We arrived in Cairo mid-afternoon on Thursday, May 12, about 36 hours from leaving Houghton, having had brief periods of dozing. At the Cairo airport we bought a tourist visa on site, met Nagi, our man on the ground. Nagi "took care" of things that clueless travelers from North American needed help with. That is to say, Nagi, a Christian brother who is a friend to everyone and who has friends everywhere, took care of every thing big and small.
As it is my custom to take photographs as a source of information and as an aid to memory, I tried taking pictures out the van window. Digital photography allows one the luxury to take many and then choose. On this trip into the city most of my photographs are unsalvageable blurs.
But tellingly for me from the few that remain are the crosses on domes, crosses that I had not expected. In this way the first cracks in my American preconceptions of Egypt appeared.
At street level, once off the super-highway, our view reminded me a great deal of cities we had seen in China.
Initial impressions can change, of course, but it is pretty typical from my observations for wares to be displayed out front as well as in the stores. The buildings, too, are often tan or grey, wires and electrical units visible.
This photo has no traffic and few people and relatively few wires strung about, perhaps because we had just exited the highway and were only beginning our way into the city.
By the time we reached the hotel, checked into our rooms, and brushed our teeth, it was pushing 8 p.m., getting dark, and time to reboard the van for a ride to the restaurant for our first authentic Egyptian meal, Koshari.
A bit of research on Google will reveal that Koshari is the Egyptian national dish. It is also a popular "street food" apparently, although how one would manage on the street is a bit beyond my powers of imagination.
We were told ahead of time that it was vegetarian and delicious.
We were seriously tired from travel and might have voted to go straight to bed if that had been an option. But for the record, missing this meal would have been a serious mistake. It was beyond good. A great way to be introduced to Egyptian foods, and a great welcome to Egypt!
Our waiter performed some theatrics in pouring the sauces and sprinkling the toppings over the rice, pasta, and lentil base, which added to the fun.
We returned to the hotel close to midnight and slept like babies.
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