November 19, 2006 Cairo (and Alexandria), Egypt

November 19, 2006
Cairo (and Alexandria), Egypt

We woke up this morning at 7:30. At 7:45 I met the Robertson family at the hotel restaurant for our free breakfast. Though it is not a great breakfast, it was filling. After eating I went to George’s room (the guy from Derry, Ireland) to say goodbye. He is absolutely hilarious and has traveled everywhere and has a lot of good advice.

Once the farewells were complete B and I met back up with Slanty, Cameron, and Travis to start the days adventure. We hired a driver and set out on the two-hour drive to Alexandria (which used to be the second largest city in the world – second only to Rome). On the way we looked through our guidebook and were saddened to see that Alexandria is described as the most historic city with nothing to see and that it is “usually a disappointment” to travelers. Still, we kept an open mind.

We arrived in Alexandrai at about 10:45. Our first stop was going to be the famous lighthouse (one of the 7 ancient wonders of the world) but it no longer exists (the pyramids are the only ancient wonder still standing). Instead, we settled on visiting the citadel that was built at the same location of the lighthouse and was made from some of the same pieces of stone.

The citadel was very beautiful from the outside and it was nice to see the ocean again. I was excited to see many people fishing from the shore. After thoroughly examining the structure from the outside we decided to see how much it would be to get in. We went to the first door we could find and asked how much to enter. We were told that it would be 1 EGP (or about 20 cents).

We paid the money and went inside. We were surprised to find out that we accidentally paid to enter a strange aquarium with no living things. Instead, they had plastic models of the local fish and some bones. It was a very strange place.

We exited the strange museum (which was built into the side of the citadel) and looked for the real entrance. Upon finding it we learned that it was much more expensive to go into the real thing and decided to grab some lunch instead.

For lunch we went to a nice seafood restaurant (Alexandria is known to have very good fish). The restaurant was very cool because the fish was on ice and we got to pick which ones we wanted. After making our selections we grabbed a table and waited for our meal to be cooked. Everything was very tasty and I was especially impressed with the calamari.

We finished lunch at about 12:30 and made our way to Amud El-Sawari. The area is home to the lone column that is the only remnant of ancient Alexandria still standing. The entire experience was very unique because the sight is still being excavated and renovated. We wandered through work crews and by many archeologists.

At one point we found a small door and climbed inside. Everything was totally dark and we had only one headlamp between the five of us. Still, we decided to explore. Though we didn’t find much, it was awesome to crawl through tiny passageways in complete darkness.

Later, we visited another part of the site (which had lights and more people) and talked with some of the archeologists. We learned that we were crawling through the remains of the ancient Alexandria library (which once housed more than 500,000 volumes). The entire experience was totally awesome. There were very few tourists and lots of workers/experts…

Our last stop in Alexandria was at the to ancient catacombs. We descended down the stairs and wandered through the crypt. It was totally spectacular. The catacombs are a mix of three different cultures: Greek, Roman, and Pharonic. As a result, the carvings and decorations are representative of each civilization. Also, the bottom levels of the crypt have been flooded. At one point we were walking through the catacombs on a small wooden plan with scary looking water beneath us. It felt like something from Indiana Jones or a scary videogame.

Once we were finished it was about 16:00 and time to head back to Cairo. We jumped back in our car and settled in for the long drive. Everything went very smoothly until we got close to Cairo. Then, we got in a massive traffic jam. All five lanes of traffic (on a 3 lane road) were at a standstill. Some cars even decided to four-wheel drive along the median between the directions of traffic.

Eventually we made it back to the hotel and were totally exhausted. We grabbed some food and then relaxed in our rooms for the remainder of the evening.