Egypt, Day 3: French Canadians, Perfume and Feluccas

(Note: I'm typing this over a 56k connection at the hotel - as soon as we get more bandwidth and I can connect my laptop we'll have further updates, as well as photos to liven things up a bit. 750 photos and counting! Finally, sorry for the silence, but the cruise ship didn't have internet access.)

We awake a bit later than we'd hoped - 1 PM. Oops. Okay, blame it on the jet lag. In order to salvage what was left of the day, we decide to condense our Egyptian Museum visit down from two half-days to one full day and use the remaining half day to explore Coptic Cairo.

Coptic Cairo represents the most commonly visited portion of what is known as Old Cairo. The Roman fortress on which part of the area rests dates back to the 2nd century A.D. and was known as Babylon-in-Egypt. Imagine a cluster of six churches and a synagogue (Egypt's oldest) clustered around a tangled we of cobbled streets and alleyways. As it was the heat of the day, the streets were essentially empty, but it's easy to imagine how little this area has changed over the last two thousand or so years.

Our first stop was the Hanging Church, so named because it is built atop the remains of the Roman fort's Water Gate - they even have a Lucite window in the floor through which we could view the ruins. The pulpit is gorgeous - apparently the pillars represent the twelve apostles of Jesus. Judas' piller is darker than the others, almost black - very clever.

Once we'd taken in the sights of the Hanging Church, we wandered down through the Coptic graveyard (thanks to the Tourist Policeman that led us there, then looked for some baksheesh for leading us somewhere we really hadn't planned on going) - some very large tombs, though none of particular note. It was interesting that (quite probably due to the proximity of te Nile and its floods) the tombs were all of the same type as New Orleans, above-ground mausoleums that housed multiple familyt members.

We then explored the Monastery and Church of St. George, by far the most popular Christian saint in the region. Dating back to 1909, a church of some form or another has been in this location since the 10th century A.D. Wonderfully intricate woodwork and tilework surrond the shrines, and the smell of burning wax from the votive candles hung heavy in the air. Stained glass windows let green and yellow light filter in.

After hiding from the sun for a bit, we wandered the streets in search o the Ben Ezra Synagogue, Egypt's oldest. Apparently there are only about 200 practitioners of Judaism in Egypt today. The synagogue had some beautiful inlay work - unfortunately, photography was not allowed.

We then took the Egyptian metro to the center of Cairo. It's worth noting that the metro has segregated cars - some cars are women only. After one look at the men's car, Mel decided that she'd ride with the women. Good choice, too - the car I rode in was extremely crowded. This made for a humorousscene at each stop - Mel and I would poke our heads out to make sure that neither got off without the other. We got a few strange looks. The train goes underground when it nears the center of Cairo, so we weren't sure when to get off - as it turns out, we missed by one stop and had a fifteen minute hike to our destination. We got to see a good amount of daily life along the way so the mistake turned out to be a boon. (That said, the dead goat head Mel saw rotting on the sidewalk was a it of a shocker.)

At this point, I have to say a bit about the Hassle. Everyone in Egypt has something to sell you, knows the best place touy everything and studies the same three or four English sentences with which to initiate a conversation. In order to navigate the almost endless calls of 'Where you from?', 'What's your name?' and so forth, Mel and I hit upon a strategy: we'd pretend to French-Canadian. We reasoned we knew enough French to to fool the non-French speakers and we could pretend Quebecois was different enough from European French to fool the rest. This worked remarkably well for the early part of the day in Coptic Cairo. The vendors seemed a bit baffled by us and proved far less persistent. We would have to adapt our approach in later days, however.

I mention this because the only time we abandoned this strategy we wound up in a shop buying perfume. We met a nice 'student' whie crossing a street (see 'Suicide, Vehicular-Assisted') who insisted talking with us for a bit before he 'had to go'. He told us only to buy from government-licensed shops (good advice), but then insisted on taking us to the nearest one. I found myself unable to detach from him - blame the heat. In any event, we took shai (tea) with the shopkeeper and wound up with a very nice bottle of perfume for Mel that I probably paid far too much for and a story Mel can tell to embarrass me for years to come.

We paused again in the Hilton for a drink before heading for the Corniche, the pedestrian walkway that follows the east bank of the Nile. Once on the Corniche, we began to search for a felucca. The felucca is a local sailboat that can be hired for a private Nile cruise by the hour. After looking around for a bit, during which time Mel unfortunately had her posterior grabbed by a cheeky flower vendor, we haggled decently with the captain of a likely vessel and spent a lovely hour on the Nile at sunset.

From there, we attempted to find a particular restaurant for dinner but were stymied by the lack of street signs (as well as my pig-headed unwillingness to break out the guidebook). As such, we caught a cab back to the hotel and wandered up the street to Felfela, a local restaurant chain. Mel described the falafel as 'the best she'd ever eaten, a description I'm unable to refute. We ended our day with a Gin Fizz at the hotel bar. before bedtime.

Check out Mel's blog for the next installment: Sir, Yours is the Nicest Camel.