Day 2: Catacombs, Forts, and Riots

Today we set out to explore Alexandria.  I woke up at 7 to discover that the shower consisted of 1 square foot of standing room, due to the fact that the sink was rudely occupying the rest of my space.  The shower curtain (covered with blue Garfield the cat heads, and quotes such as "Let's drink some milk" and "Hiiimmmmm") took up the remainder of my space. But there was water, and it was hot so it was good enough.

After eating breakfast, we left the hotel and once again continued our pursuit of train tickets.  A helpful pedestrian who spoke English pointed us in the right direction.  We didn't get too far before the road that he pointed us down ended and we were stuck.  Another pedestrian saw us and pointed for us to follow him to the train station.  After walking about a kilometer, he lead us to the tram station that we had been to before, which was still not the correct station.  We decided to take a cab, which ended up being a smart decision because the train station was not within walking distance.

Arriving at the station, we walked in to discover that none of the signs at the ticket windows were in English, and no one spoke English. Thankfully, a friendly cashier noticed we were clueless Americans and pointed at us to follow him.  Carrying an enormous bag of coins, he lead us through the train station.  The trains were covered by an enormous pavilion.  Glancing into the cars at the end of a train, I saw through broken glass windows that the seating consisted of benches covered with straw.  I felt fortunate that our first class seating would be considerably nicer than these cars reserved for locals.  Finally, the cashier pointed us to a room in which first class tickets were sold.  We successfully purchased our tickets for 6pm that night, and then set out in a cab towards our first sight for the day: the catacombs.

Driving no more than 50 feet, the driver stopped the car and strolled over to a iron fence alongside the street.  He stuck his hand between the bars, and about 5 minutes later walked back with a small cup of a tea. Handing the cup to me, he began driving.  Immediately, the tea spilled onto my pants. Perhaps realizing that it was a bad idea, the driver took the tea and placed it in between the seats.  The drive took us through the poor area of the city.  Men pulled carts loaded with vegetables, and the dirt streets were packed with markets selling pigeons for food. Somewhere during the ride, I looked to my right and saw a shouting Egyptian holding a metal pipe.  Behind him were 50 civilians waving assorted weapons in the air.  On the other side of the street was another mob of people also waving various blunt objects and yelling.  I glanced at our driver.  He kept on driving and apparently didn't notice or didn't care as a riot broke out behind us.

Entrance to Catacombs

Aside from the riot, the rest of the ride was uneventful.  We arrived at the catacombs, and realized that we didn't have enough money to go inside. Or to take a cab ride back. There were no atms within walking distance either. Fortunately, what Kristin called a Christmas miracle, a random man walked up to us and asked if we needed change. Kristin and Nina had some American money that they exchanged with him.  Money in hand, we ventured into the depths of the catacombs. Supposedly the tombs were discovered when a donkey cart fell into a pit, leading to their discovery. A spiral staircase wound 3 levels deep around a central well that was used to lower dead. The catacombs, built in 1st century A.D., once contained the bodies of around 300 Roman notables, including entire families.

Fort Qaitbay

We made our way to Fort Quaitbay, which we had seen in the distance the day before. The fort was built over top the Alexandria Lighthouse, one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world.  At the time  the lighthouse was the tallest building in the world.  According to the trusted source, Wikipedia, (as I mentioned, we didn't have a tour guide) the Citadel was built in 15th century AD and "is considered one of the most important defensive strongholds, not only in Egypt, but also along the Mediterranean Sea coast."  The fort was incredible, for being 500 years old, it looked fairly new.  Walking into the fort, Kristin, Nina, and Allie were immediately surrounded by swarms of local Egyptian girls. All of the girls wanted pictures with Americans. I mean they literally mobbed around them and took pictures. It was pretty cute but got old after they followed us around for an hour. Eventually Nina charged at them and they finally took the hint. Outside the fort, local vendors were selling really cool souvenirs, and people were fishing with really long fishing poles.

Nina and Kristin surrounded by girls

After the fort, we walked around and found a mosque that appeared to be a big tourist attraction, so we decided to have a look. Outside the entrance, by chance, we meet a tourist who was a school teacher from Syracuse. It was somewhat comforting talking to another American, and it was our first time conversing with someone fluent in English. Although there are mosques everywhere in Dubai, none of us had actually been inside one.  The girls had to go around to a separate side entrance, so I walked up to the main entrance, removed my shoes, paid the "shoe keeper" to store them, and stepped inside. 


For anyone who is as ignorant about mosques as I was, here's what it looked inside: 

Mosque

As you can see, there was little furniture; instead of pews, there was soft carpet that the Muslims kneel on during prayer.  The other notable difference was that men and women were separated into two different areas in the prayer hall by a wooden divider. However, the women's portion of the hall was only about an eight of the men's. Kristin, Nina, and Allie were unable to see the majority of the mosque.  They also had to wear scarves before entry into the prayer room.


Meeting back outside, we walked to our last stop in Alexandria, the Bibliotheca Alexandria. The library was built to commemorate the ancient great Library of Alexandria, which burnt down a long time ago. On our walk over, we experience the same staring as before.  Halfway there, we were stopped by a group of 6 Egyptian guys who wanted pictures with us (although I'm pretty sure that it was the girls, not me, they wanted pictures with) They seemed friendly, so we agreed. At some point they began videotaping us on their cellphones; I heard one of them mention to another "to record our American accents." Roughly 100 pictures later, we were back on our way to the library. Upon arriving at the library, we didn't have too much time because we had to catch our train so by the time we purchased our tickets, and went through 4 sets of metal detectors/ security, we only had about 20 minutes to explore.Oh yeah, I almost forgot, walking up to the library some little kids started told the girls they were beautiful.

Inside of Alexandria Library

The library is enormous, again my trusted friend Mr. Wikipedia told me that it contains room for 8 million books. That is a lot of books! It was full of books from all languages, and there were sections on just about anything you could think of.  Due to the shape of the library, the floors cascade downward. (Note: see picture for better explaination.) Although we didn't have much time, there appeared to be a lot of famous collections/rare books.  There are several museums and art exhibit inside; we were able to briefly tour through one art exhibit. 

Interesting statue in art exhibit

After that, we did a lot of walking, yadah, yadah, and were on our way to the train station.

If you remember, the cabs are tiny in Egypt. With all of our bodies and luggage crammed into the car, my suitcase ended hanging out the back of the car with the trunk open. On the bright side, our driver had at least 6 additional rear view mirrors mounted on the front windshield, presumably, to help him keep an eye on my suitcase. The downside was that these mirrors and a large assortment of stickers and other hanging decorations prevented him from seeing out of the front windshield. My suitcase survived the trip thankfully!

Walking along the platform to our car, I was approached by the ticket collector, who took my ticket from me.  He lead us to our car and seats, and motioned for us to sit down. After storing our luggage, he then held out his hand for money.  I waved him away, but he wouldn't leave so I eventually gave him money. Two minutes later, the real ticket collector showed up. Turns out the first guy didn't work for the train company. At least he had shown us to our correct seats.

The train arrived in the Cairo station 3 hours later. Stepping out of the train, I realized that this was not the best place to be at night.  I don't mean to only discuss the bad parts of the trip, but this was the only time in Egypt that I actually felt like I was in an unwelcome area. In some areas, in place of the sidewalk, there were deep holes covered with narrow wooden planks. The entire station was dimly lit, expect for flood lights in one corner where construction workers were working. Again the stares returned, but this time people followed us around and called to us. Leaving the station, we were surrounded by a mob of cab drivers asking us if we needed a ride. We picked one and called our hostel to translate the address in Arabic to him. He then motioned for us to walk with him . A foot-wide dirt path strewn with rubble and a bank of dirt on the left side straddled a deep trench on the right side.  It wound across an empty lot some 200 yards long. It wasn't exactly the most ideal path for carrying suitcases, and a lot of travelers had difficultly.

We eventually arrived at our hostel, which resided on the 15th floor of a building  nestled in between two indoor car dealerships. A collection of trash and spare tires filled a corner of the 1st floor lobby. A friendly man met us in front of the elevator. He explained that only one elevator worked, pointing to the other and wiping his hands saying "Finished, finished". We took the elevator up to the hostel, and were immediately greeted with smiles and warm tea. The hostel staff was very welcoming and accommodating and helped us plan the remainder of our travels. Thus ended our adventures of Day 2.