This is a typically busy little
street in Islamic Cairo, confusing, packed full of people carrying
junk here and there, with a minaret overseeing all. This is where you
go to walk in shit and get date-pits in the treads of your shoes.
Donkey carts roll through here with cabs behind them honking. What
falls to the ground gets picked through by chickens. Them chickens
must have been tough to make it to adulthood despite the throngs of
scraggly cats. Sensitive eaters beware.
This photo was taken from the minaret
of the mosque of Sultan Hassan. You're looking at The Citadel, where
various palaces and mosques are, including that huge attempt at
Turkish majesty right there. The interior of it is at once very
impressive and kind of tasteless, as its builder, Muhammad Ali (a
different one) was something of a vulgarian by mosque standards. No
naked women with clocks in their stomachs or anything, but it's
glitzy in a non-figurative Frenchified way.
This is a courtyard in Muhammad Ali's
mosque.
One of the mosques in The Citadel, En
Nasr. The minaret has some nice green tile work, which you'll have to
use some imagination to see.
Okay, this is an ugly shot, but low
light was not helping me. This is En Nasr's minbar (where the iman
chants Qu'ran from on high) and the little nave-like area where the
Qu'ran is kept. Islam is the Op-Art religion. Look at those
inlays.
This is the only decorated irwan in the
mosque of Sultan Hassan. He was a puppet ruler, and his masters
killed him when they found out he was spending so much money making
this titanic monument. In standard Egyptian fashion, nobody bothered
to complete the work.
The inside of the irwan above. Those
lamps are hanging from the roof by chains...imagine being the poor
fool who had to keep them lit. They're electric now of course. The
minaret here is a fun climb...up a stairway to the roof, up a
stairway inside a dark circular tower, another tower after that, and
you get a great view of Cairo. Look out for that missing
step.
The minarets of Rifai from the minaret
of Sultan Hassan.
The mosque of Hassan on the left, and
Rifai on the right. The Shah of Iran's tomb is in Rifai for some
reason, surrounded by green flourescent lighting. Coloured
flourescents are the official neon substitute in Egypt.
Somehow I got a nice picture of this
nice open courtyard in, I think, the mosque build by mystical tyrant
El Hakim. It's a relief being in a place like this when the crowds
and squalor around it can be so overwhelming. It was a particularly
instructive mosque: the folks in charge of taking money did an
excellent job of fleecing me by not having change and so on...and at
that point I was too polite to complain, especially in the face of
such bad dental work. Under those arches? Pigeon nests. Watch where
you step. You can wash your feet at that fountain in the middle
though.
What's behind the pyramids? Nothing.
Get a little distance from the Nile and everything is bleak. In front
of the Pyramids? Millions of Cairenes and a golf course right under
the hill the pyramids are on.
This is some dope at the pyramids. He
claims his camel's name is Charlie Brown. The pyramids are
impressively monomaniacal piles of rock but they're surrounded by
weasels who are desperate for your cash. This is understandable, as
tourists are loaded, relatively speaking, but it can get pretty
frustrating trying to look around when people are constantly trying
to sell you things, including opportunities for outstanding pictures
like this. I paid this guy a little money for it, for god's sake.
What a soft touch. Eventually my sole souvenir purchase in all of
Egypt was a T-shirt that read "I CAME TO SEE PYRAMIDS. LEAVE ME
ALONE." I paid too much for it of course.