Day 57- Cairo

Day 57- 11 October 2008 Today we arrived in Cairo by train around 11am (3.5 hours late). When then headed to the Necropolis of Saqqara and visted the step pyramid which was built by King Zoser (before the great pyramids in Giza). This pyramid consists of 6 latrge stone steps which were put on top of each other. Most of the outter stone has been taken over the years as the site (much like many other sites here) were used as quaries by non belivers after the time of the pharohs passed. Cairo has about 100 pyramids scattered around and we could see others also in the distance. We then headed to Coptic Cairo and went into one of the oldest churches in the history of christianity. Whilst not as impressive as those visited in europe, it has a deep sense of tradition and was built on the place where the holy family hid when the romans where in town in around 600AD. From there we went to the vibrant Khan el Khalilli Market in cairo and it was suprising that although very large (as it went the length of a street (a few kms) it had the usual souvenier stuff and also alot of stuff you would find at dodgy markets in australia, such as toys, cleaning products etc and other interesting things like fireworks. From there we headed on board a giant boat on the nile for a farewell dinner cruise, which consisted of a very poorly stocked buffet dinner but excellent entertainment. First there was some live music then a belly dancer and some darwish dancers (one midget and one tall person). Darwish dancing is a person turning in a circle very very quickly with very colourful dress on which twirls and is very colourful. The dancers could even zip around the room nearly taking out peoples heades with there large UFO Shapped dress discs and also perform stunts like pooring drinks and arm wrestling whilst still spinning this disc hight and fast. It was a very interesting night of festivities.