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This is a report of a trip to Egypt and Jordan, undertaken during May 1992 by myself (from Luxembourg) and my best friend, Marc (from Belgium).

Egypt, part 1

Pierre.Flener
2004-04-03 18:28:48

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Day 1: Brussels - Cairo
Marc and I get to Cairo on separate flights, as we ran into trouble with our late attempts at finding cheap tickets: we forgot that low season implies less flights. Immigration and customs are pretty straightforward, though slow. The visa only costs $15, which is a real bargain compared to the $35 the Egyptian Embassy in Brussels wanted to charge us. Declining all offers for a taxi, we ride a minibus (#27) to downtown Cairo, getting off at Midan Tahrir (Liberation Square), the pumping heart of Central Cairo's traffic. It's 11pm, and many budget hotels are already full. They are mostly on the upper floors of office buildings, and after a series of juddering - suicidal? - rides in ancient elevators, we eventually spot a safe haven for the next nights, somewhere on Midan Talaat Harb.

Day 2: Cairo - Islamic Cairo, Old Cairo, Coptic Cairo
In the morning, we stroll towards Islamic Cairo, starting our visit with the Al Azhar Mosque (970), one of the oldest universities in the world, a stronghold of Sunni orthodoxy, and a hotbed of Egyptian politics. From its ramshackle roofs, we enjoy a good view over Cairo. We also assess how much this city suffers from air pollution: one day in Cairo is said to amount to smoking thirty-five cigarettes.
On Sharia (Street) el-Muski, past Khan el-Khalili, the overtouristed souk, and into its surroundings, we enter a totally different world. This is Marc's first encounter with a medieval, Islamic city-heart: narrow dirt roads, shoulder to shoulder crowds, itinerant or squatting street vendors, music blaring from the tape shops, air filled with incense or spice-scents here, but stench there, garbage being dropped where it occurs, begging cripples, deteriorated houses, the odd car insisting on driving through this labyrinth, men in floating galabias, heavily veiled women, and so on, mark our every step to the Northern Gates and back. The people definitely exhibit a ...