We just returned from our spring break trip to Cairo. We spent four days and three nights exploring the Jewel of the Nile. Of course, we could spend years in Cairo and only begin to scratch the surface.
Though I trip was short, I can safely say all five of us fell in love with Cairo quickly, all for different reasons.
Elise left feeling frustration. Which to her meant she was in love, for there wasn't enough time to know the place, to dig into its heart and understand it.
Sam is pleading for a next posting in Cairo. He wants to be an archaeologist.
It is the essence of travel to find a place on earth that is unlike anyplace else. This is Cairo. It is the center of its own world. The fact that the city has been continually occupied for thousands of years is unmistakable and not hard to imagine. As you drive through it, or over it, as the case may be, as now there are elevated highways, you can see streets and markets crowded with people, stalls, buses, horses, carts, and donkeys. As though there is no separation between the past and present. The entire city is ochre, the color of the desert surrounding it, as though everything is covered in a layer of sand.
We arrived in the afternoon and headed to our hotel in Giza, on the outskirts of town, for a late lunch of shawarma and Sakara by the pool.
Though I trip was short, I can safely say all five of us fell in love with Cairo quickly, all for different reasons.
Elise left feeling frustration. Which to her meant she was in love, for there wasn't enough time to know the place, to dig into its heart and understand it.
Sam is pleading for a next posting in Cairo. He wants to be an archaeologist.
It is the essence of travel to find a place on earth that is unlike anyplace else. This is Cairo. It is the center of its own world. The fact that the city has been continually occupied for thousands of years is unmistakable and not hard to imagine. As you drive through it, or over it, as the case may be, as now there are elevated highways, you can see streets and markets crowded with people, stalls, buses, horses, carts, and donkeys. As though there is no separation between the past and present. The entire city is ochre, the color of the desert surrounding it, as though everything is covered in a layer of sand.
We arrived in the afternoon and headed to our hotel in Giza, on the outskirts of town, for a late lunch of shawarma and Sakara by the pool.
The view from our hotel room.
Upon arriving at the hotel, our bus pulled up to the barrier protecting the driveway and stopped. A fluffy golden retriever came bounding from the security booth, tail wagging. The security guard made a show of leading the dog around the vehicle, but he wasn't sniffing for anything. He was looking around with a slobbery grin on his face. When they were done, he rolled over and let the guard rub him on the belly. Less bombs. More belly rubs.
That evening, we were scheduled to take a dinner cruise on the Nile. The cruise didn't depart until almost 8:00. After a long day in the sun, neither Elise nor I anticipated anyone would last long. We were right. Soon after his first run to the buffet table, Pete was out, having risen before five in the morning that day with excitement.
Elise and I wondered if maybe we had been lead astray by the guide we had hired to put our trip together after an Egyptian lounge singer took the mic and opened the cruise with his rendition of Enrique Iglesias' "Hero":
I can be your hero, baby.
I can kiss away the pain.
I will stand by you forever.
You can take my breath away.
Elise immediately ordered another glass of wine.
The entertainment slowly improved from there. As Elise and I like to keep this blog rated PG, I have no photos of the busomy belly dancer who followed, and I have not the words to describe the bulbous....well, you get the idea.
After the boob....umm, I mean....belly-dancer came the traditional whirling dervish dance. This was the last act and the highlight of the evening. I didn't realize at the time how difficult the dance was until I tried to replicate it the next day with a beach towel poolside and was only able to make three revolutions before I becoming dizzy and thought I was going to keel over.
His spinning skirt lit up and soon he looked more like a UFO than anything human.
Elise and I trend away from typical tourist fare. And the Nile cruise would be our first of many -- too many -- buffets on this trip. Though we were initially skeptical, the river cruise was definitely one thing...memorable!
1 comment:
Beautiful blog. I wonder how beautifully you have described it, Appreciate your skills. I am glad that you are sharing this with us. I am having a plan to travel to Egypt only to have an experience with the Nile cruise. This post is going to help me more to know more about Egypt and the Nile cruise. I heard and viewed on the internet that a Nile cruise is such a beautiful adventure that one can ever have. Can you suggest me a page to guide me over this because from my knowledge I only knew one website Imperial Egypt that furnishes every place of Egypt with the traveling tip? Well thank you and will be waiting for your reply.
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