When you travel on a budget and stay in inexpensive hotels and hostels, little problems and discomforts are part of the experience.
So when Dave realized in the middle of the night that the dripping sound we heard was the dilapidated air conditioner dripping buckets on his bed, he just switched it off and rolled over. I’m trying out this “optimism” thing, so I choose to believe that a few of those drips killed some of the mosquitoes that were feasting upon us in our sleep.
So it was no surprise when we woke up late, in a hot room, dripping with sweat (and maybe AC juice).
After showers and “breakfast”, we decided to figure out the metro and head to Coptic Cairo.
Roughly 95% of Egypt is Muslim, and somewhere around 5% is Coptic Christian. After the last Pharaoh was defeated by the Persians, the Ptolemaic Kingdom reigned until Alexander the Great conquered it. Eventually the Romans came in and took over. Then Christianity came in with the Byzantine empire, in the form of a distinct Egyptian Coptic Church. About 150 years later the Islamic Arabs came in and took over, but a small Coptic minority remains to this day.
The Coptic churches and fort were huge and gorgeous. Instead of minarets to broadcast the call to prayer, they have the standard Christian church bells. Some are electro-mechanical too.
The churches were all gorgeous inside, full of symbolism and biblical patterns like 12 pillars for the apostles, and triangles for the trinity.
Coptic Cairo’s alleys, unlike Islamic Cairo’s, were generally very clean, spartan affairs.
Once we’d had our sweaty fill, there was one major sight left to see before we left Cairo. Cats have a special status in Cairo and you see them all over. But there was one in particular we’d missed so far.
The Sphinx of Giza is more or less a part of the Giza Pyramid complex, though there is also a separate entrance. They have excavated a whole bunch of ruins in front, through which you need to walk to get up close with the cat-man himself.
It’s big, but not HUGE. But the detail you can still see in the headdress up close makes you wonder what it would have looked like in its time.
Did you know the Sphinx has a tail?
You can get all the way around it, but nobody seems to photograph the back.
Next up: Alexander the Great’s home in Africa!