Notorious for being one of the top 5 most polluted cities in the world, we did not have high expectations for enjoying Cairo (especially since we are not big city people). What we found was a city that delighted us with visual displays of civilizations past and people who humbled us with their hospitality and generosity.

Our time in, and tour of Cairo was overwhelmingly enhanced by the opportunity to couch surf with Tarek, his wife Asser, and their 2 children Nina (5) and Sammy (3). Our tourist experiences were made easier by Tarek's willingness to help us navigate the city's hot spots such as:

• The Giza pyramids - 4,000 years ago, in their prime, these tombs must have been like diamonds sparkling in the dessert with polished white limestone surfaces. Sadly only 1 of the pyramids has only a small portion of this extravagance left and none of the former inner wealth remains. Of course it is the fact that these monuments are so old and still stand firm against ages of elements and pollution that make them amazing.
• The Sphinx - sadly battling a losing war against pollution it is more amazing in person than photos
• The Citadel - Built in 1176 as a fortress against the crusaders and inhabited for the following 700 years with Egyptian rulers. The juxtaposition of this old fortress with it protective wall still in place and running parallel to a busy freeway is just one contrast of old and new that we loved about the city.
• Numerous mosques, all hundreds of years old. Their architecture is beautiful but what we love the most is how the minarets (towers, usually built at one or more corners of the mosque, from which the call to prayer is sounded) decorate the skyline.

• Egyptian Museum - Our favorite parts being: Tutankhamen Gallery which showcases artifacts from the tomb of this lesser known and relatively insignificant pharaoh. Amazed at the amount of wealth and supplies dedicated to this dead pharaoh, it is hard to imagine what would have been placed into the tombs of pharaohs with more significance, however this will never be known as most tombs in Egypt have been raided thousands of years ago. The artifacts that are still around exist only because the tombs that they were found in were either buried over by the desert or smaller and so were over looked. It was also interesting to discover that many of the artifacts in the museum had to be bought back from other museums due to dishonest archaeologist bringing their finds home or many artifacts were bought over the internet (again from people that had stolen the artifacts).

The other very interesting display was the Royal Mummy Room - this portion of the museum proudly displays the unwrapped mummies of 11 Egyptian Royalties. Although creepy we followed our guide books instructions to carefully examine each mummy for various distinguishing features between them (for example one mummy had very good teeth, another was obviously killed brutally as noted by a large hole in its head amongst his curly hair and unnaturally twisted arms, and then my personal favorite for an identifying characteristic was a young male pharaoh who was noted to be the first to have his ear pierced, the hole still obvious in his lobe). Being in the museum we also learned about how the ancient Egyptians placed the mummies various organ in separate container and that they also mummified animals for numerous purposes (on display was 2 mummified crocs that were over 12ft in length, as well as a horse, monkey, and containers for a goose.)

However, all the tourist sites that we visited were not the shining moments in our memory. The memories that will last are; the spontaneous decision to go on a midnight horseback ride near the pyramids with our couch surfing hosts (Tarek and Asser), the felucca ride on the Nile with Tarek & family followed by dinner at the Fish Market restaurant (which was hands down the best sea food we have ever had), late nights spent in coffee houses playing cards, home cooked Egyptian dinners ending with Egyptian sweets and tea, and Mike's excitement to stay up until morning house with Tarek to play X Box 360.

October 27th - 31st
Cairo

November 1st - 4th
Siwa Oasis

November 5th - 7th
Aswan, Abu Simbel and Luxor

November 8th - 15th
Sinai Peninsula (city of Dahab)

Egypt country summary