On a whistlestop tour of the Egyptian captial, Go reader MARIE HEALYdiscovers a city brimful of treasures
AS WE DROPPED out of the sky over Cairo we could see desert from one side of the aircraft and a dense city from the other. Such is the proximity of Egypt’s capital to barren wilderness. As we descended we could see a layer of sand on every building and every car. A low smog added to the ochre veil over the metropolis.
Cairo is the largest city in Africa and the political and cultural fulcrum of the Arab world. Our guide, Ahmed of Memphis Tours, cosseted us on our whistlestop adventure. He was a fount of knowledge at the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, held our hands as we made our way through old Cairo and warded off hustlers at the pyramids.
Our education began as our driver crossed the city. I would have been a wreck if we had hired a car. We zipped past mosques – the most famous being the beautiful 19th-century Al-Rifa’i, or Royal, Mosque – then the Khan al-Khalili souk, full of stalls selling every conceivable item, plus ahwas, or cafes, serving Arabic coffee and offering a puff of a water pipe.
Staggeringly, more than 15 million people live in Cairo, and up to three million more come to the city each day to work or study. Ahmed told us that four million cars are on Cairo’s streets between dawn and dusk each day.
That would equate to every Irish citizen – including babies propped up at wheels – driving around Dublin at once.
We got to our first destination with our nerves in tatters but were otherwise unscathed. The Museum of Egyptian Antiquties is an old and decrepit building that houses 136,000 exhibits of pharaonic antiquities.
Our favourite was the priceless collection buried with King Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings, near Luxor. He ruled for only nine years and died 3,300 years ago.
We admired the two sarcophagi; the smaller one is made of solid gold and weighs 110kg. Also made of solid gold is his 11kg burial mask, whose quartz eyes looked intensely at us. Golden statues of nearly 500 attendants were discovered; they were thought to serve the young king in his afterlife. (Only a token are on display here.)
Suitably dazzled by all the gold and silver, we headed into the ever-shining sun and back into the city chaos to visit the church area of old Cairo.
We were intrigued to see El Muallaqa, or the Hanging Church, above the gatehouse of the Roman Babylon fortress. Possibly built in the fourth century, with ebony inlaid with ivory and wooden-roofed interiors, it is said to resemble Noah’s ark. As we walked through the church we couldn’t get over the noise and industry as women polished every surface and men were busy with ladders and tools.
Later we were driven helter skelter through the markets and into Giza to see the pyramids in the distance. And then quite suddenly these mighty three structures were in front of us. Wow.
You see so many photographs of them; it’s humbling to look up at their vastness and to try to comprehend that they were built 4,000 years ago.
These mausoleums housed the tombs of pharaohs, “who were honoured in life and worshipped in death”. When it was discovered that the pyramids were too easily vandalised the pharaohs were later entombed in the Valley of the Kings.
Tired and weary, but full of culture, we headed back to the airport, crossing nine lanes of traffic, drivers beeping and flashing incessantly.
We wouldn’t have missed the experience but were relieved that we were still in one piece after our chaotic trip through this crazy city.
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