Cairo

📌 We arrived in Cairo in the early morning and the chaos started straight away at the visa line, people getting sent back for visas but we just went straight through and they weren't interested in checking ours. The chaos continued as we were introduced to the way of driving in Egypt, where the driver says there are no rules ☺️

📌 We found some good coffee the next morning (much needed) and headed to Coptic Cairo, one of the oldest areas, that houses the Christian community in Cairo. We wandered around a few churches and then headed to a cavern church built into a cave. Visiting this church was an event in itself, as we drove through garbage city, a place where the people of Cairo years ago started collecting garbage for a small price and now do majority of the recycling for the population of 25 million. Essentially, it was streets and buildings where people live full of garbage being sorted by hand, bags of trash were stacked atleast 10 metres high on the cars and buildings roofs.

📌 We ended day one with an incredible food tour through a very local area, we stood out very clearly. The tour included soooo much food, such as sheeps brains, shwarma, traditional breakfast such as fava beans, lentils, eggplant, desserts and meats with great flavours. The next day we visited the Islamic Cairo, visiting old citadels and mosques perched high above the city, it was really good to have it explained by a local. We then headed for middle eastern food for lunch, the charcoaled chicken and falafel were elite! We then headed to Giza to enjoy the afternoon on a random rooftop hotel looking at the pyramids, it was great but also super bizarre as we were the only ones there and the area was pretty sketchy.

📌 Finally we started the tour on day 3 where we headed to the highlight, the pyramids and sphinx. They were huge and it was great that we got there early as we were able to walk around the great pyramid with basically nobody. The size and what it must have been like is incomprehensible, the fact that the great pyramid was built so precisely means it is still not known how it was built and also not knowing what it still might contain is fascinating. We then headed to the museum which was also great as we saw many sarcophagus and even some mummies that were well preserved that they still had hair and facial features.

📌 Overall Cairo was chaotic, unique and fascinating to visit, it reminded us of India but perhaps a more Islamic version.Lue lisää