Day 5 - Cairo

Today was our last day in Egypt. We woke up this morning and packed our bags. Rather than going to the buffet breakfast (it wasn’t very good, not bad, but fairly average) we all opted to eat in our rooms. We brought a fair amount of food - granola bars, trail mix, slim fast, etc. because we were worried about what food we should or should not eat in Egypt. We ate a wide variety and delicious food and we were fine. This meant we still had a lot of the food we brought. We ate this for breakfast.

After we were packed we checked out of the hotel and loaded our bags into our van. Today we had an extra guest. A man had been assigned to us by the tourist police for our protection. He had a pretty serious-looking gun under his jacket. Gladys told us that many years ago the US embassy asked the tourist police to provide protection to American tourists. The tour companies are required to inform the tourist police who is on their tour and what the itinerary will be. They then will assign a protection detail at their discretion. According to Gladys, this is mostly random. We didn’t feel any more or less safe with this guy. He was very friendly. In fact, during my time in Egypt, I never felt at all unsafe. I was very grateful to have a guide to help me navigate and the vendors could be pushy, but I never felt like I was in any danger.

Our first stop of the day was the Citadel. This is a fortress built by Saladin to protect the city from the crusaders. Although it turns out the crusaders never really made it to Cairo. It is built on the top of the highest point in the city. Much later some mosques were built inside of the Citadel, including the mosque of Mohamed Ali. Mohamed Ali was a beloved king of Egypt (the famous boxer took the name of this king) who built the mosque to rival a mosque found in Istanbul. It is an impressive building. Unfortunately, it was not in the best of repair. There was garbage all around the citadel. Also, the mosque is called the alabaster mosque because it was once covered in beautiful white alabaster stone. Over the years the alabaster from the top half of the mosque has been stolen and used in other buildings. The lower half is still alabaster but it isn’t very white because it is covered in dirt and grime. Inside the mosque is very beautiful. The floor is very dirty because pigeons and other birds fly right in the mosque and make a mess. Before entering the mosque we took off our shoes to be respectful. Inside we sat on the floor and had a discussion with Gladys about Islam and the Arab peoples. She told us a little bit about her view of Islam and it was apparent she isn’t the biggest fan. She did tell us about her optimism for the Arab people. She likes the changes that have been taking place in Saudi Arabia over the recent weeks and months. She says she thinks more change is coming. She also thinks that change is coming for Egypt. She was part of the group that marched during the revolution in 2011. She told us that she was pretty disappointed in the change that came in the following years. It was not what they hoped for when they marched. She said she is optimistic because now they have a good president, but he has had to start from scratch and there is a lot of work left to do. It was very apparent from our conversation that Gladys is very Egyptian and that she loves her country and that she works to make her country a better place.

The Citadel

The mosque of Mohammed Ali

Inside the mosque

An alabaster column

Another photo inside the mosque

The grime on the floor of the mosque 

We took off our shoes out of respect 

Light streaming through the windows

When we were done inside the mosque we walked around the outside. Off one wall of the citadel, we looked down over Cairo. It was covered with fog. Gladys told us that on a clear day you could see the pyramids from this point.

Cairo through the fog

Outside the mosque

We went back to the van and drove to the Cairo Museum. It was good we came when we did because they are going to move the King Tut exhibit to a new museum that will open next year, but most of the treasures were still in the Cairo museum so we got to see them. The Cairo museum is in downtown Cairo. It is a little nicer and cleaner than other parts of the city. Before we entered the exhibit Gladys asked if she could make a video of us talking about our experiences on the tour. Tourism is down in Egypt and Gladys wanted to post the video on Facebook to help encourage people to come to Egypt. We loved Gladys and had such a great time so of course, we said yes.

Alison, Debbie, and Blake outside the Cairo museum

The Cairo museum itself is pretty cool. It has so many historical items. You could spend days going through and looking at each one. Gladys took us through each room and showed us particularly interesting items. After we made our way through the exhibits on the first floor we went upstairs and saw the treasures of King Tut’s tomb. They were incredible. We kept talking about how amazing it must have been for the archeologists that discovered a nearly intact tomb with such treasure. Seeing it in person you realize how incredible it really was. The highlight of the museum was King Tut’s burial mask. It is absolutely incredible. After the King Tut exhibit, we went to the mummy exhibit. This exhibit is a little creepy. They have a bunch of famous mummies most of which are partially unwrapped. After that, it was time to go.

Inside the front hall of the Cairo museum 

A replica of the rosetta stone 

This statue is from around 2,000 BC 

A statue of a scribe. It is really well preserved. 

A statue of Cheops the Pharaoh who built the great pyramids. This tiny statue (it is like an inch tall) is the only known statue of him. 

The detail on these thousands of year-old statues is incredible 

These statues were huge 

Partially reconstructed gold sarcophagus 

A guard found in King Tut's tomb

King Tut's treasure

King Tut's treasure

King Tut's treasure

King Tut's treasure

King Tut's treasure

King Tut's treasure

King Tut's treasure 

King Tut's treasure

We crossed the Nile to get to our location for lunch. It was on a boat called Nile City that had a bunch of restaurants. Like the day before this restaurant had pretty traditional food. We started out with a chicken soup with pasta. Then we had the bread, which was the best part of the meal. The bread was so yummy. They brought out three or four baskets and we ate it all. Plus they have tons of good sauces to put on the bread. My favorite was a garlic sauce which was so good. The main course was grilled chicken and beef with rice and french fries. It was another great lunch.

Lunch on the Nile 

Amazing Egyptian bread

We sat there eating and looking across the Nile. We talked to Gladys about her experience being a tour guide. She asked us if we would come back to Egypt. We said yes. Alison even told Gladys that initially, she didn’t want to come back to Egypt because her experience in 2009 wasn’t great, but she was a good sport since the rest of us wanted to go. She thought this would for sure be her last trip to Egypt but after her experience on this trip, she would be open to coming back. I agreed 100%. I was a little nervous before this trip, but as we sat there sharing this meal I was a little sad to be leaving Egypt.

Egypt has its share of problems. We have talked about many of them throughout our posts about our experience here - traffic is crazy, garbage is not taken care of, many places are dirty, and there is a lot of poverty.  Fixing these problems will take a lot of work and a lot of time. It could take decades or more to fix them. Despite these issues, Egypt has a lot to offer - the monuments and tombs are incredible, the food is delicious, and the people are kind. I am very grateful to have had a chance to experience this place.

After lunch, they took us to the Cairo international airport to catch our flight. We bid farewell to Gladys and headed in. We had a bit of a rocky experience getting on the flight. We were asked by Daniel Rona to bring some batteries for his headsets in our luggage. We had them packed and got them to Egypt without an issue, however, the Egyptian authorities decided they didn’t want us to take the batteries on our flight to Jordan. We had Wallid there helping us and he was able to convince the authorities to let us take 4/6 of the boxes of batteries with us. That was fine. We just didn’t want any trouble. Then when we went to check our bags they had an issue with Alison and I had three checked bags. To solve this issue we wrapped two bags together using saran wrap (this must happen often because they literally have a wrapping station in the airport). That worked and we were able to check all of our bags. Getting through security in Egypt is also a challenge, mostly because it seems like the rules change moment by moment. Also to get on this flight we had to go through security three times. We made it through and onto our flight. It was a short flight (just over an hour) to Jordan.

Arriving in Jordan was a total disaster. We arrived and it was immediately clear Jordan is much cleaner and more developed than Egypt. The airport was a very nice building. We got our visas. Jordan visas were fairly expensive. They cost 40 JOD per person which is around 60 USD. We got our bags and couldn’t find the person from Plaza travel who was supposed to be waiting for us. Blake went to look outside and I tried to call the company. I got in contact with someone,  but they had a thick accent and a child was screaming in the background. I couldn’t really hear what he said, first it sounded like someone was waiting outside, and then maybe they were on the way to the hotel already. The guy I was talking to hung up. At this point, a nice man from Jordan came over and asked if we needed help or if he could call someone for us. Debbie immediately said yes and asked if he could speak Jordanian. Alison corrected her and said it would be Arabic. He replied yes and called the travel company for us. He told us they had no arrivals today. We were still in an Egypt mindset where anytime someone helps us they want a tip, but this guy wasn’t looking for a tip he just wanted to help. At this point, we were pretty stressed. We were trying to call Daniel Rona but we were not very familiar with international numbers. Blake called the hotel and they also didn’t have a reservation for us. I finally talked to someone who worked for Daniel Rona in Utah (the guy had texted me so I was able to go through my texts and find his personal number on my phone). He gave us Daniel’s US number and we called and left a message. Another couple of Jordanian guys came over and asked if we could use help because we looked stressed. At this point, we had talked to a lot of people and the wheels were turning so we found a seat and waited. Eventually, we got a hold of Steven Rona and he said he would figure out what was going on and then call us back. Finally, the travel company called Blake and said someone would be there to pick us up in 15 minutes. A nice guy named Mohammed picked us up and took us to the hotel. He didn’t speak much English but he tried really hard. On our way, he took us on a 10-minute tour of Amman. At this point, we didn’t really want a tour, but it was fine. We arrived at the hotel and they found a couple of rooms for us. The only bummer was that they were smoking rooms and didn’t smell great. At this point though we were taking what we could get. We were upset with our experience in Jordan so far. The Rona’s really let us down. Despite everything, we are happy to be in Jordan and to see Petra tomorrow. We didn’t get into the hotel until about 10 so we quickly turned in.