Cairo Giza

Cairo
30 December 2011

The extra sleep was exactly what I needed yesterday, as this morning I feel much better, almost back to 100%. I’ll be leaving shortly for the Giza and Sphinx tour, which is a great way to wind up the trip. Tomorrow (New Year's Eve) there is nothing planned, and then on New Year's Day I catch a very late (11:30 PM) flight back home.

The Marriott is definitely a strange hotel, with the grounds being 5 star but the rooms more like 3. I mentioned earlier that the grounds looked palatial, and as it turns out that is spot on, with this having been a palace built by Mohammed Ali in the 1800s. Unfortunately the rooms are average, and the staff, while helpful, adds to some of the mystique: When I had my coke and pizza delivered yesterday, I asked the server for a bottle opener as I did not want to have to fish through my luggage to find mine. He did not have one on him, apparently the room does not have one, but he readily obliged by popping the top off with his teeth! Not exactly something I would envision seeing in a true 5 star hotel!

The TV is an old CRT type, which is very surprising given how long flat screens have been out now and how low they have dropped in price.

Sheiks do abound here, and it is a rather odd feeling to get off the elevator while a sheik stands by waiting to get on, or to play in the casino next to one. (OK, the term "sheik" does not necessarily imply an incredibly rich man, yet it is an honorific title for an Arabic leader or elder, so it certainly is not the type of person you bump into regularly in the US.)

I’ll do a more complete summary later on, but for now I have to say that even with perfect hindsight it is difficult for me to imagine how this trip could have been much better. Three nights was too short a time in London, but then again given the price of the Savoy suite, that is all I could do and still feel OK, without the economic cost exceeding the benefit. (I could, literally, have stayed three weeks at my usual place, the Strand Palace just across the street, for what the three nights at the Savoy cost me.) Egypt has been fascinating, and I am very glad to have done the trip now since it is difficult to say what the situation will be a year from now. Normally, extremist parties will mitigate their actions when faced with real world events, but should the Islamists prevail in the ongoing elections, I am not sure they will do so. Even though tourism accounts for about 12% of the Egyptian economy, I have a funny feeling that the Islamists would willingly cut that off if it were to suit them politically. In short, it is difficult to say what Egypt will be like come the end of 2012; most likely, it will be the same as it is now and it will still be a vacation option, but there is a non-negligible chance that it will become more closed and inaccessible.

Having said that, even though I enjoyed the trip and even if it does remain an open vacation destination, I am not in a big hurry to return. With a couple of days in Cairo and a few days on the Nile, you have a very good feeling for what this country has to offer. There are literally thousands temples so it is not as if you can ever see them all (in fact, the archeologists don’t even bother excavating most of them, as there are too many), but after you have seen a few and know what to look for, you have a good knowledge of what the layout and pictographs will be. Also, if you do come to Egypt, remember that it is a third world nation, so it is quite a shock when you first visit something this primitive and dirty. I’ve been to places such as Panama, Brazil and India before, so I know what to expect in a third world situation, but if you have not done so before then you really need to assess if you are ready before venturing there…the poverty, the dirtiness, the crude, almost primitive, lifestyle can be a shock.

As for current affairs, there is a great deal on the TV this morning about Egyptian police raiding a number of charities. Also, as for Tahrir Square, it truly is a “made for TV” matter, in that Friday is the Islamic day off, so Friday is when the large crowds gather and when the news crews pull out their cameras. For the next six days, the shots from that Friday are what the world will see on TV. The rest of the week there is nothing else happening at the site, with (literally) only three or four people sitting underneath the banner, yet the world is fed the daily image of throngs of protesters stirring the air with tension.

It’s a very cold and dank day, especially by Cairo standards, and the jacket was required all day long. The first stop was at the Sphinx and Giza Pyramids, little doubt the most well-known symbol in all of Egypt, and the only remaining member of the original Seven Wonders of the World. Next was Imhotep and Saqqara, where something unusual may have happened—see below. After that, it was Mit Rahina Museum and Memphis.

Being a Friday, it was the Muslim day of rest, so traffic was unbelievably light, but my guide stressed, repeatedly, that I should not go near Tahrir Square. I had been toying with the idea of going by to see the “one day a week revolution” in full swing, but beyond any fear of direct physical harm, my loathing of the numerous “I told you so” chidings I would receive should something go amiss kept me away.

As for the unusual excitement at Imhotep/Saqqara (also known as the Stepped Pyramid), it was odd in that it was so obvious. My guide and I were walking around the area, a little off the beaten track since it was just the two of us and we both were quite agile. We stopped by what appeared to be a pit, with a fair amount of trash gathered in the bottom, and I noted what looked like a small (5 foot long) sphinx. What struck me as odd and caused me to take a picture was the irony of plastic bottle trash around what appeared to be an ancient artifact, and that evidently was indeed quite unexpected as my guide indicated when he saw it. He went down to the sculpture, and as best he could tell it was authentic. We went to get the on site Antiquities director, who said he had never seen it before, and he too agreed that it looked authentic. It’s probably not that big a deal even if it is authentic, but it is amazing to me that something this much in the open could be unnoted by the conservators. It’s remotely possible that it was a hoax, but it was solid and very heavy (several hundred pounds), which would have required a very dedicated prankster to pull off the stunt for no apparent gain.

The guide and driver took me back to my hotel, and I tipped them very well in an effort to make up, in some small way, for the lack of tourists. The beef burger I had for a late lunch left much to be desired (way too lean to be tasty). Though I felt very good first thing this morning, the dank weather today has brought back some of my ailment later in the day. The cold has definitely moved from the chest and I am not nearly as achy as before, but now it is that annoying “gotta sneeze but cannot do it” sort of thing. Gonna try a nap…

Nap didn’t work…of well, maybe that’s why the next entry sounds a bit cranky!!

One thing that both did and did not surprise me was the chauvinism in this society; it is well known that in this part of the world the genders are separated, and only in a place such as a 5 star hotel would a woman bartender dare speak to a man. In some regards, though I expected it, this is one of the most amazing and disappointing aspects of the society. It’s difficult to believe that in a country such as this, in the 21st century, such jingoistic attitudes could still prevail. Social conservatism is certainly understood, but a virtual apartheid between the genders is a completely different matter, no different and no more justifiable in my mind than racial segregation. Again, when it is convenient or economically viable such as in the hotel bar, such attitudes can be put aside, but not in the society as a whole. Also, even in a 5 star hotel with the women in very Western wear, the contact is very limited: The woman barmaid would look me in the eye, but she definitely would not smile, and no female hotel employee walking down the hallway would even consider looking me in the eye as we passed.

My guide from today’s tour did point out to me where the local Hard Rock is, and I might make that my target for tomorrow as I have nothing else on the docket other than staying up till midnight and playing Bond in the Casino, rubbing shoulders with the sheiks.