Day 31 - Cairo - Leaving Home

Well, we've finished the final full day on location here in Egypt. This morning we went back to City Stars shopping mall to get one more shot (from the lift, looking out over the central hall as it ascended). Then we interviewed the curator of the art exhibition we visited the other day, Mohsen Shaalan. He gave us each a signed copy of a collection of his work along with some tasty fresh lemon juice.

The Hanging Church

We then went to the Hanging Church, a Coptic Christian place of worship in an old part of the city. "Coptic" means Egyptian, and the Coptic Christians instigated the first major split in Christianity. Most of them have since converted to Islam, but there are small communities around the country.

This was followed by Cairo airport, where we filmed people coming and going, riding escalators, being reflected in chrome and glass. Unfortunately our final location tonight was cancelled, so we finished work pretty early (7pm). All there is to do now is back up today's video clips, pack, then get up tomorrow morning and get a plane back to London. It's a bit of a letdown for the final night of the trip, but there wasn't anything we could do about it.

I'm off to enjoy my final Holiday Inn Cairo dinner buffet. The dessert table will not know what hit it. To finish, here's a couple of photos of Old Cairo I took today. Salaam.

Traditional market stall

Meat, shisha, veg.

Day 30 - Cairo - At the Museum

The first location today was the Egyptian museum, which houses a huge collection of artifacts from the Pharaonic era of Egypt's past including jewellery, decorated sarcophagi, chariots, statues, paintings, mummies and the famous death mask of King Tutankhamun.


This is the only photo I took.

The little-known Lego Dynasty, 3500-3000 BC

I'm sorry, this is a crappy blog post and you deserve better. Anyway, I saw King Tut's death mask, and it was strangely underwhelming compared to seeing the majesty of the temples and Pyramids. I think it's because I've seen so many photos of it, it's become too familiar. It was interesting to see the back of the mask though, which you never see in books or TV documentaries, and is as finely detailed as the front. If you want to know what it looks like you'll have to come to Cairo.

We interviewed Dr. Wafaa El Saddik, the museum director, who talked about the objects she chose for inclusion in the Egyptian Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo. Afterwards we went to Ramses Square, a really busy junction where we filmed traffic and pedestrians as the sun went down.

Finally we paid a visit to the Intercontinental Hotel around the corner from ours, and filmed a live bellydancing performance, which was amazing. We'd been trying to arrange it for ages and it kept almost getting cancelled so it was great to finally get it done. We were previously going to hire a private bellydancer until we discovered that's a euphemism...

Wednesday is our last shooting day as we get a plane home at 9:20am on Thursday, so it'll probably be quite hectic. We're doing some more interviews, going to a Coptic Christian church, and also the airport.


One last thing: Zawi Hawass's team has released the findings of their DNA analysis of Tutankhamun that he told us about the other day. The Times Online has an article about it.

Day 29 - Cairo - Consumerism and Art

Last Pyramids photo?

This was the sunset last night (Sunday), and it's possibly the last time I'll photograph the Pyramids. And there was a big smudge on the lens just above the one on the right. Yesterday we spent the day at the Mercedes-Benz factory just outside Cairo, filming the factory floor. We got some great industrial shots and interviewed the general manager, who was very welcoming.

That evening we went to City Stars shopping centre next to our hotel. 700 shops, restaurants and cinemas, the largest in the Middle East. Being in a Muslim country, most Egyptians don't go out drinking at night, they go shopping instead. The place was packed even at 10:30pm, but we got some interesting video clips out of it.

Gnarly

Today we went to the Nahdet Misr art gallery, where this tree provided a good backdrop for an interview with an artist. We also went to an art gallery at the opera house and interviewed Ayman El Semary and Riham El Sadany, two local artists.

Ayman El Semary's work. The Nile flows across a gallery wall.

This evening we went to Darb El Barabra, the light market. It's a long corridor of winding narrow street, with traders, shoppers, tourists, cats, mopeds, cars and vans all squeezing between the shops and pushing past each other. I'll leave you with these images, which should give you a bit of an idea of what it was like.

Day 27 - Cairo - Sobei Goes Back to School

I didn't manage to take any photos yesterday as I was too busy, but we went to a really interesting part of town called El Moiz, lots of winding streets with tiny shops selling brass goods. We also had our second run-in with Cairo's Finest. 

Today we paid a visit to Sobei's (an Egyptian colleague) old school, did some shooting around the buildings and interviewed the head teacher. It's one of Cairo's French language Christian schools.

Greeted by Jesus

Christian yet still very Egyptian

For lunch we went to the slowest fast food restaurant in the world, where the difference between the medium and large sandwiches was that the large one came in a bigger bag. This was the only bad food experience I've had in four weeks of eating in Egypt however. In the afternoon we went to the Cairo Opera House and interviewed a classical musician, then called it a day.

Meanwhile, back in the pocket universe known as Holiday Inn Cairo, the breakfast woman said good morning as usual, asked how I was, I said great thanks and asked how she was (again), I had the same breakfast I always do, my bed was made and my room tidied while I was out, and then I had the dinner buffet again with the same easy listening music playing. After travelling around so much, staying in one hotel for so long is starting to feel like Groundhog Day. Ah well, the locations are still interesting at least.

Day 25 - Giza - The Last Wonder

My sphinx has got no nose

How does it smell?

Terrible

Today we went to the pyramids at Giza near Cairo. That's me with the Sphinx, which stands guard outside these huge monuments to the pharaohs. At 9am we interviewed Dr. Zawi Hawass, head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities and active archaeologist. His recent discoveries include the tombs of the workers who built the pyramids, which uncovered the fact that the pyramids were built by paid farmers during the seasons when the Nile flooded and they couldn't work on their farms, not by slaves as people had assumed for years. He gave an animated speech about Egypt, and he even wore his Indiana Jones hat.

The Great Pyramid of Khufu

This is the last surviving wonder of the world, the Great Pyramid of Khufu. It's incredibly impressive but must have been even more amazing in ancient times when it was covered in a layer of limestone (long since looted) which reflected the sunlight and could be seen for miles around.

I'm pretty sure this is called "The Other Big One"

Soon after the interview with Dr. Hawass a massive dust storm started up which was a nightmare for the cameras and us. Imagine having sand blown in your face constantly for about four hours with no way of taking shelter from it. At least in the Western Desert we were jumping in and out of a jeep so we didn't have to put up with it for long. We did visit an interesting tomb though, with a statue that Barack Obama joked looked like him when he toured the pyramids recently. The hieroglyphics were so detailed and well preserved you could make out the feathers on the owl glyph's wings.

It was probably a curse, knowing my luck

After exploring the pyramids close up we rode on camels out into the desert. Our camel drivers were Ahmed and his son, who must have been about seven or eight. An expert rider, he chatted to the camel throughout the journey as he bounced about on top of it, his little legs swinging about. I laughed out loud when a small girl on a horse almost collided with us and he yelled at her angrily like a Cairo driver.

OK, these are horses

The dust storm cleared up and we filmed the sunset, although it wasn't a great one. We've got a few more locations to visit before we leave a week from today, but if all goes to plan we'll mainly be doing interviews so I don't know how many more photos I'll have for you.

Nothing like Cairo pollution. Bet it didn't look like this 5000 years ago

Day 24 - Cairo - City of Life and Death

New and old, live and dead

This looks like an old run down part of the city but it's actually a cemetery. Tombs that look like houses spread out into a whole neighbourhood that sits completely still in the middle of the busy city.

Silent city

No faces at these windows

Not far from here we went to a shisha cafe where old men who were very much alive played games, smoked and drank tea. This was a good location as we needed more shots of people.

Smoke and light

Shisha pipes waiting for customers

We also had an adventure involving the Cairo police today, which I'll tell you about when I'm back. For now, here's a nice photo of the sunset.

Piercing the sky

Day 23 - Cairo - Back to Work

The winter of 1947 was the worst the UK had seen for years. My granddad had been in the army for around twelve months, and all over the country army bases were being closed down and soldiers sent home. Everyone was wondering how long they'd have to work in the freezing cold.


Just when it felt like the air couldn't get any colder (probably - I made that bit up) my granddad was posted to Egypt at short notice and found himself in a completely opposite climate. Sixty-three years later, the country's facing the coldest winter in years and I get sent to work in Egypt at short notice. I only hope the weather's better when I return.


We spent the afternoon zooming around the Cairo Book Fair in a golf cart today, then filmed another sunset from a rooftop. We're into the final stretch now, Pyramids on Thursday!

Ceiling of the abandoned Roman-style theatre

It's Cairo, it's a fair, there's books - It's the Cairo Book Fair!

The replacement for our Toyota Prius

It always drops like a stone when it gets near the horizon

Somewhere in the world there's a sunrise happening