Cairo - the Capital City of Egypt
Although I usually prefer to travel on my own, Egypt is a place that I needed to avoid such habit. Other than the language, due to its culture and custom, you will get stuck unless you have a local with you. For us, that meant that we should join a travel group. We selected TravelTalk (http://www.traveltalktours.co.uk/), which is an organization that specializes in Turkey, Morocco, Greece, Jordan, and Egypt. And unlike other organizations they emphasize on free traveling and gathering people who would really like to adventure. I actually really encourage others to look into this tour group if you are thinking of traveling any of these places. Nice people, good price, and most importantly comforting guide leader made our nine days in Egypt most memorable.
My mom and I arrived at Egypt a day and a half earlier than our official tour, due to the flight arrangements. The program starts in Cairo, so we decided to spend our free day adventuring around this great capital city. As one of the largest city in Egypt, there are thousands of people living. It is supposed to be one of the better facilitated city compared to the other ones in Egypt. The famous Egyptian Museum and the major Islamic Temples are all located here. Nevertheless, I was shocked to see so many dirty places and so many poor people. I couldn't believe that what I was seeing.
For instance, here is a picture of the local buildings in Cairo. Ok, maybe the one that I took a picture of was not the most advanced building. But the fact is most of the buildings were like this. No color, mostly yellow or bland color. And in fact, most were faded color and dirty. Plus, with the regular 45C degree heat, I felt myself confused if it was me just seeing only yellow everywhere or was it really this country that had no color at all. No I wasn't hallucinated yet, cause my mother was saying the same thing next to me.
Another important part of Egyptians life is religion: Islamic. The day that we decided to adventure Cairo happened to be the weekly prayer day. Every Friday around noon time people, young or old, men or women, all gather around the Temple or find a place simply that they can pray and listen to the load speaker's lecture. Actually the speaker is so load that I feel like I can hear its voice echoing in every corner of Cairo. But of course, for them, it is important to be present. Thus, in Egypt Friday is a day most people get off from work during this time. About eleven till two in the afternoon they prepare prayer every week. In fact, some places don't even go to work. That's why the traffic was really lose this day.
I am religious myself, but to see an entire country hanging on to one religion so tightly was something different. But as I stood there in the middle of the main market street, watching all of the people walking to the single direction, I could feel that this was more than just a Sunday church meeting. I have read history and studied about how countries cause war and make a big deal about their religion. I thought I understood that. But as I stood there, I realized, no, I did not before. It was the first time I truly felt that religion is not just powerful, but it could be scary.
And of course food! We cannot miss that one out. Our taxi driver took us to one of the local fast food place so called: GAD. I had kebab before, but it was my first time trying the real one. Defiantly worth it. Even the fries were tasty as we crunched into them along with the Aisha bread.
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