This morning, we took a cab off the island of Zamelek into
the main city to the oldest mosque in Egypt, Ibn Tulun. The drive* there was interesting- though the
cab driver we had said he knew where the mosque was, it became clear fairly
quickly he hadn’t a clue and he had to ask directions from another driver. A few wrong turns later, we finally arrived
there. It is a really beautiful
building, not as ostentatious as some of the more famous mosques (like the
Mohammed Ali mosque on the Citadel). The
mosque is operated by the antiquities ministry, but is still a working mosque
and is closed during prayer time. Because it is a working mosque, we had to
cover our hair and remove our shoes once we got in. The colonnaded halls are really beautiful,
with intricate carvings in the stone, and we really enjoyed walking around them
and through the big courtyard. Ibn Tulun
also has the only minaret in Egypt with an external spiral staircase, and you
can go up in it and get a pretty good view of the surrounding city. You can even see all the way to the citadel
and the Mohammed Ali mosque there.
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| The colonnade surrounding the courtyard. |
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| In the minaret. |
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| Down the minaret! |
After the mosque, we headed to Maadi for lunch and
shopping. Maadi is a suburb of Cairo
which is where all the American and British ex-pats live. Its nickname is “Little America”, which is
apt, considering on one block we saw a Hardees, Starbucks, Burger King, Papa
John’s, Little Caesar’s, Pizza Hut, and a KFC.
We went for dinner at Lucille’s, which is an American style diner with free
refills on drinks, and big platters of diner type food. I got a BBQ Beef sandwich, which was
fantastic. After lunch, I took the girls
to this little shop I went to two years ago with Kat which has all kinds of
neat Egypt souvenirs like alabaster bowls, statuettes, canopic jars, etc. It is run (as far as I can tell) by this
really sweet Coptic man who sits out front chilling out all day. He just welcomes you in, and tells you to ask
if you have any questions- there is actually no hassle to buy anything. He is really sweet and brought us hand wipes
to wipe our hands with as a lot of the stone objects were dusty. Even though Tasha and Janelle swore they
were done shopping, they each walked out with something. I bought a stone mortar and pestle for the
equivalent of $6. I also bought three
Min statuettes, which turned very entertaining when the old man told us the
story of Min at the town of Achmim as he carefully wrapped our purchases in
bubble wrap. What I could understand of
the story was this: He told us that in
the village all the men were gone fighting a war, but the women kept getting
pregnant. The men finally figured out it
was a man called Min who was getting them pregnant, so they told him that he
could lose his penis or an arm and a leg, and he chose the latter. Afterwards, the women could no longer get
pregnant in the village, so the men realized that that man was a god. Once they built a statue to him (after he
died? I was unclear about this.), the
women were able to go around it seven times, and after then they would get pregnant. This story segued immediately into a story
about how French women come in all the time for Min statues for their
husbands. Apparently their husbands
really like the statues?
After buying cupcakes (because, why not) we took a cab back
to Zamelek from Maadi (which took us three cabs before we managed to get one who
would go all the way there). There we
got off at 26th July street (one of the main streets in Zamelek) so
that Tasha could go to The Body Shop. We
were just about to cross the street, when I heard someone calling my name,
which was so weird because everyone who knew me was back in the States or in
Luxor. I turned, and saw that it was
Hratch, our old professor and former member of the Edfu team. He had just come from signing paperwork at
the MSA, and by chance ran into us. He
took us for coffee at the Marriott hotel (super fancy, by the way- used to be a
palace). We spent the afternoon catching
up with him. All and all, we had a
pretty nice day.
*I know that people in the States complain about traffic lights
and parking tickets all the time, but you have no idea how good they are to
have. In Cairo, there are no traffic
lights, and it is a city of 20 million people, with tons of people driving. There is no other word that I can use to
describe driving in the city than clusterfuck.
Combine that with the fact that people park wherever they want (literally,
we saw someone parked in the middle of a turnaround on a busy street), I’m
amazed I got anywhere today.
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