Welcome back to Egypt
After years of political turmoil, tourists are trickling back.
“Welcome to Cairo.” “Happy New Year!” “Where are you f rom? Germany?” “Happy Valentine’s Day!” “Welcome to Alaska!” “No? Welcome, America!” Egypt was delighted to see me. So overjoyed, that Egyptians couldn’t contain themselves. They shouted greetings (some befuddling) wherever I walked: along pinched lanes in the old Islamic quarter, inside pharaonic temples and tombs, in a Nubian village in Aswan, on the sandy shores of the Red Sea. The pleasantries came from policemen on horseback, vendors pushing heavy carts of peanuts and men smoking shisha in outdoor cafes, their salutations released in plumes of scented smoke.
“Welcome, welcome , welcome!”
Thank you, it’s a been a while. About four years, by most counts.
The calendar pages started curling on Jan. 25, 2011, the start of Egypt’s Arab Spring revolution, that saw the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak. The following June, elections ushered in Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi. About a year later he, too, was gone. Next up: Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. The former head of the armed services will celebrate his first year as president in June.
“We will go for it and see what happens,” said Mohamed, my Cairo guide. “But we are happy with this man. With so many problems around, we need a man like this.”
The years of political tumult upended the country and spooked millions of international travellers. Tourism, which reached recordhigh levels in 2010 with 14.7 million visitors, tumbled weeks later. Cruise ships eliminated Egyptian ports of call. Tour operators diverted clients elsewhere. Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada is still warning Canadians against non-essential travel to Egypt (with the exception of the Red Sea coastal resorts of Sharm El-Sheikh and Hurghada and the area along the upper Nile, from Luxor to Aswan).
Since Sisi’s rise, travellers have struggled to understand Egypt, especially as troubles bubble up in nearby lands. Though countries have downgraded their alerts, and cruise lines and tour groups are slowly returning, uncertainty persists. Many wonder: Is the country safe? And, if so, will it last?
“Tourism is our religion, our food. We need it, our families need it,” a Cairo papyrus seller said. “The impression you have of Egypt is more important than buying.”
Several experts on this topic, including an international risk- management analyst, a specialist in Egyptian travel and the country’s minister of tourism, told me that the country was safe and stable. Calm had been restored. It was time for Americans to return. So this American did.
Overall, I had a long leash with few restrictions. I could freely walk around the cities and towns alone (following street-smarts protocol, of course) and dress liberally. Depending on the company, I could broach topics (religion, politics, gender relations) often considered indelicate at company holiday parties. In return, I felt that many Egyptians were eager to share their recent experiences.
“The last few years in Egypt have been really hard,” Mohamed said as we waited for the car in the airport parking lot. “We had nothing and now we need everything. But it is getting better as people start seeing hope.”
The halo of optimism is expanding. In addition to steadying the country, Sisi has resumed projects started by Mubarak and developed new ones. Plans include building the Alexandria Underwater Museum, renovating the Grand Egyptian Museum at Giza, extending the Nile cruise trail to Alexandria and constructing more than 3,380 kilometres of roads. Tourism officials also hinted at reopening Nefertari’s tomb in Luxor, which closed in 2003.
The pyramid field at Dashur, about 40 km south of Cairo, has been around since 2600 BC. Pharaoh Sneferu was a pyramid perfectionist who tinkered with the design and materials of his afterlife crib. The Old Kingdom ruler is credited with creating the triangular shape that inspired the scene-stealing monuments at Giza.
Despite Dashur’s historical significance, the government waited several millenniums before inviting the public inside. The area, which also contains a military training camp, opened in 2005, though it lost several years to the revolution.
The Giza antiquities, including the Sphinx, attract droves of tourists. At the 74-metre-tall Red Pyramid, though, I could count the people on three fingers. I passed Thumb, Index and Pinkie on the way up the north face.
The descent resembled a mine shaft with cleaner air. I crouched down low, taking wobbly baby giraffe steps into the deep stillness. I arrived in a large tomb chamber with a soaring corbelled ceiling. The burial space aligns with the North Star, a fast lane to the heavens. While we mortals have to navigate the stairs, the pharaoh-god took the divine route out.
Throughout my travels, I often discovered myself alone (e.g., Tombs of the Nobles, Howard Carter House, Valley of the Queens) or with small knots of people (Valley of the Kings). I came across most robust crowds at the Mortuary Temple of Queen Hatshepsut, near Luxor. I was surrounded by Egyptian college students, many of whom found an American tourist to be as interesting a relic as the longestreigning female pharaoh.
My Luxor guide said that during the golden age of tourism (6,000 people per day in 2010), folks often waited up to five hours to enter the three tombs at the Valley of the Kings. My record thumbtwiddling stretch: fewer than five minutes to see the tar-coloured King Tut mummy. The longest queue: the Mummy Exhibit at Cairo’s Egyptian Museum.
“It’s busy, busy, busy,” my guide, Abdel, said before noon. “This line will remain with us till 3 or 4 o’clock.”
Though I skipped the exhibit, I did enjoy some mummy-and-me time elsewhere. There was me and the mummy fetus in the tomb of Amun-Hir-Khopshef, the princely son of Ramses III. Me and the mummified reptiles in the Crocodile Museum at the Temple of Kom Ombo.
No matter the size of the audience, or the particular attraction’s state of decomposition, security officials always seemed within shouting range.
After the Luxor terrorist attacks in 1997, the country amped up its patrol forces, even establishing a tourist police. I grew accustomed to seeing uniformed men slinging semi-automatic rifles.
The greatest buildup of security amassed in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, where the revolution’s flame burned white-hot. A line of police, some at ease in chairs, assembled along the main plaza, near the Egyptian Museum and several embassies. Behind them, hulking army tanks idled single file — marksmen perched on top, ready for the unexpected.
Until my visit to Tahrir Square, I had only heard the stories. Now I saw the evidence. The National Democratic Party building was charred black and had peeled as if sunburned. Inside the museum, which abutted the party’s headquarters, a sign in the King Tut exhibit explained how on Jan. 28, 2011, a wooden sculpture from his tomb was stolen and broken into two fragments. A search uncovered the artifact in a trash can. The pharaoh’s face is still missing.
On the way out, I asked Abdel whether we could swing into the gift shop. He showed me the retail space with empty shelves and glass cases, the telltale signs of looters.
“Nothing will happen to you in Egypt,” Chef Anha says emphatically, later as we chat during my first lesson at her House of Cooking school. The longtime chef teaches with her daughter, Mona. They hold classes in their sunlit Nasr City shop. The menu: orzo soup, sautéed veggies stuffed in saj flatbread (or shawarma for the meat-eaters), baklava with walnuts and a mango yogurt drink.
Anha placed a platter of spices under my nose and quizzed me. I sniffed and called out cumin, cinnamon, ginger, smoked paprika and allspice. I blanked on turmeric but still passed.
“Three things make your food taste better,” she said with conviction. “Spices, marinating and sauce.”
We talked about local dishes, such as pigeon stuffed with rice and giblets sautéed with onions, and comfort foods, including ful (a fava bean mash), falafel and koshari, a mix of rice, lentils and fried onions. She illustrated the cost of food by comparing the prices of chicken (cheapest), veal (most expensive), beef and camel. Yes, camel, for about $7 a kilo.
During my wanderings through markets, I had seen many stalls crammed with large bins of aromatic substances. I asked Anha where she buys her spices; she answered, “New York.” But, she added, if I really wanted Egyptian spices, I should buy them whole.
“The ground spices,” she noted, “are dirty with sand and dirt.”
When the first course was ready, we sat down at the table like family, chattering away between mouthfuls of pasta soup. But we didn’t relax for long.
Anha had me running between cutting board, stove top and blender, with brief interludes to refill my cup of mint tea. While my meal sizzled away, she filled my head with more information. For flavour, never skimp on salt, pepper or turmeric. Buy olives in October, and onions and garlic in March.
We made Anha-style baklava. Instead of layering the thin sheets, I folded and rolled the phyllo pastry as if making hummingbird nests, sprinkling chopped walnuts into the tiny well.
After several hours, my guide arrived to collect me. But Anha wouldn’t let him leave. She told Mona to prepare him a plate and told me to bring some food to the driver, waiting for us in the car.
Twice a year, the rising sun illuminates the inner sanctuary of Ramses II’s Great Temple. On Feb. 22 and Oct. 22, which signify the king’s birthday and coronation, the morning rays bathe four stone statues. On all other days, the sun stops short of the chamber sheltering the pharaoh and gods Ra-Horakhty, Amun-Ra and Ptah.
The event attracts hundreds who arrive by police-escorted caravans, planes, river boats and cars. My guide, Moustafa picked me up at 2:30 a.m. for the 3 a.m. opening of the temple. The sun would start its eastern crawl at 6:21. He encouraged me to dress warmly and limit my liquid intake.
As we shuffled into the temple, dramatic shadows fell on carved images of a heroic Ramses battling the Nubians. I sat down on a hard ledge and leaned against a sandstone column from the 13th century BC, as other visitors played smartphone games or dozed.
At 6 a.m., we walked down the corridor and rounded a corner, stumbling in the dark. I peered around a column to look at the main hall, squinting my eyes against the blast of golden light.
Guards ushered us toward the alcove. Small groups of people crouched down, gasped and left. The line moved fast. When it was my turn, Moustafa charmed the guards for a few extra seconds.
I looked at Ramses’s sunkissed face and swear he smiled at me. Or was I just delirious? I took a picture that turned out blurry, much like my brief audience with the king.
I told Moustafa that I wanted another turn.
We only had 20 minutes before the sun would stop performing its solar trick. We exited the temple, pushed through clumps of people milling around the grounds and joined the line stretching toward the Nile. Behind us, the sun was rising fast, growing stronger and brighter with each passing moment.