Day 8 - Islamic Cairo

Pictures are up on all previous posts, and this may be the last one for a couple days because we leave really early for mt. sinai tomorrow morning!

After going to bed kind of early last night, we got up in plenty of time to eat a healthy breakfast and then head out to spend our day seeing Islamic Cairo.  We started back down near the Khan al-Khalili bazaar where I got to step inside the Al-Azhar mosque and view the al-Hussein mosque (which non-muslims are forbidden from entering as it is one of the holiest places in the Mideast since it is believed to be the burial location of Hussein’s head – he was the grandson of the prophet mohammad).  Al-azhar was pretty cool – it has a couple old minarets, and a reasonably big center courtyard. Of course you can’t wear your shoes inside, so you have to tip the guys watching your shoes, but they’re pretty nice and the mosques are definitely worth it since there is no other entrance fee. 

Standing in the Al-Azhar mosque

From there we went to another complex and entered the Babzwela mosque.  Here we decided it was worth it to climb up one of the minarets.  Most of the way up is a thin, stone, spiral staircase.  At the very top there is a rickety metal (and still spiraling) ladder, which Patrick decided was not worth the risk, but I went up to the very top (though I didn’t stand up because the guard railing did not come up very high).  The view was amazing.  You can see any part of Cairo, and it was particularly neat to see the Citadel where we were headed later in the day.

Yeah, I was up in the top of that thing.

In fact, after we climbed down from the minaret, we just decided to walk all the way to the citadel.  We bumped right up against one side of it, but didn’t know where to enter.  We ended up taking a cab cause told us he’d take us to the entrance, but he went almost all the way around the opposite way and tried to charge us more.  Anyway, we made it in and got to see a variety of sights.  First we saw a mosque, and then we wound around the complex to see the mosque of Suleiman pasha.  After we backtracked to check out the view and see the national police museum – complete with the weapons used during various attempted or successful political assassinations.  Our final stop was the mosque of Mohammad Ali, and this was a sight to see.  The courtyard area was bigger than the other mosques, but it was the inside that was really cool.  The large domes were all lavishly painted and many people were just sitting inside admiring the atmosphere.

After leaving the Citadel we hired a cab to take us to the mosque of Ibn Tulun, but either he got confused or just didn’t know what he was looking for because he dropped us off at the wrong place.  It was actually another set of mosques, so we saw those anyway, but we then ended up walking to Ibn Tulun.  By the time we got there it was supposed to close in 12 minutes so we quickly went inside, put on special shoe covers so we could walk around, and went and walked briefly around the inside.  Ibn Tulun is one of the oldest mosques in Cairo and I believe the only remaining one from the Mamluk era.

This pretty much sums up our trip.  The citadel in the
background, and Pat looking through his
Lonely Planet book.

We decided to take the metro one station closer to our hotel, and this was an experience.  Once we figured out that we were attempting to take the metro as everyone else was attempting to get home for the big evening meal we got a little worried.  In the end we were pretty much forced in a mob into a metro car, and then forced back out at the first stop (which luckily was all the farther we needed to go).  People were yelling the whole time it took the train to go from one stop to another, and I’m sure they were not at all pleased we were wearing backpacks.  But, we made it, and I guess that’s what matters.

We decided to try a place called Felfela for lunch.  There was one previous time we ate there, but it was when we were recovering so we didn’t eat very much.  This time we both ordered hearty meals, and we even decided to splurge and share a banana split at the end (which was unbelievable).  The food was actually very good.  It’s a pretty touristy place, but you can certainly order Egyptian foods and dishes.

Me and my goofy shoes inside Ibn Tulun

Eventually we made it back to the hotel and decided we should just rest for a couple hours. What this turned into was some time on the computer, and then about 7:30 I decided to lie down.  After about two hours I kind of stirred, realized what time it was, and thought about getting up and trying to get dinner.  Then I noticed pat had decided to lie down in the bed next to me, so I just opted to roll over.  I would wake up again at 8 the next morning.