CAIRO - FEBRUARY, 2014 - PART 3

On my third day of sightseeing in Cairo my guide, Amany Salem, said that she was going to take me to the real Cairo; the ancient Islamic area of the city. We walked through the streets and alleys, mosques and madrassas, bazaars and street markets, that the people of Islamic Cairo use in their everyday lives, far from the tourist areas of the city. We began our morning walking through the Khan Al-Khalili bazaar which dates back to the 14th century. Here, shop owners open their stores each day to sell the food, clothes, and housewares that the average Cairo resident uses every day for their families. When we began our walk the shopfronts were closed, but as the time approached 10:00 am the streets and alleys came alive, and where before there were no pedestrians, the shops opened and it was so crowded with merchandise and shoppers that you had difficulty walking through the narrow lanes. I was truly in the real city of Cairo, I did not see a single westerner all day.

The butcher shops were on the street [literally] and the cooking and heating oil were delivered by tank carts pulled by donkeys.

 As we walked through the streets we would go into the neighborhood mosques and madrassas used by the people living in that neighborhood. Although very simple, they had been in use for hundreds of years.

Egypt is a Sunni sect Islamic country, and although there were hundreds [or perhaps thousands] of Sunni mosques, there was only one Shia sect mosque in Cairo. It was a large, and quite modern, mosque located by the wall and gate of the ancient city boundaries.

When we left the old Islamic area of Cairo, we drove to the modern cosmopolitan area of Cario, along the Nile, where the 5-star hotels, restaurants and embassies are located. We took a one hour cruise on a traditional Nile sailboat, called a Felucca, along the Nile River. Although in the middle of the city it was very quiet and peaceful, and a nice respite from the hectic pace of the city.

After our short cruise on the Nile, Amany said that she wanted to take me to a real working class restaurant in the area. No tourists here, just real Egyptian food.

After a late lunch my driver returned me to my hotel in preparation for my flight to Istanbul that night. As always, one of the things that never changed about Cairo was the never ending traffic [with an occasional donkey cart thrown in.]

I enjoyed my trip to Cairo very much, even under the very difficult and potentially dangerous political situation existing in Egypt at that time. The Egyptian people were always very friendly and hospitable, and although I was obviously out of place there with very few tourists, and virtually no western tourists, the Egyptian people were always very kind and welcoming to me. I hope to return to Egypt again someday in the future when the country is again at peace, and I can travel to more areas throughout the country, and see the thousands of years of history of this remarkable land.