Final Cairo Tour

Our final day in Cairo we scheduled one more day tour which focused on some of the different religious places of worship and neighborhoods.  This tour included a massive amount of information so we will give it our best shot of summing it up in this post.  One thing that we found a little odd was that we were going to support a friend of our LD friend's to do this tour, but once he found out that we had previously toured with a different company (in Luxor and the Pyramids), he was unwilling to schedule us because he said that it would look odd to the tourism police.  We learned that every tour booked has to be registered through the police and if we switched companies it would look very odd for him and us.  Seems strange but this forced us to use the company which we had used before, which we had a good experience with, so it was not a big deal from our end.  But interesting to see some of the "behind-the-scenes" requirements of the struggling tourism situation here in Egypt.

We were late to meet our tour guide as our hotel key cards don't continuously work and so by the time we get back to our room, we find out we can't unlock the door.  Unfortunately this morning it happened over and over (and the lobby is a hike from our room), so it took us about 20 minutes after breakfast to try to get in our room to grab our bags and brush our teeth so we could head out for the day.  We probably went through 30 new key cards in the few days that we stayed at this hotel and it soon became a joke amongst us!

Religion in Ancient Egypt initially consisted of paganism through the Egyptian and Greek practices.  Through Joseph's being sold by his brothers and landing as a slave in the house of Pharaoh, overseeing rations during the famine, and bringing his father Jacob and his 11 brothers' families, the Israelites presence introduced Judiasm.  Moses later rescued the Israelites out of Egypt.  When Jesus was born, the holy family escaped from Roman persecution and lived in Cairo for roughly 3 1/2 years.  After Jesus commissioned his followers to "Go and make disciples of the nations" (Matthew 28:19), Mark, the Gospel writer, arrived in Egypt. There was a local cobbler in Alexandria who hurt his hand while fixing Mark's sandal and Mark healed his hand in Jesus' name. He, and later his whole family, became the first Christians in Egypt and faith in Jesus spread quickly from there - this was around 45AD.  But as faith spread some of the pagan men sought to kill Mark and he ultimately fled to North Africa where as many were converted there also.  The Christians refused to burn incense and the Roman emperor didn't like this, viewing it as an act of defiance, so he started killing them.  Mark was ultimately tied by his legs & dragged behind a horse carriage til dead.  Many others died also until the time of Constantine, roughly 300 years later.  In 641 Islam was introduced to Egypt from Saudi, and over time Arabic (the language of the Quran) would become the spoken language of Egyptians.  St. Mark brought Christianity to Egypt and it was easy for the Egyptians to grasp the concept of the Trinity because of their history with deities (Roman, Greek, and Egyptian gods).


Overtime, we learned, Islam spread through marriages over a period of a few hundred years.  At one point (around 970AD) there was a real showdown between the Coptic Pope Abraham and al Mais, head of Islam church (and the country at that time).  The al Mais invited several religious leaders to philosophize about the origins of the corruption in Egypt.  The topic discussed was, if it was corrupt before Islam came to Cairo, did it originate in the Bible?  As the Christians seemed to be "winning" this discussion, al Mais sought desperate measures. The Islamist challenged Matthew 17:20, the Bible verse which says that faith can move mountains, and told the Pope all the Christians would be killed unless he performed this mountain moving miracle.  So Pope Abraham and all of the Christians fasted for 3 days and prayed for God to deliver them.  While praying in the hanging church the Pope supposedly saw Mary who instructed him not to be afraid but to leave the church and find a one-eyed man carrying two water jugs. This man was Simon the Tanner who was known for delivering water to the poor.  Simon had plucked out his own eye because of Matthew 5:29-30 and was a devout man of faith.  Simon instructed Abraham to pray "Oh Lord have mercy" 3 times each direction (north, east, south, west) for God to have mercy.  When Simon finished this, a mighty earthquake erupted and literally lifted the mountain to the point where light could be seen underneath.  The Caliph was so impressed he recognized their faith and spared their lives.  This was recorded as geological fact in textbooks until just 2011 when the new Minister of Education, who was a devote member of the Muslim Brotherhood, removed it. Simon was buried under the alter at the hanging church.

Our first stop was the Hanging Church which is named because the foundation is built on top of Roman ruins and literally "hangs" in the air.  We learned about the meaning behind many common 
symbols such as the 3 1/2 circles referring to the 12 disciples being sent out and the vine cross cross which symbolizes the 70 apostles. 

Vine Cross: 5 crosses intersecting = 14 times 5 for the 70 apostles

Steps of the Hanging Church

Inside the Hanging Church -intricate Coptic designed walls in ivory & ebony

We walked down the road to the Cave church, which was built in the 3rd century and is above where the holy family hid from Herod for almost 4 years before returning to Jerusalem (Matthew 2:13).  A basilica has been built on top of where they stayed as is very common for many of the revered places. The church has 12 columns for the 12 disciples and the roof is constructed to resemble Noah's arc.  This is considered to be oldest church in Cairo and was under heavy restoration when we visited.  

Roof designed to look like Noah's arc - built in 3rd century

View down into where the Holy Family stayed while in Egypt until Herod died.

Our next place of worship that we visited was the Ben Ezra Synagogue.  Some believe that Moses could have been received by Pharaoh's daughter at this spot (Exodus 2:1-10). There is a marble structure resembling a basket similar to what Moses might have been placed in as an infant. This structure dates back to Pharaoh Merenptha (13th son of Ramses II), and mentions Israel not having any seeds, which some take to mean that Israel didn't exist or had dispersed, which could be chronicling Moses exodus which might mean that this event took place during the reign of Ramses II.   In the 9th Century the Muslims ruled Egypt and so Ben Ezra came from Jerusalem and bought this synagogue and maintained it so that the Jewish population would have a place to worship.  There were once over 1 million Jewish people living in Egypt, but after the peace treaty with Israel, many left for Israel and the US. Now only 12-20 Jewish people permanently live in all of Egypt and there are 29 synagogues!

Resembles the shape of the basket Moses was found in as a baby, and the stones
with the Ten Commandments are at the top/handle section

Our guide then took us to the Ibn Tulun Mosque, which is arguably the oldest Mosque in Cairo.  Our guide was a practicing Muslim so he was able to explain the 5 required prayer times (roughly 5:00, 12:00, 3:00, 6:00 and 7:15) and the history and practices of the Mosque. Friday is noon prayer with a sermon and Friday is also the Muslim day off so that they can go to the mosque and pray.  During large gatherings the Iman will stand on a pulpit-like staircase so that others can hear while another person will be out in the courtyard repeating what he says for those too far away to hear the Iman. The Mosque was pretty empty when we there and they required us to put paper booties on our shoes as we walked around. We then were able to climb the stairs to the top of the Minaret which provided some amazing views of Cairo.

Inside a mosque during their noon call to prayer

Classroom: learning history of Islam and Mosque

Mosque view from Minaret

View from Mosque Minaret across Cairo, many many satellite disks on top of the buildings!

For lunch our guide picked us up some Kosheri to eat on the way to our next stop.  Kosheri is a Egyptian dish of noodles, rice, fried onions, and lentils with optional chili sauce to add.  We ate this quickly in the care while we drove to the gate of the once-walled city and walked the streets learning more about the Muslim and Egyptian ways of life here.

Gate to enter the ancient walls of the city

Height of aqueduct wall for city at one location

Aqueduct wall for the city getting shorter

Some friends had said we have to see the work that the Coptics do with garbage and the cave church. Not really sure what to expect, we asked our tour provider to add this to our itinerary.  The neighborhood is known at Mokattam and the people were originally moved here by the government as they were illiterate garbage collectors who worked with pigs while living next to Muslims, which was a source of contention because Muslims do not interact with pigs. The Zabbaleen, which literally means "garbage people," have served as Cairo's garbage collectors since the 1940s.  The first few generations collected garbage for free going door to door in Cairo. They figured out how to recycle 80-90% of it (western companies typically recycle about 20%) and feed all the organic waste to the pigs.  Today "garbage city" is the home to about 30,000 residents of which over 90% are Coptic Christians.  The city of Cairo has long been ok with this because no one else wanted to do it, but the whole situation is now in jeopardy as more commercial waste collectors are getting hired by the city, but the city has never paid the Zabbaleen for their work.  This places the entire community at risk with an unknown future as they may not only lose their livelihood but also may be forced to move.  As we drove through the area we saw building after building where the garbage was being sorted, piled and bound, all in the center of the city so to speak.  There were children pushing large carts and pigs running around loose.  The stench was awful and we kept our windows closed to avoid it, but we were told that the locals have just gotten used it.  This whole experience was something different than we had seen anywhere else primarily because it's right in the middle of the city. 

Kids playing in garbage on the street

Truck transporting city garbage

Garbage being sorted inside a warehouse

Further along the drive in the garbage city, there is an amazing cave church which was as surreal as everything else here. Its beauty and magnificence are something only eyes can believe. The amphitheater is carved right into the rock and can seat over 7000 people!  Here we learned about the history of St. Mark and how Christianity first came to Egypt. 

Cave church near Mokattam

This is carved into wall. Can see in picture above as well.

We wrapped up our tour day with a stop at a market street for what our tour guide called "Emergency gifts from China."  We thought this was funny as each shop seemed to have mass produced "Egyptian" souvenirs.

A mode of transportation similar to a taxi - these mini-bus-vans drive around
 with the door open for people to hop in and out of

As we prepare to leave Egypt we are awestruck at what we have seen and learned here in just a short amount of time.  It literally feels like a semester course in just 8 days.  We were more tourists here than we have been in some time and that has both advantages and disadvantages.  It was great to stay in a nice hotel, have unlimited hot water, fresh towels and a pool to play in - all things that we no longer take for granted - but we also did not get the same sense of people and lifestyles like we have in other locations.  We ponder though if this might have been a blessing as so many of our interactions with locals were tense and not very encouraging. The people here are hurting as tourism is 10% of what it used to be and those in desperation will often act as such.  You can see and feel that everywhere.  Unfortunately many interactions turned into a headache and almost all of the kindness we thought we were experiencing had some sort of string attached to it.  Of course we stick out like a sore thumb and have targets on our backs for such folks.  This made our time out and about fairly exhausting, which made a hotel all the more nice to have. As we leave Cairo, a few of us were getting nasty head colds (likely from all the dust and dirt constantly blowing both here and in Luxor), so unfortunately the guys weren't able to join the LD soccer night as they'd hoped... flying will be interesting and potentially painful for some of us.

Our next stop is Jordan to see some old friends and then off to Israel for Easter.

Cairo - Day 3 & 4

The day after our pyramid tour we had scheduled in a slower day figuring we would need rest and we were right. We slept in and barely made the cutoff for breakfast at our hotel. We then tried our best to accomplish school, mostly being forced to sit in the lobby because the Internet did not reach to our room.  Finally after multiple hours of torture, we headed to meet the LD crew for their small group.  Our new friends, who we'd met at Chili's, had an unexpected home repair situation come up, so were unable to meet us as planned, so they texted that some friends of theirs would pick us up.  We joked (but it was totally true) that we were being driven by our cabbie to an unknown set location to meet some unknown people who would then take us to an unknown location - sort of like a spy movie.  LD has multiple small group meeting scattered throughout the city where teams gather for food, worship and fellowship.  Even though we knew none of these people, they welcomed us in like family and it was a blessed evening as they fed us and even volunteered to pray over us and help us with some future connections as some of our future plans were in cities some had previously lived in. One family had even lived near the base Mom worked on in Naples, Italy for a summer as a camp counselor, and their daughter had played softball at the complex Mom lived in!  We continued to be amazed at how alive and active the body of Christ is all over the world.

Our fourth day we planned to visit an international church before heading over to the Egyptian National museum. Church was in Arabic but they had a small section with headphones which translated the service into English.  This experience was very cool as the Arabic speaking world came together to worship, and it helped us relate to foreign speakers wearing headphones to translate worship back home in the States.  The place was packed and there was even a maxed-out overflow room with a screen projecting the service inside.  The pastor talked about how so many Egyptians are depressed and that things since the revolution are not well within the country, but what an opportunity this presents for Christians to rise above the current circumstances and minister to those in need.  It's interesting to contemplate how the whole world over has different situations but anything within humanity rings of similar tones.  After church we mingled with some of the other English speaking headphone wearers and made some other connections of people we had in common as Dad had his Young Life hat on!

Service in Cairo

Following the service we headed over to the museum which was within walking distance.  This museum contains over 250,000 artifacts found around Egypt but they are not well marked or organized. It felt a little like walking through a garage sale of ancient priceless relics.  We had been warned about this by our friends, so we opted to get a guide.  This unfortunately was not worth the price though as he turned out to be somewhat of a flake. He helped get us to the important stuff for sure, but often would conflict with the the little information that a display case may contain.  Despite this frustration we saw an amazing amount of history with the most impressive being real mummies and King Tuts treasure. Tired and frustrated we had had enough.  It was once again another case of the difficult mix of amazing Egyptian culture being mixed with a very difficult and hurting people group.

Egyptian artifacts

Kids in front of King Tut's undergarments

1 of 4 Golden Boxes found in Tuts tomb

One of the four chariots found in King Tut's tomb

G & SJ in front of a mummified dog and monkey

Cairo and Pyramids

By 8am, we arrived in Cairo after our first family sleeper train experience.  Thankfully Dad had learned that the train stopped in Giza, where our hotel was, prior to stopping in Cairo, and getting off in Giza would save us significant time so we quickly scrambled off of the train after a good night's sleep.  Thankfully our tour agency who was picking us up from the train station was waiting for us at this stop even though the emails said they would be at the Cairo stop - so we were grateful God's hand was over that detail as it prevented us from several hours of headaches!

Goodbye Luxor!- Train ride to Cairo

On the drive from the train station to our hotel, we were astounded at how there was red brick high-riser after red brick high-riser everywhere we looked, most of which appeared to be connected and unfinished or empty in certain parts of the building.  And then...  THE PYRAMIDS!  They were huge and visible as we drove around as if they were no big deal, something common like the Mall of America or something!  They were amazing and a constant reality-check of how surreal it was to be here in Egypt!  After arriving at our hotel, having a conversation with the guard, our trunk inspected, a guard with a mirror examine the underneath of our car, a dog sniff out the vehicle, the metal road block lowered so we could get dropped off, our bags screened and we walked through a body-scanner, we were quick to explore the luxury of being at a nice hotel and were soon in awe of the great view we had from the pool area!

Welcome to Cairo! - Pyramids in background

After some time at the pool we got cleaned up and headed out to meet some friends of friends at Chili's on the Nile.  The traffic was absolutely insane!  While lanes were marked on the street, where there would be three separate lanes marked there would be at least five plus actual lanes pushing their way forward.  We enjoyed learning about our new friend's life here in Cairo, playing with the girls, the kids slid down the banister, and we had chips, salsa, and unlimited strawberry lemonades!

Just moving around this city is a bit more challenging than others but we are trying to quickly get our bearings. We give Uber a shot which, when they can find us (they often cant as many drivers here dont know how to use a map) this works great. Uber is new here though and there is a taxi strike going on as well.  The chaos of traffic is something to be experienced and will certainly be remembered during our Minneapolis commute complaints.

Chili's fun with new friends!

The next morning we began our pyramid day tour.  There are 111 pyramids in Egypt, all were built in lower Egypt, which is northern Egypt (the Nile flows from south to north), during the Old Kingdom (2700-2200 BC).  The pyramids are considered to be an apartment to live inside for the afterlife.  They are all built on the West Bank of the Nile River as the sun sets in the west and so that is believed to be the start of one's journey into the afterlife.  While the Ancient Egyptians built their everyday homes from mud bricks as they acknowledged their current life was temporary, they built their tombs with limestone.  The limestone originated in Aswan and was brought up the Nile to Cairo.  Each pyramid has a foundation and all pyramids used to have smooth casings 3 - 5 layers thick and it thinned  out the closer it got to the top.  Because of the casings, the original pyramids did not show evidence of entrances, but over years of earthquakes, most casings have fallen.  It is believed that the fallen casings were used to build the walls and aqueducts around Egypt by later occupants. Interestingly, there are no pictures of what the pyramids looked like with their casings intact, so if you've seen a picture of a pyramid with smooth sides it has been imagined.

Giza Pyramids in the Sahara Desert!

Our first stop was the Great Pyramid at Giza, the only one of the 7 Wonders of the World that is still standing today.  It was built for Khoffu in 2551BC and took 20 years to complete, and is believed to have been roughly 481 feet tall.  It contains 3 million blocks each weighing 2 1/2 + tons.  The top of Khoffu's pyramid is flat and it is thought that it might have originally had a golden mask at the top. There are two entrances and eight champers inside The Great Pyramid, three main and five for relieving pressure.  Khoffu only lived another 5 years after its completion so he was able to die knowing he had a fabulous place to rest.  We were able to enter in the robber's entrance and it was very surreal to be inside this ancient wonder!

Hard to see, but we are at the entrance of Khoffu's Pyramid.
The sides of the Great Pyramid are not smooth because the casing has fallen away.

Kids standing in front of the remaining casing at the base of the pyramid. Only layer of casing left is at bottom shown here.

It is thought they had to build the first pyramid several times as they experimented with the math. Originally they started at an angle of 58 degrees but realized that did not work, so they adjusted and rebuilt ultimately discovering that 52 degrees is the perfect angle. 

Of the pyramids at Giza, Khoffu's is the largest and to the right is his son's, Khafre, whose pyramid is 33 feet shorter than Kohffu's in order to show respect for his father.  To the right of the Khafre's pyramid is Khoffu's grandson, Menkaura's, pyramid, which was originally 228 feet tall and we were able to enter as well.  Behind Khoffu's pyramid are three smaller pyramids for queens.

SJ pretending to pinch the top of Khafre's pyramid,
which is really shorter than Khoffu's pyramid

"Little Pyramid"

Incredible but a bit windy in the Sahara

We drove up to a location with a great panoramic view of the pyramids and took some fun photos and did a short family camel ride through the desert.  Sitting on these big beasts as they maneuvered themselves into a standing position and then the reality of riding them in the Sahara desert with the pyramids right there was an amazing experience that we all enjoyed.

The Pyramid Jump!

Dad & SJ ready to go

Why not ride a camel in the desert?

Off we go!

Trying to capture the moment

Just a little camel surfing

Our family camel caravan

After touring the Giza Pyramids we headed towards the famous Sphinx.  It is believed that Khafre was the owner of this statue which is carved out of one block of limestone.  Today it's nose has been eroded or broken - rumor has it that Napoleon or a local took it, while it's beard is currently in the British museum.  It's headdress/crown supports the neck (weakest part of body) and functions as a protection from sun while working in Sahara desert.

A little kiss..

Family shot in front of the Sphinx

Our history classroom for the morning

After lunch we made a quick stop at Memphis, the first capital of Egypt after Pharaoh Menes unified Upper and Lower Egypt.  We visited an open-air museum with a gigantic statue of Ramses II an observed his cartouche on many of the statues there.  Ramses II is known to have put his cartouche everywhere and is considered a robber, yet he didn't want anyone doing to his statues what he'd done to previous pharaoh's statues.

13 meter long statue of Ramses II

Sphinx carved out of one large block of alabaster

Ready for battle with Ramses II - standing with left leg forward symbolizes
one is alive and ready to march (as in the chant "left, right, left...")

Moving on in Memphis, our final stop of the day was the Saquarra Complex, once enclosed within a wall and consisting of several buildings, temples and a courtyard.  The walls were over 30 feet tall and made of polished marble.  Some portions of them still stand and are absolutely beautiful in modern standards with the coloring and grain of the limestone, it's cut, and the way the sun shines on it!  The King would renew his power at a feast that took place every 30 years in the courtyard.  During this feast, in addition to renewing his power & starting a new term, he would fight a bull & run around the large open space.

Djoser's step pyramid is thought to have been built around 2700BC, and is considered the oldest stone building in the world.  It was originally about 204 feet tall and made from limestone.  Djoser built it to hold his mummy and it was intended to be a common flat-roofed mastaba.  However as time went on more levels were added until it had six layers.  Imhotep was Djoser's head architect and he is given much credit for the techniques involved in stone architecture.

Standing in the courtyard, in front of the beautiful walls, in the Saqqara Complex

King Djoser's Step Pyramid, the oldest structure on Earth, 2700BC

It was bizarre to contemplate this period in history & the chronology of everything.  We continued singing our Classical Conversation timeline song probably close to 50x trying to get & keep things straight in mind.  Trying to process that the civilizations who built these structures to prepare for an afterlife lived without the Bible and wondering what knowledge of God this ancient civilization had after they defended from Noah.  We found one interesting aspect that it all coincided with young earth dates, and we also found it interesting to compare stones & building techniques of fitting them together without glue or mortar just as was done to build Machu Picchu.

After a full day of pyramids, Dad treated Mom to some spa therapy and that night the kids did schoolwork in the hotel rooms while Mom and Dad ate at the hotel restaurant and had a date night. Everything mentioned here was just from a day and a half! 

Leaving Luxor

Though our time in Luxor was only about 72 hours, the information we packed in was enormous. We struggle, as we leave, with just where to pack it knowing that we will not remember everything - that is one of the primary purposes of this blog and why, despite constantly battling with time and energy, we put so much effort into it.

We booked a sleeper train to Cairo, but it did not depart until 10:00PM, so we had time to kill.  Some time was spent getting out tickets figured out because the electronic reservation we had made seemed to have issues on their end - the staff at the hotel seemed to chuckle a bit that I had even tried to book it that way as they didn't know it was possible. One even joked, "we aren't Europe".  Finally with some help from our hotel, Dad ran over to the train station with a translator and got it sorted out.  It was right all along but they never provided us with our cabin or car details and it felt a bit sketchy but in the end was fine.

We then grabbed dinner at a local restaurant of Egyptian food where we had our first taste of camel. It was quite good actually and tasted a bit like pot roast.  From there it was just a matter of trying to keep the children from killing each other (and it was close) as we hunkered down in a very small single room, which the hotel was kind enough to let us keep, as we tried to get some school done. Eventually it was close to time to go and we opted to leave early to avert World War III - it just could not have come fast enough.  Cairo, here we come!

Last dinner in Luxor

Our classroom - can you believe this didn't work well

Early arrival to keep the children alive

Here are a couple of extra odds and ends that we soaked up in our time here:  

• Education - We were told by our guide that many university grads now can't write a good paragraph, and he attributes it to kids having too many choices of other activities & screens to be distracted by & teachers don't have authority/respect to make it worth investing -parents don't accept teachers advice/help.  Additionally, classrooms up north can have up to 120 kids/teacher in a class. Education is free up to 3 years of secondary, which is about 15, but many drop out prior to that.  
• Moses - They are not sure which Pharaoh ruled during Moses' life but Ramses II was possible. Joseph might have lived during Amenhotep III but the best evidence is from a Stila of Israel in a hanging church in Cairo that dates back to the 13th son of Ramses II.  It mentions Israel as not having any seeds (meaning they don't exist or were dispersed) which could point to the son telling about Moses' exodus during Ramses II time.