World Cruise - Day 104 - Apr 25 - Alexandria/Cairo, Egypt

Sunrise in Alexandria, very early this morning (5:14a), but I was up at 5a, since we are taking a tour to Cairo that leaves this morning at 7a.

Our port is Alexandria, which most passengers are using as their gateway to visit Cairo and the pyramids.  Here are some local fisherman out in the bay as we arrived:

I have no idea what this building is (still in Alexandria).  Actually, I just found out from our guide—it is the Palace of Alexandria.

On our way into Cairo.  It is a 3 hour drive, so lots to see along the way.  Another in the endless line of pics of local transports:

Yes, McD’s is here in Egypt as well.  In case you wondered how McDonald’s is spelled in Arabic, here it is:

The two buildings in the background are towers for pigeons.  This is very common for farmers here in Egypt  Pigeons are a prized dish for people in Egypt.  One pigeon serves one person, yet costs about 25 Egyptian pounds (about $4), while a full chicken (which is about 4x larger and will feed four people) costs only 20 Egyptian pounds (about $3.20).

This is Nasser.  He is the security guy on our tour.  Look at him closely—he’s packing heat.  On both sides.  That swagger you can see if because he is locked and loaded.

Krissie with Noemi and Terry in our van.  We had a nice Toyota Hi-S 15-passenger van (there were only 7 passengers, our guide and our driver).

This is Maha:

She is our tour guide for the day and is a certified Egyptologist.  She got her degree in Archaeology from Cairo University and has been a tour guide for 8 years.  She is 29 years old.  She is getting married on May 23, election day in Egypt.  She has been dating her boyfriend for two years, although her parents did not know her fiancé until recently.  In Egypt, like many countries, if a women gets to 30 years old without getting married, she is considered to be not as desirable (or “expired” in the words of our tour guide in Shanghai).  So Maha’s mother did not know she was dating her boyfriend (who is now her fiancé) and every night when she came home from work, there was another young man there as a potential suitor for her.  So she would tell the young man that she was happy with her work and would never leave it, which she says makes all the men in Egypt run away.  Her younger sister got married within the last year, putting more pressure on Maha to get married.  So she is finally getting married in a month.

Maha taught us several Arabic words and phrases.  “La” means no and “shukran” means thank you, so la shukrun means no thank you.  “Aiwa” means yes and “salam” means both hello and goodbye (like “ciao” in Italian).  “Sabach el hir” means good morning.  “Pika dah” means how much and “Gahli awi” means too much.  She helped us with our negotiating skills later in the day.

When a woman marries, they must be a virgin, if not, they will kill you.  For man, it cannot be known whether he is a virgin or not, so it’s not an issue.  On the night before her wedding, “the women get as naked as they want” (not sure exactly what that means) and they put henna tattoos on each other.  The marriage ceremony is Islamic contract first, then civil ceremony.  In Egypt men only have one wife, because Egyptian women are very jealous and would not put up with more than one wife.  She doesn’t know anyone with more than one wife.

This truck is carrying bananas.

There are a variety of crops in this area, but they are all by irrigation, while the Nile delta area is where things like cotton are grown.

This truck has a lot of green stuff on the top, I have no idea what.  Our tour guide says it is grass, so I guess it is maybe hay for the horses (or camels):

Patti, posting this one for you.  I don’t think they have horse trailers here.  Nice looking Arabian:

We arrived in Giza, which is on the outskirts of Cairo.  This is the Great Pyramid of Cheops (a/k/a Great Pyramid of Giza, a/k/a Great Pyramid of Khufu) with our tour group in front:  Krissie, Brian, Noemi, Jackie, Terry, Dan and Sergio:

Krissie in front of the Great Pyramid of Cheops, the tallest and largest pyramid in the world:

Caught this view of two women walking out beyond the pyramids:

Krissie touching the Great Pyramid of Cheops for the first time.  Local legend says that you are to make a wish before you touch the pyramid and if you don’t tell anyone, it will come true. 

This smaller pyramid next to the Great Pyramid of Cheops is of one of his queens.  You can see the vendors there selling their wares and offering horse and camel rides:

We went into the Cheops Boat Museum, where the solar boat is located:

This boat was found buried next to the base of the Great Pyramid of Cheops:

Outside the boat museum, Dan and I both bought an Arabic okal (headdress) from a vendor.  We both got a good deal, just $3.

There are three pyramids here in Giza, this one is the Great Pramid of Chephren (or Khafre), where the top is still similar to what they were originally:

Here is a view of all three pyramids at Giza: the Great Pyramid of Cheops (which is the largest, but is further away), the Great Pyramid of Chephren, and the Great Pyramid of Mykerinos (or Menkaure).

Krissie in front of the three pyramids of Giza:

One of the classic poses in Giza, Krissie pushing down the Great Pyramid of Cheops:

Pic of the group in front of the pyramids of Giza:

This is one of my favorite photos of the day, I think I may enter it in the photo contest onboard (the subject is “Architecture”):

We went into the Great Pyramid of Mykerinos, which was a really, really tight fit.  You’re not supposed to have a camera in there, so I took this illegal photo of Krissie with my pocket camera, which I snuck in:

This is the burial chamber, which is empty now, but where the body would have been located:

Then we went over to the Sphinx, which is just down the hill in Giza.  View of the Sphinx of Giza with the pyramids in the background:

Krissie in front of the Sphinx:

The classic pose for a girl is to be kissing the Sphinx, Krissie didn’t want to do that:

The classic pose for a guy is to be punching the Sphinx (or so we were told by Maha):

One last photo of the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid of Cheops:

On the way out, I gave two boys who were selling water two of my gold medals from ping pong.  They were so happy!  They were jumping up and down like they had just won an event at the Olympics.  As I was walking away, I saw that one of them was taking it off his head.  I wondered if he might try to sell it?  Then he put it to his lips and kissed it.  I asked Maha if she thought they would try to sell the medals and she said no, they would take it home to show their family and friends and would keep it as a valued momento.

We found out that the vendors don’t like Maha, because she doesn’t let them hassle the tourists in her group.  She once had one of them put in jail.  They tell her that they hate her and that God will punish her.  We love that she protects us and tells us the lowest price from the start.  No negotiating here, just ask Maha and she gives us their lowest price.  She says to start at 25% of whatever they say and work down to somewhere between 25% and 33%.

Everyone in Cairo has a television.  And a satellite dish:

This boy was pushing his cart right out into traffic to cross the street.

I was trying to take a pic of the first motorcycle, the second one came in right while I took the shot.  The first one is a delivery motorcycle for KFC, which Maha said in Egypt is Kentucky Fried Camel:

Do you remember the buildings that were on fire during the Egyptian revolution in January last year?  This is it:

View of the Nile River:

Street vendor selling pita bread:

We went to Abou Tarek Koshary for lunch:

This Koshary was made famous by Anthony Bourdain on the Travel Channel:

We all had koshary, a traditional Egyptian meal of pasta, rice and lentils, mixed with chickpeas, tomato sauce, sautéed onions and hot sauce:

Outside, a little girl was talking to someone, maybe her grandpa?

Local vendor selling begetables:

Cabbage and some sort of tubers for sale:

The local fixit guy:

This is part of Tahrir Square, where the demonstrations took place last year (and are continuing this year):

There was a small demonstration going on with the guy top left yelling stuff to the crowd about the presidential elections.  This was a close as we wanted to be to Tahrir Square:

Another view of Tahrir Square, you can see the person speaking on the right and the crowds gathered in the center:

Then we went to the world famous Cairo Museum:

No cameras were allowed in Cairo Museum.  It is considered to be one of the top museums in the world with its Egyptian artifacts.  It has an impressive collection of Egyptian antiquities in its two floors.  Here are some images from photo sharing sites of what we saw today:

Almost the entire second floor is dedicated to Tutankhamen.  The most impressive piece (and probably the most famous Egyptian artifact in the world) is the face mask: 

King Tut was placed inside this gold sarcophagus:

This was his throne chair from the royal palace:

This is one of the articles in the antechamber, which was part of his royal collection:

There were three different pieces like this in the shape of three different animals:

This is where his internal organs were stored as part of the mummification process:

After Cairo Museum, we began to make our way back out of town:

This was an engraving on the side of the building:

By the time we got back into Alexandria, it was just past sunset and the night market was opening:

This was more of a local market (vs. a tourist-based market):

We made our way back to the ship and got ready to set sail at 7:30p:

The entertainment onboard tonight was Kevin Devane:

He uses the tagline: “Funnier than he looks.”

Tomorrow is sea day #1 of 2 on our way across the Mediterranean to Dubrovnik, Croatia.