Spiritual Journey | Confessions of a Cruise Director

Ramadan, the most important Muslim holiday, is celebrated for the whole month, and it changes almost everything about Cairo.  Ramadan is a time to get closer to God, making self-sacrifices to be awake and aware of your choices, so people fast all day every day during the month of Ramadan.  This means not only no eating, but no drinking (not even a sip of water), no smoking, no sex, and no smoking!  I think the no smoking stricture may be harder on the Egyptians than no sex.

The result of people not eating all day is that, for the most part, everything is closed during daylight hours. With few exceptions in the tourist areas, where the poor waiters and chefs are serving food they cannot eat all day, the stores and restaurants shut down and open all night instead.  At sundown, however, the whole city of Cairo goes crazy.   One night at sundown, we visited the Al-Hussein mosque, which is perhaps the most important mosque outside of Mecca, to experience the real Ramadan.

The mosque is in the heart of the Khan El Khalili market, but this evening, we couldn’t get closer than a half-mile.  It was like a rock concert, with cars everywhere, parked all higgledy-piggledy.  To get a spot, a kid about eighteen hopped up onto our hood and directed us as we drove down a bizarre narrow alley with cars parked so close we had to hold our breath just to pass.  Walking back out of the alley after cramming ourselves into a tiny space, we saw two more “parking attendents’ and the owner of a yellow car rocking the cars in front and in back of him.  Shifting the cars a few inches at a time, the yellow car finally was able to maneuver out of the spot, whereupon it was replaced by another car.

On the street, it was equally chaotic.  At Ramadan, the rich are supposed to feed the poor, and everywhere we looked, shop owners had set up impromptu cafes in the street, which were full of people breaking their fast by gorging on the free food.  Close to the mosque, we passed a covered hall where huge pots and pans were set out on the ground, and people sat around guarding the meal until it was time to eat.

The Al-Hussein mosque was like a fairground, so full of people you could barely move, part church, part circus.  Every vendor stood by a tiny stand hawking religious artifacts, beads, or spangled LED tops that could fly high into the night sky with a simple flick of the wrist.  Leaving our shoes among the hundreds of pairs at the entrance, my girlfriend and I wormed our way through the crush to the woman’s side of the mosque.  We could barely breathe as the undulating mass of women pushed us forward into the doors of the mosque.  But inside, we fared no better, as we literally couldn’t go another step.  Women sat cross-legged everywhere on the floor, knee to knee, chanting and praying and touching the marble wall which contained important relics.  Disappointed and nearly squished, we turned and wriggled our way back out.

The men had a much more enjoyable time.  Obviously a much larger space, the entrance to the men’s side was empty, so my husband and two other travelers left their shoes with us as they strode into the mosque.  Once inside, they were immediately taken under the wing of several Egyptians who, seeing them, announced, “Sit! Pray with us!” This is typical of the Egyptians, who we have found over the years to be welcoming and inclusive in their worship. While we waited for them to come back out, I looked around the main square of the Khan.  Always bustling, tonight it seemed to almost burst at the seams with the friendly, raucous, joyous celebration of the end of the day’s fast.  It may change everything in Cairo, but I was glad to be there on during Ramadan.

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This is the first entry in the excerpts of my work-in-progress Egypt memoir, tentatively titled, “Travels Through Egypt” (if you can think of a name you like better – that still has the word Egypt in it – please let me know!)  After 10 years of travel to many cities throughout Egypt, and with 5 years under me as “Julie the Cruise Director” for Spirit Quest Tours, I have some interesting stories to tell. Sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking, the Egypt I have experienced is always warm, welcoming, and one of my favorite places to be on the planet. I hope you enjoy my stories, and that Egypt is brought to life for you as you read them.  I also hope you will make comments, good OR bad, about what you think of the writing and the material, as it will help me make some decisions as I get into the editing process.

From Chapter III – All the Firsts

In the fall of 1997, Greg came to me.  We were working about a hundred hours a week – each – on a project, and we were exhausted.  He told me about this trip to Egypt he wanted to take, which included a Nile cruise.  At the time I couldn’t have cared less about Egypt, but the idea of cruising the Nile for two weeks sounded so much better than sleeping in the office that I agreed.  The following May, we took the first of what was to become an annual pilgrimage.

Egypt is an incredible place, and though so much has been written about it no one exaggerated.  It’s an amazing dichotomy, too, of the ancient coupled with the not-so-old.  Nothing in Egypt is new, really; they are about 20 years behind America, just like any third world country.  This, coupled with a thick layer of sand, dust and dirt, keeps many things looking much older than they are.  We have always found the people there friendly to the point where we call them family when we see them again.  They will tell you to your face – they love Americans, they hate our President.  But they don’t even seem to blame us for voting for him… twice. 

The first time I saw Cairo, I thought, “God, what have we done?”  The flight was just circling to land, and all we could see was these buildings, many of them looking no better than huts, all drowning in the desert.  And smog so thick I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to breathe once we landed.  Not much of an improvement, since in those days they still allowed smoking in the back of international flights.  As if the canned air in the back of the plane wasn’t toxic to those in the front.  At least once we landed we would be out in the open.

The Cairo airport did nothing to improve my first impression.  Now it’s been remodeled, with lots of shopping added, and vast halls of marble and carved stone, but ten years ago it looked as dilapidated as the airport in Bulgaria, a leftover relic from the Soviet Bloc.  We stood in a sprawling group, waiting for all our luggage to arrive and be identified

I had never traveled with a group before, despite extensive trips all over Europe since I was very small.  With everyone sleeping on the flight, no one had really met yet, and now, after over 16 hours of travel, everyone was too tired to socialize.  But we noticed a blond woman with hair down to her waist, traveling alone, and I went over to introduce myself, drawn to her somehow despite my exhaustion.  Lynn and Greg and I have been best friends ever since, the trip solidifying our initial connection to each other.  Honestly, I don’t know how groups can help but bond with each other, with everyone exhausted, wearing the same rumpled clothes for over two days and all smelling of unwashed teeth and armpits.  It’s bond, or kill each other.  Perhaps this is how early humans survived.

Eventually, after passport control and a 45 minute ride to the hotel, we all collapsed in our rooms.  They told us the Giza pyramids were right outside our windows, but by this time, it was too dark to see.  They would just have to wait until morning.

The next day, I awoke in cool smooth Egyptian cotton sheets, heavy drapes covering the windows.  I was not sure it was morning, but the balcony of our room beckoned, and I rolled out of bed to see our view.  The green rolling gardens were a surprise, as was the blue water of the vast pool not too far down the lawn.  As my happy eye swept up, I finally saw what all the fuss was about – the Pyramids and the famed Giza Plateau seemed like they were only across the street. 

 These triangles of stone are inexplicable.  From the outside, even from a distance, they seem so much more romantic than their simple shapes would warrant.  The view from our window, like much of the Mena House, features the Great Pyramid itself, the largest of the three structures that make up the pyramid complex.  Even over a mile away as the crow flies, you can tell it’s a big sucker.

We were staying, as we always do, at the Mena House hotel, legendary as the best hotel in all of Cairo.  A former hunting palace, the armistice which ended World War II was signed in what is now its main building.  It has a vaguely Moroccan theme, which suits the over-the-top décor in the main lobby, all glass chandeliers and gilt mirrors.  My favorite part of the hotel has always been the pictures from the late 19^th or early 20^th century, which feature the couple who owned the hotel, their guests, and the many servants, horses and camels who must have made up the bulk of any establishment’s staff in those days.  There is one picture of the lady, setting off on her afternoon ride, sidesaddle, with a full skirt and a Gibson hairdo.  A little black boy waits beside her, in full uniform.  It might have been 100 degrees that day, but there she goes, off into what can only be described as a fairly uncivilized heat.  Between the Egyptian and Indian climate, I think they must have built the English braver in those days,.

The main restaurant also overlooked the Great Pyramid – well, not so much overlooked as “sat right next to,” so the first day we were pretty overwhelmed by this iconic image we’d all read about, sort of looming about the breakfast table like the elephant in the room.  The pyramid was so tall, in fact, and we so close, that when you stood you couldn’t see the top, so it just seemed like a grayish wall.  Then you would sit down, and there would be this pyramid, having breakfast at your table with you. 

Many of the Egyptian hotel and restaurant staff people were trained in the way of French cuisine and service. So they do a wonderful job with food in Egypt, while there is none of the reputed French attitude (in France, a waiter almost kicked Greg out of a restaurant for ordering coffee, bread, cheese and fruit – at the same time, quelle horror!) The breakfast is sumptuous at the Mena House, and you can pick from made-to-order or a full buffet.  One of the first things I couldn’t wait to try was the local yoghurt with black honey – dark and treacly, it looked just like molasses, which was exactly what it turned out to be, only with a much more exotic name.  They do the whole silver tea and coffee service, and the waiters and the kitchen staff fawn on you.  I once sent my scrambled eggs to exchange for fried, and the chef himself came out with my plate to make sure I was happy with them.

My first Arabic words were “Chai, bi laban” (shay, bee lahbahn, with a break after the first word and the second and third ones all run together).  This means “tea with milk.”  My mother raised me to be polite, so the second thing I learned was “min fadlak” (min fud’luk), which means “please.” However, right after that I learned that you say “min fadlik” if it’s a woman, and “min fadlak” if it’s a man, and I got them mixed up.  So then I thought, “it’s ‘lick’ if it’s a woman, and ‘luck’ if it’s a man,” (Greg, trying to help, told me “Lucky men lick women”) and then I decided maybe I should stop trying to learn Arabic.