Cairo

Plans change, as always. Tomorrow, our group is getting an early start for Sinai, so we packed in all of Cairo in one day: the pyramids, the Sphinx, the Egyptian Museum, and the old Coptic neighborhood.

We started the morning at 7:30, were the whole tour group finally met together. Nice people, really. There are now some younger folks with us, so that at least gives me something to do on New Year’s Eve (where at St. Catherine’s monastery we’re going to party like it’s 1095). Our guide, Osama, is a fantastic tour guide; he introduced himself as the “man with the scary name, yes I think.” From the hotel it was off to the Egyptian Museum, where we saw King Tutankhamen’s burial collection (a great follow up to his actual tomb in the Valley of the Kings) and a great variety of artistic treasures from the period of the monotheistic pharaoh, Akhenaton.

But what really really matters is that I saw the Merenptah stele (c. 1300 BC). Yes, David, I saw the Merenptah stele in its full glory, the first historical mention of any entity called Israel in the historical record. Alongside it was a large collection of the Amarna letters (c. 1400 BC), the Akkadian correspondence about burning political issues Mesopotamia and the Levant sent to Akhenaton which makes mention of a strong people called the Apiru (the Hebrews? theories abound).

Leaving there, we discovered that the following day’s activities—seeing the Coptic churches called the Hanging Church and St. Sergius, as well as the Ben Ezra synagogue—were going to be packed into the day. So from there we went to see the remains of one of the oldest Christian communities in the world.

The Copts are an Oriental Orthodox Christian group that has been based in Egypt since the first century. Their language is the descendent of ancient Egyptian, and the word copt is likely derived from gypt or Egypt. The Hanging Church is called as such because it is built without foundation, and is instead constructed atop an old Roman fortress.


The church of St. Sergius contains a cavern in which the Holy Family is said to have resided during their sojourn in Egypt, when Mary, Joseph, and the infant Jesus were fleeing from Herod’s massacre of the innocents of Bethlehem.

Of course, then there were the pyramids and the Sphinx. The pictures say it all.

Hilariously, we saw an abject violation of the law in the midst of an authoritarian state: people climbing on the pyramids and displaying a Palestinian or Jordanian flag. Pictured below is the ensuing police chase on the side of the pyramid!


Finally, I took my first camel ride. It was barely ten minutes, but it was in the shadow of the three pyramids. They are so much larger than one would imagine. At one point in the ride, I found myself looking down at a man riding a horse, initially seeing it out of the corner of my eye as a dog.

My camel was, of course, the best because it was mean and spiteful. When I jumped on another camel with another tour-member walked by, and my camel bit the other one. He drew blood! That's when I knew that that camel ride was worth the five dollars.

Tonight it’s relaxation and repacking, for tomorrow we’re on to St. Catherine’s monastery and Mount Sinai.