyptians seemed to have genuine good will toward us. I mean, you can think that maybe the service industry people or vendors that we interacted with had an ulterior motive ($$), but they did seem genuine in their friendliness and interest in us. I mentioned the joyous dancing in the restaurant for birthdays—it wasn’t like what you see in US restaurants. But people with no vested interest in us seemed just as glad that we were there. Granted, it was not everyone—we did see some sour faces, but they might be sour for everyone, not just American tourists. Remember the lady who towed me across the street? She was just being kind. When the first Uber driver yesterday found out we were from the USA, he replied, “America is my dream.”


So, if you would ask me if it were safe to go to Egypt now, I would reply with a resounding yes, with the sole caveat that we were exclusively in the well-protected tourist areas, with the exception of our two sojourns in Cairo.


 

Travelogue time! I just realized that I didn’t talk about our first full day touring Cairo (except for the cat Bastet and a few other odds and ends). I can’t decide whether to talk about that day while it’s fresh in my memory, or go back and write about Luxor and the Nile trip. I think I’ll write a little more about Cairo.


We started late that day (Tuesday, November 21st), getting on the bus at 8 AM. Our first stop was the Citadel of Saladin high above the city, with the Muhammad Ali Mosque within. The Citadel was as expected: lots of thick stone walls, some cannons, and a view of smoggy Cairo (the smog was bad that day too).


Citadel of Saladin

There were some nice details.



The mosque is not very old (finished in 1857), but it was a lovely place. We had to put shoe covers on to enter (unlike the other mosque we visited later in the morning, where we had to take off our shoes to enter). Oh, sidebar: in Morocco, only Muslims could enter the mosques, with the single exception of the Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca. In Egypt, anyone can enter the mosques. Mohamed said that they view them just as places, not as holy in themselves—it was a different way of looking at it and I like it better. Of course, I’m not religious, so my opinions are coming from a different place than those whose places of worship these are. Of course, we were all covered appropriately when we visited, but that just means shoulders and upper legs covered for women.


Muhammad Ali Mosque

Oh, outside there was a clock tower that looked so out of place! It was a gift from the French around 1840 and apparently never worked.


Clock tower at Muhammad Ali Mosque

Inside the mosque was lovely. There were lots of electric lights, where lanterns would have hung historically, but they were not too bright, so you could still see all the beautiful details above. And a huge crystal chandelier—uh, very un-mosque like.


Inside the Sultan Hassan Mosque

I always like stained glass, so I took a lot of pictures of that.



And then suddenly a sunbeam crossed the dome far above. It had a bit of magic.


Sunbeam in Muhammad Ali Mosque

We had an amazing view of Cairo from outside the mosque. Featuring all the smog. (And this was not the worst smog day—Thursday was incredible.)



Next we traveled to the much older mosque, the Sultan Hassan Mosque from the 14th century. This was where the lovely black cat was with her kittens (I’m sorry, Mohamed habibi, but the cat was the highlight of the morning). The mosque was striking in a different way, echoing with age. As I said, we had to take our shoes off, but we walked on thick carpets everywhere.


Sultan Hassan Mosque


Sultan Hassan Mosque

There were some nice features inside too.



Then it was back to the bus and off to the Coptic Christian section of Cairo. St. Mary Church dates to the 4th century AD and was built on top of Roman ruins. It is also called the Hanging Church. The entrance had some lovely mosaic scenes.


Mosaic outside St. Mary Church

Inside was very close and dark, but, after all, it’s ~1700 years old.


Inside St. Mary Church (Coptic)



As we walked back to the bus, I was surprised to see a winged dragon weathervane on the nearby Coptic Museum. I thought the only dragons usually seen in Christian art were getting slain, but this one was flying merrily.



From there, we were off to the Egyptian Museum for several hours.


On the way, we passed an area that contains a lot of foreign embassies, including the US and Canada. Many of the roads entering the area had been blocked off with large blocks, and the Egyptians had decorated them.




The Egyptian Museum is quite old. I was astounded to see the original tags on many items, written in fountain pen (or possibly dip pens, since fountain pens have only been around for a little over 100 years). The display cases were old wood, and there were cases just placed behind other cases. There are so many displays that it’s sort of overwhelming.



A new museum called the Grand Egyptian Museum is being built out on the Giza plateau, but it’s uncertain when it will be finished. Well, the official website says late 2023, but I it didn't look anywhere near ready to me. The original opening date was 2013! It's a wonderful location though.



But the current Egyptian Museum dates to 1901, and was not the original either, which was built in 1835. I still felt the sense of history here though, largely due to having read a series of books by Elizabeth Peters. The Amelia Peabody series is about Egyptian archaeology in the late 1800s and early 20th century. Elizabeth Peter (a pseudonym for Barbara Metz) was actually a trained archaeologist turned novelist, and the books follow the adventures of a family who worked in archaeology in Egypt during the time of Petrie, etc. Factually they are accurate, as far as I can tell. I had been rereading the first in the series, Crocodile on the Sandbank, while I was in Egypt, and the main characters in the book (later husband and wife) meet for the first time at the Egyptian Museum. The museum director, M. Maspero, was also in the book, and it was so strange being in the same place where these books were set. Mohamed pointed out a statue of Maspero to me as we were leaving. Anyway, the books are a fun read, and you learn a lot about Egypt from them. Peters died several years ago, so the series is as complete as it will ever be. (If you pick them up, definitely read them in order, as you’d miss so much if you didn’t.)


I’m not going to put in many pictures from the museum, as that’s sort of boring to look at. As Mohamed said, if you’ve seen one sarcophagus, you’ve seen them all.



One exhibit that was not boring was the King Tut exhibit. No pictures were allowed, which is too bad, as it was incredible stuff. I can’t remember is whether pictures were allowed when I saw the same exhibit at the National Gallery of Art in Washington in the 1970s. (I will say that the display was better exhibited in DC that it is here, but hopefully that will change when it is moved to the new museum.) The amount of gold and the incredible detail of the work had us all astonished.


From there, it was back to the hotel, and that night was the great street adventure and the Heart Attack meal, which I’ve already talked about.


I’ll finish with pigeon houses. Lots of people in Egypt keep pigeons. Some people eat them and I think others just like having them. (My nature guide in Aswan said that he kept them—along with goats, chickens, ducks, and I’m not sure what else—but that they only ate the babies.) Anyway, lots of the apartment building in Cairo have pigeon houses on top of them. Some are modern, boxlike structures and others are clay domes. (The clay domes were on top of buildings too, but I only got a picture of a free standing one.) According to Mohamed, some men like to come home from work and just hang out with their pigeons before they’re ready to interact with their wives and children.



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