Nohopono St.: Day 4 and 5 Egyptian Museum, Citadel,Old Cairo and Felucca, Aswan

The Egyptian Museum is wonderful place with its big gardens and statues. I almost impossible to describe in writing and pictures cannot capture the grandeur of the place. Cameras are not allowed in the Museum so I will need to download some of the picture from the Internet.

Kyle with a statue of Sesostris III located in the front of the Museum.After the Museum we jumped into another wonder of the world , Cairo traffic. You wonder if you are ever going to get to your next location. In one word “ Insane”. From what I can see there are no rule and fequent bumps but due to the low speeds nothing that seem to life threatening. The driver of our van earned every penny of the tip we gave him.

Street vendor having some breakfast, seemingly oblivious to the crazy traffic around them.

The Mohamed Ali Mosque was large and impressive. I knew almost nothing about the Muslim religion and our guide Ali did a great job of explaining the call to prayer and the various other key parts.

A view of the main ceiling inside the Mosque.

Kids outside of the Mosque pose for a picture with Grace. In a conversation with our guide he stated that wearing the head covering in a chose and not a requirement. As you can see in the picture one girl was not wearing a head dress and the other girls used them as accessories to their other clothing. Believe it or not even the full covering with only an opening for the eyes is now considered a fashion statement in Egypt. You will see young couples walking and the girl is in a full burka with nice makeup on her eyes. I will try later in the trip to approach a couple and get a picture.

Next we visited the Coptic area and church. Egypt was not always an Islamic state and Christ is still worshiped in some area but is not the religion of the majority.

Sign outside a Coptic church in old Cairo.

We visited Ben Ezra Temple a Sinagogue that is no longer used. According to our guide almost all the Jewish people have left Egypt and have moved to the US or to Israel. Our Next stop was at Khan El Khalili Market. This market dates back to the 14^th century. You will find Tourist and locals mixed together bargaining for the best deal. We had a lot of fun with the vendor here because they start every transaction off with where are you from. I was amazed to find out how many knew where Hawaii was. I started telling them that I was from a different country, Spain, Mexico, Russia, Germany, but that didn’t work well as almost all of them know a number of languages and then I was the at a loss for words.

After a few hours of shopping and walking we could use a break from the crowds of people so it back into the Cairo traffic head to the boat dock. The Caption of the boat was a very friendly and enjoyed a good time. In just 15 min he had everyone dancing and singing with the Cairo skyline in the background. A felucca has no motor only a sails so this was a very peaceful break from a city that never stops.

Our next stop and final Farwell to our tour guides was at the train stations. The train was 1.1/2 hours late and he stayed with us to make sure everything was ok.

Shown here is Ali (left) and Mohammad (Right) both excellent guides that went out of their way to help us purchase food, exchange travelers checks and buy gifts. Ali was an excellent Egyptologist who did not fail to answer even one of my questions and many tests that I presented. I spent a number of hours with him sitting a coffee bars while the ladies shopped. The topic ranged from Religion to tipping and everything in between, I enjoyed his conversation time together very much. He provided a perspective of Egypt that I would not have had otherwise.

The Train ride. Well let just say it was an adventure. Not so clean, Not so fast, Not so reliable, Hard to sleep because they are noisy. Nothing to eat, Better than walking.. Maybe . Hey the upside Friendly passengers. .

One cool thing about the train ride is that they leave a door open from time to time to increase the air flow through car. The kids enjoyed looking out and letting the air blow through their hair. I always stay close by and would hold onto them when they did this because, one bad step and you would be on the tracks. Vacation over.

This is an interesting looking Guy who seemed to be a bag porter in Esna a few hours from Aswan.

We ended up at Aswan 14 hours after we departed from Cairo and everyone was really really tired. Because we arrived late we could not go to the hotel and freshen up as we would miss the tour. This was one of our hardest days of our trip so far. Needless to say it affected all of our enthusiasm for the sites and I only took a few pictures. I need to come back to this location again in a better state of mind. Below is a picture with and unfinished obelisk that was started during the reign of Queen Hatsheput but abandoned because of a crack. I will post a picture of a finished obelisk later so you can understand the size and beauty.

The Temple of was Phila was build in a low lying area and flooded regularly even in the Roman times. You can see early graphite on the top part of the temple because so much of it was underwater that this would have been the only areas exposed and accessed by boat during the 1800.

The temple is on an island so a boat ride is needed to get there. The boats are all ran by Nubians. The speak a different language and have a different culture.