The Egyptian weekend is Thursday and Friday. Saturdays and Sundays are regular workdays. Hence, today many stores were closed, and traffic lighter. We decided to catch an Uber to visit The Citadel, a fortress that was home to Egypt’s rulers for over 700 years and stands imposing over the city.We were shocked that the uber ride cost exactly $1, and the driver was “uber”-happy that we left him 150% tip. The entire citadel neighborhood seems to have come out of a fairytale. Amazing mosques are everywhere.
The weekend’s bird market was taking place nearby; stall after stall hawking canaries, parakeets, doves, cockatoos, and more.
Across from the walls of the fortress, beyond an extremely busy highway, is the famed, or infamous to some, City of the Dead, a cemetery spanning across 7 square kilometers. What sets it apart is that between 50,000 and 500,000 people (the estimates very widely), call this place home. Yes, they live in homes built alongside the tombs, several families built their abode so that tombs are actually enclosed within their homes; mostly over graves of family members, but some do cohabitate with the graves of total strangers. The City of the Dead even has its own post-office.
Within the Citadel, lies the extremely large and magnificent Mosque of Mohammed Ali (no, not Cassius Clay). It was built in the early 1800s in a Turkish design. We thought it was amazing from the outside, but the interior literally blew us away.
We stopped for coffee in a hole-in-the-wall from seemingly another century on a rundown thoroughfare, the type of place where most people we know would not dare enter; obviously the man running it knew zilch of English, but he was very surprised and pleased to be of service. We felt very comfortable there as we do everywhere else.
It is not recommended for foreigners to visit the City of the Dead without a guide, and we did not have one, but having the place within yards after having watched documentaries about it on PBS, we wanted to, at least, enter it. We did not photograph people’s homes, nor a couple of funerals that were taking place, but we can simply tell you, from the little we saw, that the word other-worldly is definitely appropriate. It is unimaginable.
In the neighborhood we found an extensive, busy produce-market. We walked its length, at least a mile, and we stopped at a local eatery where for $2 we dined on two huge bowl of Koshary, a bowl of tomato salad, two bottled waters, and a delicious crème caramel for dessert. No one spoke anything but Arabic, but we managed to communicate just the same. Later on, we had coffee and tea at a Hookah bar. I posted a video on fb taken from there, which you may want to check out.
Another $1 Uber ride brought us back to our downtown neighborhood. Tomorrow we’ll be heading to a desert oasis 75 kilometers away. It will be the last daytrip before bidding Egypt goodbye and explore other realities.
City of the Dead, I want to know more.