Egypt

Travel: Capturing Cairo, The Old Way

WorldRider

This well above average travel piece is accompanied by some really lovely photographs of Cairo.

Behind the madness, traffic and pollution of Cairo there sits a seductive mistress of a city that sucks you in and bites you with a an addictive elixir making it very difficult to leave. Cairo is the capital of the Arab world, but here in the city where pedestrians battle with cars, trucks and busses for rights of passage across a maze of streets, canals and the wonderful River Nile there is no pretension, no expectation nor forced behavioral rituals other than respect. A medieval city until the mid 1800's, Cairo is a living museum that rests in the shadows of the pyramids and Sphinx. It's easy to get lost and one can slip into anonymity as easy as putting oneself as a tourist with a bulls-eye on your forehead.

With a few days to kill in Cairo and newly made friends, I made my way through the dissonant sounds of the city and to the Egyptian Museum. According to Lonely Planet if you were to spend one minute at each exhibit in this massive museum it would take you nine months to see everything. Then again, one minute at an exhibit would mean you really saw nothing at all. So it's easy to spend a day here. But without credentials or studies in archaeology or Egyptology the Museum is a maze and confusion.

See the above page for the entire account.

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Egypt