Walk like an Egyptian

The Egyptian Museum with Mustafa

Tutankhamun's Chair

Coffee stop

It's an early start today for a walking tour of Cairo, so into 2 taxis with instructions to go to Tehrir Square, the site of the revolution in 2011. At the Egyptian Museum we meet Mustafa, our guide for today.
Inside the museum Mustafa patiently leads us through a potted version of the Egyptian Pharaonic history, making sense of events and artefacts that have been found. Randomly part way round the museum we're accosted by more excited children all eager to take our photograph or have a selfie with us. Outside the museum it's time to walk like an Egyptian across the 7 lane roads of Tehrir Square, this is a big challenge for me especially, I'm not good at just walking slowly and steadily across the speeding traffic, trusting the drivers to miss me! I need a Turkish coffee by the time we reach the traditional coffee shop! After coffee we are taken for a traditional Koshary lunch, this consists of fried onions, noodles, macaroni and rice all topped with a garlic and vinegar marinade and chilli – what a carb fix.

Khan el-Khalili

On top of the gates of Old Cairo

We now need a long walk to work off all those carbs and Mustafa seems to know just the route. It starts at one of the old gates of Cairo and goes across the old city to the other side, a souk known as Khan el-Khalili, but first we have to get through the gate. There are already a couple of tuk-tuk's stuck in the narrow gateway both unwilling to give way and everyone from shop keepers to pedestrians are getting involved, there's much arm waving and gesticulating and all the while Maria and I are being swept along in the throng of people towards the ever decreasing gap around the vehicles! We both breathe in and try to make ourselves very thin as we're pushed through the gap and eventually emerge on the other side, both very relieved.

Khan el-Khalili

In the souk

Mustafa shows us the way up to the top of the towers guarding the gates of Cairo but says he doesn't need to go up them today as he doesn't wish to die, I can understand his sentiments when I see the wobbly iron ladder but the views from the top are magnificent. The walk continues through the ever narrowing street, selling everything from sexy underwear to dish clothes and gets increasingly narrow and dirty. There are thin cats everywhere, ducks and chickens trying to find scraps to eat, piles of rubbish and old men smoking shisha pipes. We emerge gasping from the smell onto a busy junction right at the centre of old Cairo, fortunately there's an underpass which leads us into wider streets full of gold shops and rich fabrics. The final stop of the tour is of course a mosque.

Now we've finished the tour we need to freshen up so a short taxi ride takes us to The Four Seasons Hotel where we try to creep through the lobby to the bathrooms to make ourselves more respectable, oh the difference between the grim surroundings of the afternoons walk and now, sheer opulence and calm. A cool drink by the hotel pool is a world away from the mayhem in the streets we've left behind and to add to the calm Tom negotiates a faluka ride for us on the Nile, so calming and it feels like a million miles away from the city.

Our evening meal is booked at Sequoia, a restaurant on Zamalek (an island in the middle of the Nile) but first we have to get there. Lets go by horse and cart, of course, just how to arrive at a posh restaurant! Price negotiated with the driver, he assures us all 5 of us will fit in the horse carriage, but it is a tight squeeze, with Rob and Maria sat facing forwards, Dave and I facing backwards and Tom sat up with the driver, except that the horse sets off without him! Thank goodness Tom can reach the reins, but if we thought that was the only fright we're wrong. The horse sets off at a canter, well he is trying to pull 6 of us in the carriage, and he's going the wrong way, so after shouting on our part and broken Arabic from Tom we get our point across but not before we've gone through the underpass at a gallop with the carriage swaying fit to over turn. Ok says the driver and proceeds to do a U turn across a 3 lane road with cars honking and fortunately missing us! Mish mish, the horse, is now trotting across the bridge in the right direction and seems to know his way to the restaurant. The roads again become increasingly narrow going down to a one lane road and as we're travelling at horse miles per hour we're building up quite a queue of traffic behind us. It was like an episode of my big fat gypsy wedding, I wasn't sure the restaurant would let us in but they did and the views across the Nile were stunning with great food and of course shisha.

Rob & Maria relaxing on a falouka