Egyptian Artwork….Incredibly Beautiful….

The papyrus plant in water

Pressing the papyrus leaves



Criscrossing the papyrus leaves to make paper



Beautiful Artwork



Beautiful Villa in Maadi



The Nile River

On my third day in Egypt I met with friends I had met through Jango.  This Egyptian family was incredibly gracious and hospital and we went to a café near my flat and their home to spend some time together.  It was great to meet them and to finally put a face to the name of someone I have been in contact for many months.  The time with them will be wonderful memories to be remembered always.  I only hope I can return the welcome and hospitality they showed me.

In the evening, my faithful and new found friend Mohamed Bahaa took me to the Pyramids Papyrus Institute, a gallery and museum of beautiful Egyptian art made on papyrus paper.  The colors in these artworks were extraordinarily beautiful.  Not only do you see the beautiful art but you can see how it’s done as well. The curator explains how the process of papyrus paper is done which is where the artist then uses as his canvas.  There are large works to small ones that are mostly done for tourist souvenirs but are still quite lovely.

This was also my first experience in shopping “Egyptian” style.  Where the price you see is never the final price. There is an art in bargaining and getting a discount and even when you think you won’t get any more discount, just push a little and you will most likely get it.  Mohamed was also very helpful in nudging the curator in giving me the best prices for the items I bought.  Some were for me and others were gifts that I purchased for friends back home.

After the museum visit Mohamed took me on a tour of a section of Cairo called Maadi.  It’s a high end residential area with very nice apartment buildings and amazing houses or villas as they call them here in Egypt.  There is a lot of trees and you can definitely see that the quality of life and housing is very different from the rest of Cairo.  The sidewalks are lined with beautiful Jasmine and vibrant purple and hot pink Bougainville trees.  A beautiful neighbor indeed….

Our next stop was on one of the bridges that crosses the Nile in Cairo.  Here we stopped on the side lane on the bridge (I guess this is ok because there were many cars doing the same thing we were doing!) and I took several pictures of the famous Nile River. It is actually quite wide and on the muddy side.  After driving around and showing me more parts of Cairo we headed home early as tomorrow Mohamed will be picking me up at 5:15 to head to the airport and fly to Luxor! There I will be seeing the Karnak and Luxor Temple.  It will be awesome!

Traveling Redheaded Lady (TRL)