November 18, 2006
Cairo, Egypt

I woke up this morning about 5:30 (after going to sleep just after midnight). I could not fall back asleep and decided to use the internet for a while. I chatted with Jackie for a while and then met up with the rest of the group for breakfast.

At 8:30 we convened in the lobby and met our guide for the day, Ollah (the lady who took us to the pyramids). We jumped in a large van and started cruising around town. Our first stop was Garbage City. An entire area of Cairo (with about 45,000 people) dedicated to collecting trash, bringing it back to their part of the city, and then recycling it. As expected, it was very dirty and poor. The streets were lined with huge bags of trash and many buildings were overflowing with garbage.

Next, we visited Cairo’s largest Christian church. It was quite interesting because the entire thing is outside and most of it is carved into a mountain. The seating is similar to that of a roman amphitheatre and seats almost 20,000! Also of interest, there were large religious figures sculpted into the mountain around the church.

When we finished with the church we headed back through Garbage City and headed to an organization called Association for the Protection of the Environment (APE). It was a very cool non-profit organization that specializing in paper and clothes recycling. We got to watch as the women went through the paper making process. I was excited because I did a similar thing when I was younger. It was a super cool organization!

At about 10:00 we headed to the Citadel of Salah al-Din. It was a very popular spot for local children’s groups. It was very crowded with kids, all of whom were excited to see white people. We felt like celebrities. The Citadel was quite impressive. Almost an entire city was housed within its walls. The most impressive building was the Mosque of Muhammad Ali (the Egyptian soldier, not the boxer…). It is Cairo’s (and maybe Egypt’s?) largest Mosque. We went inside (after removing our shoes) and Ollah explained many Muslim customs to us. After taking a few pictures we headed back to the van.

From there we made our way to Cairo’s largest souk. An absolutely massive shopping area that has to be a few square miles in size! We entered near the food area, where the locals do most of the shopping. We then entered the clothing area (where the locals buy most of their cloths) and eventually made our way to a restaurant for lunch. I had a chicken shwamme (sandwich type thing).

After filling our bellies we entered into the tourist part of the market and did some souvenir shopping. Very used to the selling tactics we were tough negotiators and got some good deals. By the time we finished all our shopping it was almost 16:00 and we (B, Travis, Camron, and myself) decided to head back to the hotel.

Though it took us a while, we eventually found a taxi driver that knew where our hotel was. Or so we thought. He drove for about ½ an hour and we ended up at Victoria Circle, nowhere near out hotel. We had a very difficult time explaining this to our driver (who didn’t speak any English). At one point we were writing things on the back of a Kleenex box, making signals in the air, and using sound effects to get our point across. Our driver had to summon several locals to help figure out the location of our hotel. It was quite an experience (and totally hilarious)!

We arrived back at our hotel over an hour after getting into the cab. Everyone was worn out and my legs hurt from being cramped in the backseat. I spent the next several hours relaxing.

At 7:00 we headed out for our final group dinner. We said our goodbyes to some friends from the trip and had a nice (somewhat expensive meal). Upon returning to the hotel we chilled with our buddies and looked through some of their pictures.