Cairo Day 2

Cairo Day 2

Today we spent the day exploring churches and visiting the Egyptian Museum. Religion and history are a major part of the Egyptian culture and have a strong influence on their day to day lives. Being in The Middle East during Ramadan has been quite an enlightening experience. There are 3 primary religions in Egypt. Muslim, Coptic Christian and Jewish.

Our first stop was a mosque built by Mohammed Ali ( not the former

boxer) called The Citadel of Saladin. It was built to rival the mosque in Instanbul and provided a clear view of the city. It was our chance to see how the Muslims pray and the general layout of a mosque.

Before travelling to the next church we made an unplanned trip to one of 4 “Garbage Cities”. The one we went to visit is home to 70,000 Coptic Christians. The people who live in these “cities “ have figured out how to make a living by sorting and selling the recyclable garbage of Cairo. They pick it up for free and load it on to their trucks as high as they can to bring it into the city. Their homes are brick buildings built into the rocks. They pile and sort the garbage in the first 2 levels and live above that. Each family seems to have a specialty that they recycle. One may be cardboard, one may be plastic bags, one rubber hoses etc. Once sorted they have found buyers for their garbage. They claim to have a 85% recycling rate. Unfortunately I think what we saw was the 15% left in the streets. It is quite a place. After driving about a Kilometre through the neighbourhood on a very narrow and bumpy dirt street we came to a more open area which seemed to be a town square. Lots of people purchasing fresh produce off of carts. It is Sunday and everyone is dressed very nicely.

We continued on about another kilometre and came upon 2 churches built into the caves of the mountain. The first one, the Monastery of Saint Simon holds 2000 people. The second one holds 20000! Apparently it is a regular venue for concerts. As we are entering the larger church there are a number of families leaving with small babies who had just been baptized. They were beautifully clothed in elaborate baptism outfits. Both venues and the areas around them are quite clean, and surprisingly the air doesn’t smell too bad.

Our next stop was a Coptic Church known as The Hanging Church as it is sitting on 4 pillars. Church service had just ended and several members were still hanging around. Apparently the Virgin Mary has appeared above the church and there are 2 photos of the events in the lobby.

Next we visited a the Ben Ezra Synagogue. To get there we walked a narrow covered walkway that had entrances to many churches.

After lunch we headed to the Egyptian Museum which has the King Tut exhibit and some actual mummies. You could see the finger nails and toes on the mummies. It was amazing to see the multiple caskets King Tut was in. Apparently his mask does not travel outside of The Museum as it is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. It is mostly solid gold and weighs 11 kilograms or about 24 pounds. It is beautiful. To take photos in the museum you have to buy a pass. Kim purchased a pass but they don’t let you take pictures in the area where the mask is. Kim managed to get a photo before the guards started to complain.

We didn’t get to spend as much time in the museum as we would

have liked since they closed early for Ramadan.

We headed back to the hotel when we got word that a road side bomb had gone off near the New Egyptian Museum, injuring some South African tourists. It was quite scary as that was where we had been yesterday. Lots of emails home to friends and family to advise we were safe and sound.