Crossing streets, an act of faith (September 1, 2010)

Today I woke up at noon Cairo time (6 AM EST) and I felt great. I had slept 14 hours. We called the boys’ room and they had already been out, not having been able to sleep because of jet lag. The five of us (Alex, from So Cal who goes to Wesleyan) went to the Egyptian Museum. The museum is across the street, but because of the immense traffic and lack of traffic lights or cross walks, it took us fifteen minutes to walk there. The heat was intense and unforgiving. A block away from the museum we were asked for official identification and had us go through a metal detector on the side of the street. This was definitely a scam, considering we had to go through two official security points at the museum and nobody else seemed to bother with the bizarre makeshift security point we went though. Egypt is full of scams. People are always trying to make you buy something, or rip you off. Everything from cab fairs to kunafah is bargained for, and it’s exhausting.
The Egyptian Museum was incredible. There were artifacts galore, and my guidebook said if you spent one minute at each piece it would take over nine months to get through. Some notable artifacts we saw were the Golden throne of King Tut and the Sphinx of Sanwosret, a Middle Kingdom pharaoh. The tragedy of the museum was that the artifacts were all thrown together, with no captions or labels and not much rhyme or reason to how they were organized. Thousands of years of history is in the museum, but there is really no way to tell what is what. Most of the King Tut artifacts are actually in New York at a special exhibit, which I saw in August, and are well explained and beautifully displayed.
We ate lunch in the café at the museum, as not many places were likely to be open, but I couldn’t even think about eating hot food. The museum (and the café) were not air conditioned. I am drinking water non-stop to stay hydrated. Everyone was ready to relax so we returned to the hotel.
After a restful afternoon we headed back out the Khan al-Khalili. This time we went to a restaurant and ate great food that was really cheap. I had an omelet and Fool Eggplant, a mix of beans, chic peas and eggplant. Everything comes with amazing, hot, puffs of pita bread. Dinner was LE 10 per person (about $1.75). We went to see the Sufi dancers perform, and were told to get there at 9:00PM, despite the fact that it is set to start at 8:30PM (Arab time is always half hour to an hour late if not more). Upon arriving to the hall, we found the doors shut and the 1000 seat theater full. I was so disappointed, as the show only runs Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and I have heard amazing things about it, but I will make it a point to go and be on time on the next trip to Cairo.
Mohammad from yesterday found us…we couldn’t believe it. He showed us his papyrus shop and taught us about the different grades of papyrus and how to tell what is good craftsmanship and what is “monkey business”. He warned us about pushy Egyptians trying to scam tourists (irony anyone?) and we were on our way! The Egyptian side of the souk was FANTASTIC. Infinitely better than the tourist side we saw yesterday. We went deep in to the cloth souk and the shoe souk, also passing by the food. We drank some juice a local vendor was selling that tasted like fruit milk of some sort. The city was bustling. This was about 10PM, and I realized that last night, we had been in the souk way too early to see it at its prime. We decided to get some tea Fishawy’s café in the souk. The café overflows onto the pathways of the souk and there we sat, drinking tea (I actually had mango juice which just tasted like someone had mashed several mangoes) and observing. There really isn’t a bar scene in Cairo, especially during Ramadan, and people more frequently sit in cafes and smoke shisha and drink tea into the early hours of the morning.
Despite my disappointment about the Sufi dancers, I really enjoyed Cairo today. It was a vast improvement over yesterday, and I am excited to see the pyramids tomorrow.