Walk Like an Egyptian

Having spent a few days in Cairo, we now find new meaning to the phrase "walk like an Egyptian," or more appropriately, walk like a Cairenne. Living in New York City for several years did not prepare us for the mayhem and chaos of traffic in Cairo! In order to cross the street, you must play "chicken" with the oncoming traffic -- literally dodging cars across several lanes of traffic -- and as far as we could tell during our three days in the capital, there was no method to the madness of how traffic flowed. We both agreed that a Cairenne taxi driver could quite easily out-maneuver any NYC cabbie! Our arrival in Cairo was a welcome sight with the return to Western culture, which we were quite ready for, and the traffic on the right side of the road again. We "splurged" and stayed downtown at the Talisman Hotel, a small boutique hotel hidden off Talaat Haarb. Unfortunately, our taxi driver had difficulty finding it at 2 a.m. when we arrived on our flight from Dar Es Salaam. We've certainly shifted gears since leaving Eastern Africa and now are growing accustomed to being typical tourists and seeing all the sight. We visited the Egyptian Museum and walked around Khan el Khalili (the market that puts NYC's Chinatown to shame!) We also took in a Sufi dance at a local mosque. Sufi dancing originated as a form of prayer. It involves a lot of music and men dancing, actually, the men spin a lot. One man was spining in a circle for 30 minutes straight! They were colorful skirts which twirl around and apparently after all this spinning they aquire a trans-like state of prayer. Of course, one of the main highlights of our stay in Cairo was the day we spent visiting the Pyramids of Giza, as well as the more southern pyramids at Dashur, Memphis an Saqqara. The pyramids at Giza are the most well known for their size and grandeur, but it was also interesting to see the pyramids at Dashur, which were the "prototype" for the Giza pyramids, as well as the first pyramid built at Saqqara, the Step Pyramid. Another highlight of our stay in Cairo was our date night at the Semiramus Intercontinental where we had cocktails and then had a traditional Lebanese dinner and watched a show, the main act being the world-renowned belly dancer, Dinah. She was quite amazing, unfortunately, she doesn't go on stage until almost 2 a.m. so it was quite a late night for us! Our own photos and videos to come "in shallah" (God willing), if we find a computer that works properly!