It was already Friday. My time in Egypt was almost over, since my flight back to Germany was scheduled for Sunday. How crazy, I thought. Time just flew by so quickly and I still had so many questions about Africa's biggest capital...

Discussing a little bit on how would I spend my last day in Egypt, my uncle proposed we should drive to the Pyramids for a second time and visit those of Sakkara.
"The Pyramids of Sakkara are also very impressive: there's the bent Pyramid of Djoser, Khufu's ship and many other Ancient Egypt jewels".
The plan sounded just perfect, but then he added: "Or, we could visit Hosh al-Basha in the City of the Dead".

"Hosh al-Basha?", I asked dubiously. "It's the name given to the Muhammad Ali tombs, put in other words, the mausoleum where he buried his entire family and servants. It's located within the City of the Dead, a neighbourhood which was built on a cemetery", my uncle added.

He didn't have to add anything else, I had already made my decision.

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The next day, we got ready early to find Hosh al-Basha, since my uncle had only been there once when he was guided by a spanish man named Pedro, who happens to be really into Cairo and has done some serious research on the city's first mosques and historic places. He set the GPS system and off we went, on a search that seemed quite useless, because Hosh al-Basha is one of those rare jewels of architecture that no one mentions in books or city guides.

Driving around on such a hot day was the first of a series of struggles, but the minor one of all of them. We drove around for about 40 minutes, during which I used the Citadel and the Muhammad Ali Pasha Mosque to try to locate myself within the complicated city scheme of Cairo. Minutes later, the GPS guided us to a side street through the one my uncle drove; I suddenly realized the architecture had changed: medium-sized gated houses appeared on one side of the road and I suspected we were in front of the houses of the City of the Dead.

My first glance at the City of the Dead. It was also my first photo of the impressive gates that were crypts during Ottoman times. They now serve as housing for people. The entrances are covered by an incredible amount of garbage, a sign that we were close to the neighbourhood in Mokattam, also called "Garbage city".

The thing with this part of town is that it is actually a huge cemetery. This is not a joke; people actually live among the dead and among the tombs. The history of this neighbourhood stretches back to Ottoman times. Egypt was a province of the Ottoman empire, following its conquest on 1517 until 1914, when the British declared Egypt their protectorate.

During this period of Egyptian history, Ottoman families established themselves here, hence they also buried their dead in the city. According to what I heard and read, they had the belief that once in a year, their beloved ones who passed away came back to Earth, so they had to visit them. This was the reason why they built the crypts with enough space to stay, almost like little houses.

After the dynasty of Muhamad Ali no longer ruled over Egypt, thousands of egyptians settled down in this area, calling these crypts their new home. During the course of the 20th century, King Farouk was deposed and the monarchy was abolished; events such as the defeat in the Palestine War and the lack of trust in the king led to the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, thus beginning the Nasr era.

Gamal Abdel Nasr was the second president of the country and he introduced a series of socialist measures and reforms in Egypt. Among other measures, he simply guaranteed the water and electricity supply to the people living in the City of the Dead, which is why they decided to stay in this huge cemetery.

After this brief explanation, I can now begin explaining our adventure prior to finding the Muhammad Ali tombs.
But that'll be tomorrow!
Until then,
Astrid