Visiting Mohammad Ali’s Home

This morning we woke up and went to the Citadel on the other side of the city from where we are staying. We began this part of the tour learning about the religion of Islam and some common misconceptions about the religion and what the religion does and does not believe which we both found incredibly interesting. We then visited the mosque of Mohammad Ali (which our tour director Mohammad made sure we understood was not the boxer..ha ha ha). This mosque was amazing and I bet by far the largest on in Cairo. It was not an active mosque therefore women were not required to cover their heads. However some of the women we were traveling with were wearing tank tops with bare shoulders and that is forbidden in the mosque. We had to take our shoes off while viewing the inside of the mosque, but it was not a big deal. The mosque was beautiful, especially the architecture- just an amazing structure. The architect was a Jewish man and he agreed to build it provided that he could put the Star of David somewhere in there- and he was allowed. It was in the center of one of the domes and it was painted very-very small.

After the mosque there was a bunch of shopping for last minute souvenirs. We didn’t buy anything but it is very entertaining to watch others. Once one person agrees to a sale, there are about 5-10 more people swarming them to buy other things. Yes, you can get a good price on things, but it is also a pain and the quality of the souvenirs is very low.

We then drove about 20 minutes to the Cairo museum. We were not allowed to take camera in the museum and that was truly a shame because there were so many things that were there to see and to try to remember. The most impressive part was viewing all of the items found in King Tut’s tomb. They had the famous gold mask that was covering his mummy and it was very surreal. They had a bunch of sarcophagi from many kings and pharos, many we had not heard of- I would say there were close to 100 to see. I had heard that it would take more than a day to see everything in that museum and didn’t believe it until we were there- it would take a good 2 days to view all the pieces. We had a couple hours to focus on some of the most important pieces in Egyptian history. The other thing that is interesting is that not only is there no air conditioning in the museum (due to the age of the building) but most of the artifacts are out in the open to touch and not behind glass. This is really sad because they are not preserving some of the most interesting pieces of history.

After the museum we were back to the hotel for a fast lunch. Afterwards we took a nap which felt good. I know it sounds like we are sleeping a lot, but you have to understand that there is a lot of early mornings and full days of touring. It is exhausting, but fun. This evening we went to a Nile river dinner cruise complete with entertainment. There were singers, belly dancers and a whirling dervish. The cruise was nice and the meal was one of the best we have had since in Egypt actually. It was a nice way to end the tour. It is hard to believe that we are half way done with our vacation. October is flying by and we miss our families and friends. We realized that we are missing many birthdays while we are gone- so a big happy birthday to Chris, Leslie, Jim, Pat, Rob, Jen, and Chrissy. There may be one more…I can’t think straight so please forgive me 