Visiting the Stone of the Old Kingdom
After taking measure, it renders clear: when it comes to choosing between being a hurried tourist or a pedestrian stuck in a foreign country with too much time on my hands, I’ll take the pedestrian boredom. This means that taking one of the tours mentioned earlier in this journal are off the table. Now, these are the travel highlights:
- Find a clean-but-inexpensive hotel in the quietest part of Cairo. The 2008 edition of Lonely Planet: Egypt picks Hotel Osiris—but, to ensure quiet, perhaps their Golden Tulip Flamenco Hotel listing is worthy of pricey adventure.
- Take the Cairo Metro to Helwan and then cross the river to touch the stones of The Old Kingdom (the whole point of the trip)—to see a lonesome graveyard in a place now called “Saqqara.” See map.
- Go to the Egyptian Museum more than once.
- Go to the location called “Giza” to see ‘the other’ Old Kingdom pyramids—the big ones that show up in the Hollywood movies. See map
- Go to Giza again to see what is now called “The Sphinx.”
- At least hang out for a day in Coptic Cairo, the earliest Christian-based Black ghetto in the world, complete with churches (maybe even liquor stores) and an ancient white police station built by the Romans.
The days used to make this first attempt should include December 25th—this implies visiting Egypt in a winter month which actually might be more beneficial than risky. Explaining what in the hell (heaven) Egypt has to do with Santa Claus is beyond the scope of this writ. But let me just say that Black people flocking to an Egyptian holiday during Kwanzaa time may be a new sacred style of the super-Black jet-set future. I’m trying to get into the fashion a bit early and late at the same time.
Egypt in winter is not the major problem. It has become clear to me that North American flights to Cairo often (or always) leave from JFK. To the experienced traveler, this immediately means “layover”—upwards, at times, of 17 hours! Experiencing hours of winter in New York could kick me around a bit. My body first appeared on Earth in sunny California. I’m not designed for the snow…
A desert winter night is not easy either. Were it not for the Cairo Metro, I would be concerned about making a mistake and being stuck miles away from my hotel when going to Saqqara. The Cairo Metro allows me to approach this part of Africa as a humble pedestrian—instead of an ugly American hiring cars all the damn time. I do not assume that I will be free of hustlers while in one of the biggest tourist traps on Earth but this pedestrian approach allows me to literally be with the land of Egypt.
Now here’s another logistical challenge: the Cairo Metro travels south on the east side of the Nile. All the Old Kingdom graveyards with those pyramids are on the west side of the Nile (because the Sun sets in the west). How will I be able to cross the river near the Cairo Metro station in Helwan? This photo taken in Helwan had me concerned but the guy that was in this photo tells me:
We are just making fun here. Yes, there is a bridge south of Helwan, where you can cross. There is also a small ferry boat for 0.5 E.P. in Helwan itself.
Isn’t the Web just amazing! (I am not being sarcastic here!)
For the deep Black brothers that have already seen Egypt with their earthly eyes, there might be this suggestion: Why not hit the Nubia Museum from the Basma Hotel? Well, homes, according to Brother Manu Ampim, who travels to the region of Nubia, deep in modern Sudan on a regular basis, there is hardly anything of significance in the Nubia Museum. Most importantly, my intention is to visit Africa regularly for the rest of my economically significant life—so I don’t need to see “everything” in east Africa in a single trip.