Visiting Karnak and around Cairo

On Friday July 10, we got into 4-passenger carriages which took us to the temple complex of Karnak. This is where those huge columns are seen in the movie "Death on the Nile". They were overwhelming. We saw the row of ram sphinxes, statues of Ramses II and others. Most pharaohs added to the great complex, even Alexander the Great.
We got back in our carriages and went to see Luxor, another temple complex about two miles from of Karnak. In ancient days there was a road lined with sphinxes that ran between the two temples. Now only a small part remains. One of the obelisks that stood outside the Luxor complex in front was sent to France and was placed in the Place de la Concorde.
After lunch we flew back to Cairo, same hotel but different room. After dinner we dressed in Sunday clothes and held sacrament meeting in a room in the hotel basement. Friday is the Sabbath for Muslims so members hold church meetings on that day.
Saturday, July 11. We drove past the 700-year-old city of the dead that has people living in it. The Muslims build two little rooms, under which they bury their dead; the women on one side and men on the other. The rooms are visited periodically by living relative to bring offerings and to hold memorial services in. When poor people realize that a family has died out and no one will be visiting, they move in. The cemetery is vast and covers many acres.
We went to the Citadel of Saladin, of Richard the Lionhearted fame. Inside is the beautiful alabaster Mosque, built last century by Mohammed Ali. It is built on the order of the famous Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. We had to remove our shoes and put on slippers to go in. If we had been wearing shorts or sleeveless blouses, we would have had to put on long green robes. I saw several women wearing them. The mosque is large and empty inside, the floor covered in carpets. The ceiling is a beautiful green with gold designs. There is a stairway leading to a pulpit where the Imam preaches on Fridays. It was very fancy and ornate but is no longer in use; another one, not as fancy, is used today.
Our guide Mohammed had us sit on the rug while he explained about the religion of Islam. The five pillars of Islam are 1) one has to confess that there is no god bu Alah and that Mohammed is his prophet; 2) pray five times towards Mecca; 3) observe the fast of Ramadan; 4) pay 2 1/2% yearly on all one possess and 5), if possible, make the pilgrimage to Mecca. Women and men pray in separate sections in the mosque; the women’s being smaller as mostly men come to the mosques to pray.
We visited the Cairo Museum. It is very large, a little dusty but not quite as Amelia Peabody described in her book. We concentrated mostly on the treasure of Tutankhamen and what a treasure it is! We saw the jewelry and the famous mask, they are housed in a separate room with guards present. We saw the four large gold-covered boxes that surrounded the sarcophogus , one fitting inside the other. We saw the throne with the famous picture of Tut and his queen together.
We drove within one block of Shepheard’s Hotel, famous for the many people who stayed in it in the 1800s. I wish I could have seen it but didn’t feel so badly after finding out later that the building burned down years ago and this is a new one. Our lunch was on a moored boat on the Nile. Lovely looking food be we were not able to eat a lot of it because of the unclean water.
We had a Tourist and Antiquities guard on each bus in Egypt. We also had a police car escort when we went sightseeing in Cairo. There were soldiers mounted on camels with machine guns at the pyramids at Giza and Sakkara. Soldiers were visible at all tourist attractions. Egypt did not want a repeat of the massacre that had occurred a few months earlier at Queen Hatshepsut’s monument.
One thought that kept coming to my mind while in Egypt was that I would not like to be a mother of children there, so much poverty and filth. It would be so hard to bring up healthy children. What a blessing to live in our country.