Cairo’s Necropolis & leaving

Above:  One can see the pyramids faintly through Cairo’s pollution.

My departure for for Hong Kong via Istanbul tonight is 2025 which would require a departure from town about 1630. Last night, I had negotiated a late checkout of 1400 for free with the hotel. A standard checkout of 1200 doesn’t leave much time for doing much in the morning.

With the extra time available, I had to decide what I wanted to do. At first, it was a toss-up between Coptic Cairo which I visited 10 years ago and the Citadel which I visited 22 years ago. Neither quite appealed so I decided I’d visit the Necropolis, City of the Dead or the northern cemetery.

I took a taxi there without much trouble but was dropped on the opposite side of the expressway where I had to wait for a long time before it was safe to run across.

It was like a deserted suburb of houses that had been locked up. Peering through the gates, I could see some graves in them. Some of the rich in Cairo keep with their ancient traditions of holding on the dead with more dignity. Apparently some of them have rooms so that relatives can come stay once in a while after a picnic.The area was quiet change from the rest of Cairo with no living souls there bar a few passers-by and quite a few dogs.

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I could see the turrets of the Citadel and the Mohammad Ali mosque not too far away. As I still had plenty of time to kill I decided to visit despite my original thoughts this morning. It was a 30 minute walk.

In the Citadel complex, I visited the grand Mohammad Ali mosque there and ignored most of the other sights there; there was a plainer mosque and a military/police museum which I couldn’t find (and it didn’t interest me).

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I took a taxi back to the hotel to wash up and check out. I spent a few hours in the afternoon in the pedestrian mall cafe sipping tea and writing this blog up. It was a very pleasant way of spending the afternoon without a home.

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Hailing a taxi for the airport later, I realised it was the same taxi driver that I had coming back from the Citadel. What’s the chance of that in a city with zillions of taxis? Anyway, the ride cost me EGP100 (including airport entry fee of an unknown amount) which was less than the hotel’s price. This was despite a few turns to avoid the traffic, some of which I thought were completely unnecessary. I reckon it should have been around EGP80.

Anyway, the metered taxis in Cairo are so god-sent. Gone are the days of haggling and having a surprise afterwards regardless.

I had treated myself to a business class ticket to Hong Kong via Istanbul on Turkish Airlines. The deal wasn’t available on their own website but on cheaptickets.com. I strongly dislike booking through non-airline sites but this fare was about the same as other airlines’ economy class fare. Even though Turkish did have a fare at about half that for their own economy class, I thought I deserved the treat after having worked my way through Sudan to Egypt 🙂

Boarding the aircraft at Cairo, I was disappointed to see that the Business Class seats weren’t really that but Economy seats (triplet) with the centre blocked off.  But realising that the flight was only 2h (rather than 3h) due to an hour’s time difference made it seem perfectly acceptable. The meal on this short flight was stunning and better than those on some longhaul Business Class on other airlines.