Cairo

We spent 5 days in the mega-city of Cairo, home to 17 million people. The best part is merely wandering around and observing. It is so dirty and huge and loud and exhausting, but also so stimulating and exciting and beautiful.

A few of the highlights of our time in Cairo:

- We spent an evening with the refugee woman I tutor in atlanta, Selwa, and her neice and nephew. Josh and I have become very close to her and her sons, and she happened to be in Cairo while we were there visiting a bunch of her family that still live there! (They're from sudan but were refugees in cairo for 12 years so they consider it home). They picked us up and took us to Islamic Cairo, which is the ancient islamic quarter of the city. I never would have imagined that I would be visiting a mosque with a woman in a burkha (interestingly, she wears the full burkha (everything but eyes) in Eygpt, but doesn't in Atlanta - she just wears the hijab, or head covering.) Having them as tour guides in this quarter of the city, especially with our visit to Al-Azhar, a mosque and Islamic university that has been functioning since 988 AD, made such a difference in giving us access and insight!

- Ah, the Pyramids of Giza, consisting of 3 pyramids and a large Sphinx - the sole survivor of the Seven Wonders of the World. The sheer size and symmetry must be seen to be believed. I was expecting the width but not the height - they were the tallest human-made objects in the world for 4500 years, until the Eiffel Tower was built. Constructed on pharoahs' orders around 2500 BC, they are composed of over 2 million limestone blocks that each way 2.5 tonnes! Now that's a burial.

- We had a fascinating trip out to the slums where the outcasts of Cairo live in the city's garbage dump, responsible for manually sorting through all of the garbage that they live in. The smell and poverty and unsanitary conditions were quite unlike anything either of us have ever seen. And of course, amidst society's outcasts, a thriving Christian community has emerged. A Coptic priest moved into their midst and started ministering to them, and constructed a huge church in a cave in the stone hill where the people live. It was enormous and stunning and somewhat surreal to see in this country. Click here to read more about St. Simon the Tanner Cathedral, or the "cave cathedral", as it as been nicknamed.

- We had one incredible evening getting lost in the narrow streets of the old part of the city: eating amazing falafel and egyptian pastries from street stalls that charged us a quarter; stumbling upon beautiful old mosques and getting one of the worshippers to let us climb to the top of the minaret, with the most breathtaking view of the night-time city lights; having a shai (egyptian tea) at a picturesque ahwa full of old men playing backgammon; and chancing upon a free cultural performance of Sufi dancing - the whirling dervishes. Just one of those amazing travel moments when everything actually works in your favor rather than being a hassle!

- On our last night, we spent several hours over some delicious Egyptian food with a friend of ours, Darren Kennedy. Through the connection of several mutual friends, we met him and his wife Elizabeth during our studies in Edinburgh. They have been missionaries in Cairo through the PCUSA for 8 years. We had a wonderful time catching up with Darren and discussing their family's work and life in Cairo. Click here to read more about the Kennedy's and their work in Cairo.

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Luxor

We took a 10 hour train ride south along the Nile to Luxor, which has been inhabited for 6000 years! It was the capital for much of Pharonic rule and was also the center of religious and ceremonical life in ancient Egypt. It has the most preverved ancient monuments - King Tut's tomb was found here. There's the Valley of the Kings, where many of the tombs of the Pharoah are still in tact - we walked down into 3 of them, amazing tunnels into the heart of the mountains covered in heiroglyphics. There are several temples constructed for various pharoahs for themselves and the gods - we visited Hatshepsut's (the famous woman pharoah), Ramses II's, and Amenhotep II's (called Luxor temple).

And then there's the amazing Karnak temple, our favorite site. It wasn't so much a temple as a complex - it measures about 1 mile by 800 meters. Each successive pharoah would add to the place and try to outdo each other. We just couldn't capture the scale in pictures! There are multiple sanctuaries within it. The most amazing part was the Great Hypostyle Hall - a forest of 134 towering stone pillars, bigger than both St. Peter's in Rome and St. Paul's in London combined!

Beyond the monuments and the history, we enjoyed spending time in a smaller town on the banks of the Nile, with more horses than cars and farmland full of sugarcane.

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Sinai

We stayed in Dahab, a Bedouin (desert tribe that are the traditional inhabitants of the Sinai peninsula) fishing village that has turned into a European and Arab resort town on the Red Sea. It was incredibly beautiful and relaxing. We spent a lot of time snorkeling in the coral reef in front of our hotel and saw the most unbelievable marine life. I've never seen anything like the fish and the colors - there are apparantly more types of tropical fish in the Red Sea than anywhere else in the world. So that was a real highlight.

We then took a short bus to the middle of the peninsula to the small Bedouin village at the base of Mt. Sinai. It is the most striking landscape - sooo bare and stark and craggy, but incredibly beautiful. We read the Exodus story before leaving and had such a vivid picture of Moses leading his reluctant people through the desert. No wonder they were complaining! It is so harsh with the bare rock and sand and blinding sun.

The way the Bedouin people still live as nomads, surviving off of such a harsh land, in caves and stone huts, is unbelievable. It's as though nothing has changed in thousands of years. Staying in the village was great - we didn't see a single other tourist while we were there. We stayed at a camp run by a local Bedouin Sheikh and it was a really wonderful experience, although i must admit we were thrilled to check into our nice hotel in cairo and get a hot shower, air conditioning and our own bathroom!

The real highlights of our trip were visiting St. Katherine's Monastery, the monastery at the base of Mt. Sinai (which is locally called Mt. Moses), and climbing the mountain itself. The monastery has been a practicing monastic community since 500 AD, and is the oldest active monastery in the world. They have an incredible collection of iconic art and christian manuscripts that have been passed down throughout the centuries. It was a very spiritually enriching visit.

And then we hiked up the mountain, which was grueling. It's a high mountain to begin with, with some very steep parts, but it was really the incredible heat with the sun beating down with no shade in sight that made it tough on us. But it was a moving pilgrimage for both of us. We read some psalms at the top while watching the sunset, and then hiked down by moonlight (which was tricky, as i of course forgot to pack the flashlight.)

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