“Welcome to Cairo.”
“Happy New Year!”
“Where are you from? Germany?”
“Happy Valentine’s Day!”
“Welcome to Alaska!”
“No? Welcome, America!”
Egypt was delighted to see me. So overjoyed, in fact, that Egyptians couldn’t contain themselves. They shouted greetings (some comprehensible, others befuddling) wherever I walked: along pinched lanes in the old Islamic quarter, inside pharaonic temples and tombs, in a Nubian village in Aswan, on the sandy shores of the Red Sea. The pleasantries came from policemen on horseback, vendors pushing heavy carts of peanuts and men smoking shisha in outdoor cafés, their salutations released in plumes of scented smoke.
“Welcome, welcome, welcome!”
Thank you, it’s a been a while. About four years, by most people’s count.
The calendar pages started curling on January 25, 2011, the start of Egypt’s Arab Spring revolution, which resulted in the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak. The following June, elections ushered in Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi. About a year later he, too, was gone. Next up: Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. The former head of the armed services will celebrate his first year as president in June.
“We will go for it and see what happens,” said Mohamed, my Cairo guide. “But we are happy with this man. With so many problems around, we need a man like this.”
The years of political tumult upended the country and spooked millions of international travellers. Tourism, which reached record-high levels in 2010 with 14.7 million visitors, tumbled weeks later. Cruise ships eliminated Egyptian ports of call. Tour operators diverted clients to other points on the map. Western governments warned their citizens to avoid travel there.
Since Sisi’s rise, travellers have struggled to form a precise picture of Egypt, especially as troubles bubble up in nearby lands. (The latest: terrorist strikes in a Tunisia museum.) Though countries have downgraded their alerts, and cruise lines and tour groups are slowly returning, uncertainty persists. Many wonder: is the country is safe? And, if so, will it last?
“Tourism is our religion, our food. We need it, our families need it,” a Cairo papyrus seller said. “The impression you have of Egypt is more important than buying.”
From Washington, I polled several experts on this topic, including an international risk-management analyst, a specialist in Egyptian travel and the country's minister of tourism. They all told me that the country was safe and stable. Calm had been restored. It was time for Americans to return.
So this American did.
The winds of travel regularly blow in the same direction, from north to south, or Lower to Upper Egypt. The majority of tourists follow the Nile’s blue streak from Cairo to Luxor to Aswan, then back up.
I was not going to break from tradition, though I did want to put my own independent stamp on my mid-February trip. Instead of flying or driving to Luxor, I planned to take the overnight train. I also wanted to observe — close your eyes, Mother — one of the “gatherings” that often form after Friday prayers. And — keep ‘em shut — I hoped to visit the Sinai Peninsula.
My agent at Audley Travel flicked away my fancies with her guardian-angel wings. Brigitte quashed the train idea, because the tracks cut through some dangerous territory between the two cities. She also informed me that my guides had clear instructions to avoid any demonstrations. However, she did grant me my third request, as long as I stayed in a resort town along the Red Sea coast. (Note: the US State Department urges caution for all parts of the country, especially areas in the Sinai beyond Sharm el-Sheikh.)
Overall, I had a long leash with few restrictions. I could freely walk around the cities and towns alone (following street-smarts protocol, of course) and dress liberally (but not a la Kardashian). Depending on the company, I could broach topics (religion, politics, gender relations) often considered indelicate at company holiday parties. In return, I felt that many Egyptians were eager to share their opinions and recent experiences.
“The last few years in Egypt have been really hard,” Mohamed said as we waited for the car in the airport parking lot. “We had nothing and now we need everything. But it is getting better as people start seeing hope.”
The halo of optimism is expanding. In addition to steadying the country, Sisi has resumed projects started by Mubarak and developed new ones. Plans include building the Alexandria Underwater Museum, renovating the Grand Egyptian Museum at Giza, extending the Nile cruise trail to Alexandria and constructing more than 2,100 miles of roads. Tourism officials also hinted at reopening Nefertari’s tomb in Luxor, which closed in 2003 to protect its fragile interior.
The pyramid field at Dashur, about 25 miles south of Cairo, has been around since 2600 BC Pharaoh Sneferu was a pyramid perfectionist who tinkered with the design and materials of his afterlife crib. The Old Kingdom ruler is credited with creating the innovative triangular shape that inspired the scene-stealing monuments at Giza.
Despite Dashur’s historical significance, the government waited several millennia before inviting the public inside. The area, which also contains a military training camp, opened in 2005, though it lost several years to the revolution.
The Giza antiquities, including the Sphinx, attract droves of tourists. At the 242-foot-tall Red Pyramid, though, I could count the people on three fingers. I passed Thumb, Index and Pinkie on the way up the north face. A man draped in cotton garments guarded the entryway and asked whether I planned to take pictures. I peered into the narrow gloom, felt the squeeze of claustrophobia and declined.
The descent resembled a mine shaft with cleaner air. I crouched down low, taking wobbly baby giraffe steps into the deep stillness. I arrived in a large tomb chamber with a soaring corbelled ceiling. The burial space aligns with the North Star, a fast lane to the heavens. While we mere mortals have to navigate the dizzying stairs, the pharaoh-god took the divine route out.
Throughout my travels, I often discovered myself alone (e.g., Tombs of the Nobles, Howard Carter House, Valley of the Queens) or with small knots of people (Valley of the Kings). I came across the most robust crowds at the Mortuary Temple of Queen Hatshepsut, near Luxor. I was surrounded by Egyptian college students, many of whom found a US tourist to be as interesting a relic as the longest-reigning female pharaoh.
My Luxor guide said that during the golden age of tourism (6,000 people per day in 2010), folks often waited up to five hours to enter the three tombs at the Valley of the Kings. My record thumb-twiddling stretch: fewer than five minutes to see the tar-coloured King Tut mummy. The longest queue: the Mummy Exhibit at Cairo’s Egyptian Museum.
“It’s busy, busy, busy,” my guide, Abdel, said before noon. “This line will remain with us till 3 or 4 o'clock.”
No matter the size of the audience, or the attractions’ state of decomposition, security officials always seemed within shouting range.
After the Luxor terrorist attacks in 1997, the country amped up its patrol forces, even establishing a tourist police. I grew accustomed to seeing uniformed men slinging semiautomatic rifles. I noticed them in airports, outside monuments, in the scrubby hills and along rural roadsides.
They were definitely watching. On the drive to Dashur, we stopped at several checkpoints to answer questions about our travel itinerary. At my hotel in Luxor, a guard would scribble on a clipboard every time we drove off. One afternoon, I saw him sharing the information with two men in a car marked “Tourist Police.” The exchange was friendly, as if they were discussing traffic conditions. Inside the Sofitel Winter Palace, all guests who entered the front doors had to step through an X-ray machine. However, the employee overseeing the scanner only smiled when I started walking around it.
The greatest buildup of security amassed in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, where the revolution’s flame burned white-hot. A line of police, some at ease in chairs, assembled along the main plaza, near the Egyptian Museum and several embassies. Behind them, hulking army tanks idled single file. Marksmen perched on top, ready for the unexpected.
Until my visit to Tahrir Square, I had only heard the stories. Now I saw the evidence. The National Democratic Party building, which protesters set on fire, was charred black and had peeled as if sunburned. Inside the museum, which abutted the party’s headquarters, a sign in the King Tut exhibit explained how on January 28, 2011, a wooden sculpture from his tomb was stolen and broken into two fragments. A search uncovered the artifact in a trash can on the western side of the garden. The pharaoh’s face, however, is still missing.
On the way out, I asked Abdel whether we could swing into the gift shop. Sure, except for one problem. He showed me the skeletal retail space with empty shelves and glass cases, the telltale signs of looters. More evidence.
Chef Anha minces garlic but never words.
“Nothing,” she said emphatically, “will happen to you in Egypt.”
My first lesson at her House of Cooking school: trust the matriarch of the kitchen on all matters. (When asked whether the revolution affected her Cairo business, she responded, “they still had to eat.” Can’t argue with that.)
The longtime chef teaches with her daughter, Mona. The pair of professionals take cooking seriously but not themselves. Anha is Lucy to Mona’s Ethel.
They hold classes in their sunlit Nasr City shop plastered with photos of grinning students posing with their homemade dishes. Mona handed me a chequered apron, while Anha reviewed the “I Love Egypt” menu: orzo soup, sauteed veggies stuffed in saj flatbread (or shawarma for the meat-eaters), baklava with walnuts and a mango yogurt drink.
To warm up the senses, Anha placed a platter of spices under my nose and quizzed me. I sniffed and called out cumin, cinnamon, ginger, smoked paprika and allspice. I blanked on turmeric but still passed.