Day 8

Wednesday, June 9, 2010 – We woke up this morning in the Egypt Hotel. It didn’t take long after we went to bed to realize perhaps why we got such a great deal on the room.

Our room, which did not need air conditioning because of the very pleasant breeze off the sea, was overlooking the Shari el Corniche, the road running along the coast. Basically, the Corniche is a cross between any beachfront strip in Florida, the intersection of I-70 and I-25, and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The only difference was that this one required each driver to hit the horn between three and seven times as they passed the Egypt Hotel.

Full disclosure: I slept quite well thanks to my friend Tylenol PM and earplugs that may or may not have been waded up toilet paper. Darren didn’t sleep quite as well, judging from the vacant stare I encountered when I got up around 8:30 a.m.

The room rate included breakfast, so of course we were obligated to eat it. Or at least head in for a little look-see.

The waitress put down a tray in front of each of us. On it were white cheese (nice and salty, just like in Siwa), cucumbers, tomatoes, Roman cheese (tasted like it was made during the Roman Empire), 20 or so olives, and a piece of bologna.

After Calvin commented that the breakfast “seems a bit strange,” Darren told him that it was just like every breakfast he had at home. Darren, the ordained minister, was lying through his teeth.

Darren said that everyone had to finish their olives before we went anywhere, to which I suggested that he make himself comfortable for a very long stay at the table.

Breakfast “completed,” we headed toward the Roman Amphitheatre at Kom al-Dikka. In 1965, developers wanted to construct a housing project right in the heart of Alexandria on what to that point had been a big pile of rubble.

Consistent with our routine so far, we tried to find the place without actually knowing where we were going. Also consistent, we stopped several times to ask people directions, and several times people gave us directions without actually knowing what they were talking about. We drove in circles for a while but finally found the place, which is right next to the main train station that I’m sure everyone could have directed us to. Note to self: ask for directions to important things around the ancient places, not the places themselves.

Unfortunately for the construction company, they started digging and discovered 13 rows of marble benches surrounding an amphitheatre from the second century. It seems that people would prefer not to wipe out that type of discovery.

One of the things that is so amazing about this place is that they just keep finding things. Earlier this year in the same complex as the amphitheatre, archeologists discovered a temple. In fact, as we were visiting the site, people were digging on the other side of a barricade (actually a small rope).

We hopped back in the car, and this time I was determined to go right to the Catacombs of Kom ash-Shuqqafa.

My mother has a reputation for finding really random yet cool toys. Back in the day, she would surprise each of us with these treasures, and now she gives them to her grandchildren, who seem to adore them (and her).

Mom had me carry over two pocket survival kits, one for Calvin and one for Sammy, who insisted on carrying the things everywhere we went. It had a small flashlight, magnifying glass and five other essentials for survival.

Why am I telling you this? Because I borrowed the survival guide from Sammy and used the compass to get to the catacombs. It took us right to the spot. Take that Garmin.

Why didn’t we think of that before?

While I kind of enjoyed the story of how the amphitheatre was discovered to be chuckle worthy, I love the discovery of the catacombs.

In 1900, a guy was walking with a donkey through the city, when the donkey crashed through the road and fell into what turned out to be a huge series of tombs dating to the 200s. Too bad for the donkey (and the guy who presumably no longer had a donkey), but it was a great discovery.

The tombs are decorated with a combination of Pharaonic, Greek and Roman symbols and statues carved into the bedrock, and there were tunnels leading to tombs everywhere that accommodated (that’s the unfortunate word the Lonely Planet used) about 300 corpses.

Seeing what essentially was an underground morgue made us pretty hungry (either that or the unique breakfast didn’t quite do it for us), so we stopped at a mall on the way out of town.

I’m all for trying the local cuisine and that sort of thing, but when you’re traveling hours and hours with two young boys, you do what you can. So we stopped at Fuddruckers. For those of you counting at home, that makes Fuddruckers, Chili’s twice and McDonalds, which may set the record for most American chain restaurants I’ve eaten in a seven-day stretch. (It also marked the fourth time I’ve been in a mall in the past 10 days, which quadrupled the previous two years combined).

It only took about two hours to get back to Cairo, but of course we had to hunker down for the city traffic. For some reason, it seems less chaotic in Cairo than it did in Alexandria, although that may be because Darren has better bearings after living her for the better part of 10 years.

As we sat with a bus (advertising insurance on the side) and another car – all sharing the far left lane – Darren’s car hit the rearview of the car on his right enough to adjust each one but not break either. A minute later, he easily could have done the same thing with cars on either side of him. I decided it was kind of like a high five for cars. Nobody liked when it happened, but nobody seemed to care much either. With traffic like this, it’s bound to happen.

According to Darren, the way insurance works in Egypt is that each person takes his car in once a year to repair every ding and dent. Interesting system.

Tomorrow should be interesting. It will be my first day exploring the city without the help of a translator. I figure, what did I have to lose?

I mean, the only Arabic I know is “shokran,” which means “thank you.” How could that phrase possibly get me into trouble? And, really, what other words could I need?

To top it off, I’m completely turned around in this city. I know the Nile flows north-south, but it’s not exactly like the Rocky Mountains to the west of Denver. You kind of have to see the Nile in order to use it as a compass. That, and I wouldn’t know which was north and which was south.

My cell phone has been turned off since I got to the country. I figured it would just search for signal and die on a consistent basis anyway, but it’s really a tool that most of us have probably grown really attached to. Think about it. When you’re meeting a friend at a restaurant, you call them or text them to see where they’re sitting. If you’re meeting at a festival, it’s nearly impossible to find someone without the ever-present phone. And, when you’re lost in a new place, just whip out the phone and make a simple call.

The phone has become a crutch for me, and I feel almost naked without it.

But, again, no way to communicate, no idea where I am and no phone to use in case of emergency, what could possibly go wrong?

I figure worst case, I’ll probably end up being taken in by a family in the City of the Dead – a collection of cemeteries, in which the tombs have a chamber for the dead underground and a mausoleum for the living to return and pay their respects.

Well, it seems that the homeless in Cairo saw those above ground mausoleums as ideal solutions to their housing problem, and they began moving in. Estimates range from 50,000 to 500,000 people living in the City of the Dead.

Originally the government chose to ignore the fact that anyone was actually living in the cemeteries and left them without running water or electricity. Ingenuity proved victorious, as the inhabitants became proficient at tapping into other people’s water and electrical lines, sending the bills of the unsuspecting victims skyrocketing.

Not only did the government begin providing water and electricity to the area, they also built a post office.

Oh, did I mention that people originally started moving into the City of the Dead sometime in the 14th Century, at least 100 years before Christopher Columbus stumbled upon America?