BACK IN CAIRO: WE TOURISTS VISIT THE SPHINX [EGYPT, 1964]

In Cairo.  Up in the morning, eggs for breakfast,  and to the American Embassy where they assured us all was o.k. as long as our passports were stamped.  Then we discovered that BOAC would not take our money (because we had no paper showing we had bought it in Egyptian banks, and not at black market rates -- by the way, while with the Libyans, we were brought to a black market Jewish tailor who sold money on the side -- the rest of our money we had bought in Beirut and smuggled in).

Then to the Garden City Hotel which was run by Italian-Egyptians.  We explained that we wanted the least expensive room that they had, so they gave us a tiny back room with two beds in it (they moved an extra one in) for $1.50 a night.  They were very kind to us, and they gave us a free supper.  We were embarrassed because we felt we had unintentionally misled them.


Met Fuat (the conductor) at the BOAC office -- but John never showed, so that evening with them was cancelled.


Sunday -- shopping and a trip to the Great Pyramid of Cheops, starting out from the Nile Hilton, the most modern hotel in Cairo,  where we joined a group of tourists for our trip to see

"Son et Lumiere" (Sound & Light) -- During the "Son" part, the Sphinx spoke to us in the unmistakable voice of John Gielgud, an Englishman who in Nasser’s independent Egypt, intoned, “Man fears time,  but time fears the pyramids.”   The place was crawling with tourists -- all kinds (including us)!  On our return from the show, we went into the Hilton to find a very expensive gift shop run by -- who else -- Armenians, of course.  [Note: This was our first time meeting any Armenians in Egypt, even though my friend KK tells me there was a large community of Armenians there in the 1960's.] We splurged on a tuna salad dinner in the hotel's outdoor cafe, and feeling very guilty about our hosts at our humble hotel, and feeling very full, headed for what was now our home base.


In looking back on our stay in Egypt, it seems that most of the time we lived on free Cokes and stale bread. . .Every shop that we walked into offered us Cokes or tea (the wise Middle Easterner drinks hot tea to cool off), wanted to know if we had American money to change (they could give us a good rate, they told us -- though their rate was only 1/2 as good as the one we got in Beirut!)

N.B. Years later, back here in the States, I learned that the erosion to the Sphinx and the pyramids caused by the sands of time over thousands of years was equalled by the erosion caused by air pollution (yes, there is air pollution in Egypt) over the last 40 years!  Or did I learn that then?  Not sure!

Stay tuned for more Egyptian adventures recorded in my  1964 journal.