We left Israel on thursday morning and flew "air sinai" to cairo. upon arrival we got a really cool visa which definitely is the best thing in my passport and were met by a company representative named Islam. sidenote: i traveled with 6 girls from my program. Islam lead us to our bus which drove us through cairo to giza where are hotel AND THE PYRAMIDS were located. the pyramids were honestly located across the street from our hotel! unreal. we checked in and immediately got lunch poolside at our hotel. after lunch, we spent the day laying out by the pool, reading, and tanning until our next meal and then bed.
830 friday morning we met Islam in the lobby of the hotel and he introduced us to Amir, our tourguide, and our security guard!! hardcore. we started the day by driving to Memphis to see the famous Ramses statue which is ENORMOUS! there are lot of other sculptures and artifacts at memphis but the Ramses statue was unreal. next we drove to Sakkara to see the famous step pyramid. also in sakkara we got to go inside a pyramid and see the inscriptions and hyrogliphics which was really cool. after Sakkara, we visited the "oriental carpet school" in giza. for many families, school is too expensive so they send their children to carpet school where they learn to make carpets and get paid a little when things sell from the store. about 10 little boys around age 9 showed us how they hand make each carpet. it was really cool to see but also really sad to see how poor the children were and they kept begging us for money. after the carpet school, we went to a papyrus store and got a demonstration about how to make papyrus paper. after this we headed to the hotel for lunch and anxiously awaited our visit to the great pyramids!
after lunch, we drove into giza to visit the great pyramids! theres not too much to say they are just amazing and it was pretty surreal getting to see them - and you can sit on them, who knew! we drove a little to a spot thats great for panoramic shots and got to take some amazing pictures. next we went to the sphynx which i was really excited about. Amir talked to us the whole time and gave us lots of info and history! after the pyramids, we went to a perfume shop (something egypt is very famous for)- we got to smell lots of different perfumes and i bought one for myself to put in the perfume bottle arielle got for me on her trip to egypt. after a longlong day we headed back to the hotel for some relaxation, dinner, and hookah (very egyptian!)
830 on saturday we met amir again in the lobby of the hotel and our new security guard who was much more friendly- in fact it turned out his wife's name was Dina which he couldnt decipher from Dana and so he took a great interest in me and at the end of the day tried to adopt me as his child. nice. we began our day in the koptic area of cairo - meaning the christian area. we first visited a few churches and amir gave us the history of the christian people in egypt and about the different denominations found. next we to a SYNAGOGUE- direct quote from amir: then we will go to a synagogue...a jewish temple..you know what is?. the ben ezra synagogue is very small and not an active temple but has my illegally taken pictures show it is really beautiful. there is an active synagogue in egypt but we didnt get to go there. after this, we left the koptic area and went to the citadel, where the important mosques of cairo are located. the mosque was built after the famous blue mosque in istanbul so it was cool to see since we had visited that mosque when we were in turkey. next we went to the egyptian bazaar/market. our security guard helped us bargain our way through in arabic and everyone got some really nice stuff. im really sick of bargaining though its just a pain- i bought a scarf for 50 egyptian dollars and he first offered me 150 egyptian dollars...no fun bargaining him down to that price- im ready for fixed pricing again. after the bazaar we ate in a local restaurant and headed for the egyptian museum. how to explain this place? well there are over 160,000 pieces in the museum and apparently, the collectino stored in the basement puts the total at over 200,000. the museum is a mess- things are scattered everyone and info is legit handwritten on index cards but aside from this it is UNREAL. they have so much stuff that has stayed in unbelieveable conditions. and its all SOOOO OLD. the best part of the whole museum was the mummies! real bodies, bones, hair, teeth, nails- it was disgusting and amazing at the same time- and they have a good amount of personal info on each mummy that they have. it was too cool. they also had a mummy room for animals which was interesting but the people room was awesome! no pics allowed but i do have some on my phone of course! its too cool not to share! after our trip the museum we returned to the hotel for some rest and pool time.
saturday night however we skipped dinner at the hotel and went on a NILE CRUISE! Islam and my security guard father brought us 20 mins away from the hotel to the nile and to our boat which had pharoah on the front! we set sail and had a delicious buffet dinner followed by bellydancing shows and other random performances. it was so much and the city was much more nice looking in the dark. dont think i mentioned this before but Cairo is a veryvery poor city and it was scary and pretty unreal seeing the conditions that people lived in- such a contrast to the rich history that survives in the country.
after our nile cruise, we went back to the hotel, got some sleep, and woke up in the morning to return to tel aviv. it was a good feeling coming home but i really enjoyed my trip to egypt and hope to go back some day to explore other parts of the country like alexandria and luxor. also coming back made us realize that it was our last trip out of israel and the next time we leave, we wont return for a long time which is really sad. may 30th is approaching faster than i ever thought possible but i think the next four weeks will be some of the best!
below are some pics from egypt!! enjoy and let me know if you'd like the link to my entire album!
xoxoxo
all of us sitting on the great pyramid
me in front of the great pyramid! cant even get the whole thing in!
me in front of the sphynx and another pyramid
all of us in our modest robes supplied by the mosque at the citadel
a woman wearing a full burka outside the egyptian museum
me in front of the sphynx and another pyramidall of us in our modest robes supplied by the mosque at the citadela woman wearing a full burka outside the egyptian museum
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