I spend a few days visiting Cairo with Phillip and Joshua (who we used to call Ibrahim in the public space), as we were all of us hosted by Nagui.
Discovery the “Islamic Cairo” was very interesting, walking through the streets full of life, and their huge Mosques. We started with the Mosque of Ibn Tulun and then wanted to walk until Bab Zuweila. You always find some people who want to be your “friend” and “help” you. One led us to the Blue Mosque and wanted to let us in for £40 instead of £80. We refused that and went away, to come back a little later and get for free. We had an epic climb of the minaret over tight steps and a ladder at the end! Leaving the Mosque, we just let £5 or £10 in the box. Then we walked close to the citadel but did not get in because we had no time. We went through many picturesque streets until Al Azhar. There, we show a Sufi dance performance, mixing many instruments and energetic men dance! The taxi back to Nagui’s place was also interesting: we were first 15min stocked in the traffic jam, then came to a street blocked. The taxi driver did not knew how to reach the place, so we explained him which directions to take through the small streets tanks to my navigation system on my old Nokia E71!
Arriving late at Nagui’s place, we still had discussions for more than an hour, so that we went to sleep by about 2 am…
The day after, we split: Phillip and I went to visit the Egyptian Museum with its impressive collections of ancient Egypt. The most important items from Tutankhamun’s tomb are there to see, e.g. his 110kg golden sarcophagi or 11kg well known death mask. We were supposed to queue for a while in many places, but it was always very easy to go everywhere without queuing. The museum was not completely empty but we had enough spaces. This was perfect for us but sad for Egypt’s business: since the revolution, most of the tourists are gone!
Leaving the museum, we were very happy to find a good (but spicy, isn’t it Phillip?) Koshari to eat! Joshua and Nagui joined us later around a tea, and we went together to a very nice live concert of Dina El Hadidi. Nagui explained us some of the lyrics, very engaged for more liberty in the society. It was impressive to be there, we felt the revolution going on!