Saturday May 27, 2006 – Superiority of Small Fingers

We were met at 8:30 AM by our Giza born guide Ahmed for a full days tour of Saqqara and Islamic Cairo. In the interest of time we decided to elect for a private tour guide, which turned out to be a great decision; although a busload of loud obnoxious American tourists really did sound appealing. Saqqara (45 minutes outside of Cairo), “one of the richest archaeological sites in Egypt,” was the first stop of the day. In its heyday, this burial site covered an area of 4 miles from north to south. The Step Pyramid of Djoser was the prototype, if you will, of the pyramids of Giza built in the 27^th Century BC. Until this pyramid, royal tombs consisted of underground rooms. We also had a chance to enter a few underground tombs and were amazed by the still vivid 5,000 year old wall reliefs and paintings. Saqqara is where we first encountered the pushy vendors, selling anything from postcards (“you take, free”) to donkey rides (“here, you like, get on, free photo”). We got accustomed to saying “la, shukran” (no thank you) quite regularly and Ahmed stepped in with an Arabic reprimand to any incessant pestering.

En route from Saqarra to the Mohammed Ali Mosque (not the boxer), we made a quick stop at a Carpet School. What originally was publicized as a school where Egyptian children from the countryside could learn a trade, make a little extra money, and go to school for part of the day seemed a bit closer to child labor. I figured it was a pop in and pop out spend a few hours a day, but realistically these children (anywhere from the age of 5 – 18) spend 6 - 8 hours of their day rug making. The remainder of the day is supposedly spent in school. Apparently, the children are well suited for rug making per the manager because of the “superiority of small fingers to make the large amounts of knots needed for the rugs” (ranging from 300 per inch to 4500.) After the explanation and viewing the beautiful rugs made by a multitude of small fingers, I wholeheartedly supported a productivity process improvement of dropping the schooling altogether and increasing working hours to 12 hours a day – hope you sense the sarcasm here.

Our tour of Islamic Cairo included a stop at the beautiful Mohammed Ali Mosque (very spiritual and moving experience) and Khan Kahili bazaar. Ahmed led us through the mosque, all of us shoeless (to show respect) giving a brief history of Islam. Unlike the cathedrals of Europe, it was very acceptable to lie down on the 150+ year old Turkish carpets and gaze up taking in the art, rotundas, and amazing chandelier. The mosque provided a spectacular vantage point for smoggy views around Cairo.

Built in 1382, Khan al-Khalili is one of the biggest bazaars in the Middle East. It is a crowded maze of narrow canvas covered dirt alleyways with vendors selling everything from exotic spices to metal works to kitsch tourist souvenirs. Ahmed guided us through the alleyways pointing out the occasional historic sight, and on request led us to an authentic hand made metal light fixture shop - very gloomy and chockfull of these intricately designed pieces...best of all not a tourist in sight.

To top off the day, the Brit and I coordinated a sunset felucca on the Nile surprise for the ladies. While the Brit sweet talked the hotel into making us a picnic snack/dinner, I secured a trusty felucca and skipper which were conveniently located at a small dock near our hotel. Under the guise of bringing the Brit some pain killers for his very “clumsy, saved from landing headfirst out the van by our guide” exit earlier in Islamic Cairo, I snuck out of our room to pack mule our picnic down to the boat. The poor little backpack’s zippers ended up holding on for dear life after we somehow managed to jam it full of 10 beers, water, fruit, olives, and sandwiches. We actually had to jettison a few sandwiches as the “one of each” sandwich request was lost in translation – the four of us each got chicken, beef, and vegetarian sandwiches. After a few practice walks with clanking beer bottles, we determined it was best that I run ahead as not to spoil the surprise. Our little hour and a half private dinner cruise went off without a hitch and the ladies really were quite impressed that we were able to pull the whole thing off.