There is going to a break beore I can post anything from today and yesterday. The Internet is down at the hotel, Allah wills it, I gather. So I can at least add a couple of posts and send them when I get to Luxor.
Yesterday we went to the Fayoum, an oasis area west and a bit south of Cairo. It is a very conservative area, an important agricultural region, and has a tiny population of no more than five million. Many of them live in little scattered villages, living a lifestyle that has changed little in hundreds of years, except there are now as many motorbikes as donkeys.
It was a really lovely day. We saw some of the waterwheels that have fed the paddocks from a network of canals. The wheels we saw are very old, but not as old as their design, which goes backto the pharoahs.
The wheels are hollow, pickin up water from the canal, then dumping out into side channels from the top of the wheel.
We stopped at a little market garden, less than a quarter acre. It had one banana tree, and a wonderful mix of vegetable, fragrant herbs, and roses all growing together in a jumble.
The husband built a lilttle fire, fed with a few twigs and leaves and prunings from the garden. He made us Bedouin tea, which was delicious.
His wife made me a bouquet of roses, basil, mint, and perfumed geranium leaves. The scent of it was out of this world. When I got back to the hotel with it, the great brawny bloke who mans the front desk was bewitched by them. He insisted on arranging them himself in a vase we made by cutting down a discarded plastic water bottle. They are still sitting on the check-in desk for everyone to enjoy.
We went to a few other spots, the most interesting of which was the waterfalls connecting two lakes.
Not quite Niagara, but quite impressive by Egyptian standards. All around these two larkes are arrid desert, stretching as to the borders of Libya, where Pahroahs used to ride out with their armies to stop Libyan attacks.
Here are a few shots I managed to snatch through the windows of the car as we passed through little villages:
Finally, we had lunch at a restaurant on the lake, oddly enough, the same restaurant I lunched at last time I was in the Fayoum.
The Next Day: Islamic Cairo
This sprawling city is made up of many sections, usuallly based on religious affiliation, or financial status. The Old Cairo we were in the other day is a mix of Muslim, Chrisitan, and Jewish, who have a centuries old tradition of living in harmony. Today we were in an Islamic section housed entirly within massive walls built by one of the conquering Pashas centuries ago. These walls are still as solid as the day they were built.
We arrived quite early in the morning, before the bazaars were open. so were able to see quite a bit before it became too packed to move. Ancient buildings, and modern rubbish are jumbled together in an evironment of total chaos to the Western eye. Here are a few examples:
We stopped for thick black Turkish coffee and shisha at Al Fishawy, a very famous coffee shop, been there in the same location since 1750-somethng.
It is very interesting to note that the Muslim Brotherhood is fighting a losing menu with the young women of Cairo. I can see a difference in how they dress compared to what I saw four years ago. Many, of course, still wear the long black dress, but very often the headscarf will be a bright colour instead of the black usually worn by married women. A great many of the young girls are wearing skin-tight Western-style pants rather than the long skirts or loose trousers they wore previously.
I like this picture of two young friends walking past us in Islamic Cairo -- the girl on the left is in a traditional dress, while her friend is very modern in her tight pants. A couple of years ago she would have drawn very critical looks and probably some verbal abuse, but today nobody seems to raise an eyebrow.
Also, I have seen young couples holding hands in the street, something that used to be completely unacceptable.
