The Long Search for the Cat Mummies

Cairo, Egypt
By Laura M

This would be my first time ever on the African continent, and I’d only previously been around North America and Europe. I harbored all kinds of anxiety about what to expect and most people I talked to told me not to go to Egypt, not alone anyhow. In fact, people were frantic and giving me dire warnings about my vulnerability in this place, but I decided I would see what I’d wanted to see for so many years, more than anything in SE Asia (my other choice) so I went ahead and bought the ticket. And, what I’m about to tell is a very summarized version of an intense, but good and meaningful, visit.

Laura and Magdy

What is now Tel Basta is an ancient city that is several thousand years old. My desire to see this, among other things in Egypt and Africa, evolved out of my interest in cats which goes back many years to when I was in college. I took a class on Near Eastern religion and another on anthropology where I learned about the cult of Bastet and Bubastis, I proceeded to read everything I could find on the subject. In its day, Bubastis, a city on the Nile (Neeh-lah is how it’s pronounced in Egypt) was the site of a yearly festival in honor of Bastet and is said to have attracted hundreds of thousands of people who sailed up the river for this purpose. Bastet herself is said to be the goddess of fertility, the moon, cats and sex. How benign she was is up for debate, although she’s mostly seen as a kinder, gentler sister version of Sekhmet, the lion-headed goddess (although this is disputed as well) and was known for protecting her father, Ra. She is compared, for reasons I’m not sure, with the Greek goddess Artemis, and was also a symbol of protection.

This is not a well known tourist destination for all that there is a museum. It is closest to the small town Zagazig, which is little known outside Egypt, and not a tourist destination (all the more reason to go?). Although this is not the only reason I decided to visit Egypt, it did take a big chunk of my time. All I had to rely on how to get to this place was my Lonely Planet guide which listed a bus, but how to find this was superhumanly complicated in a town in which all or most of the signs were in Arabic. Although not many travelers or even Egyptians I had met had heard of this place, Bastet seems to have a following.

Exploring Alexandria with my friend, Lonely Planet

Upon arrival at my hotel around 4 am, I was in a conversation with the night doorman, and I asked how to get to this place. He had been telling me about felucca rides that were done by them, which went to Luxor and Aswan. I told him I was more interested in going here. He was confused, startled, and told me he’d never met a tourist whose main interest was seeing Zagazig. I explained Tel Basta to him and he said he’d never heard of it. This was my first attempt at getting there.

It would be several more days and attempts at finding the bus, conversations with different people who were equally unknowing of the place, people trying to sell me something different when I told them I wanted to see Zagazig and Tel Basta, and someone else telling me he’d take me there but then that fell through, as well.

In the meantime, I got to see several other sites around Cairo. My first day, I went to the Pyramids, which have been written about ad nauseum already so I won’t go into it too much. Here are a few highlights of my experience:

It is very difficult to get around Cairo. There are no real traffic lights or stops or rules, and with all the signs in Arabic trying to get a bus to Giza from the Egyptian museum (which my book told me was where it is) was a massively confusing and frustrating experience. Add to that the dust and intensely bright sun, plus people everywhere, and no sure fire way to even cross the street. How I finally got to Giza, which I found is pretty much the way to get anywhere there, was with help from a local who spoke English, a guy, who approached me, called Omar. I met him my second day in Cairo, and he became one of my companions (my personal experiences here are another story). Omar got me on one of their buses going to Giza (which have no signs and the drivers typically don’t speak English). After negotiating the amount, I got on a horse and he on another, and on we went to the Pyramids. I will say this, though, to really get an understanding and appreciation of them, I recommend going at least three or four times, because it takes that long for it to sink in. When you first arrive, there will be many people trying to get your attention to go on rides and it all gets very confusing. This was my first time on a horse in many years, and the one I had was particularly skittish and began to run as soon as we got in the sand. I was trying to remember what my mother, a horse fan, had taught me about posting as well as trying to stay on it. But, once it was back to relative calm, we circled around the area more. It was sort of eerie, actually, with animal carcasses lying around. One guy we passed, Omar told me, was responsible for greeting tourists and had been doing this for decades, hearing people from around the world tell their stories. Then Omar began to tell me of the invasions by Napoleon, among others, and the things they stole.

I told Omar, later after we left, that I wanted to see Tel Basta and asked if he knew how to get there. He said he could drive me but his car wasn’t working well. He had no understanding why I wanted to go, either, and sort of rolled his eyes at my request, but he said he’d try to help me get there.

After that, I didn’t see him for a few days, and I couldn’t get in touch with him as his phone wasn’t working. I was back to being on my own for a while and this is when I met Magdy.

I was somewhere around the shopping district, and I barely remember how it happened, except that I was looking for a place to get some food (in the restaurants there the menus are all in Arabic) and he approached me and asked me something. Then we started talking more, and we more or less bonded. Magdy was a Coptic Christian who had lived for a couple of years in London. He ended up showing me all over Cairo, taking me to various restaurants, coffee shops and showing me Old and Islamic Cairo. He kept me company as well so that I had someone to eat with and otherwise be with. He took me back to the Pyramids for a second visit, and finally it was he who got me to Tel Basta. When Magdy took me the second time, I was able to get on a horse again (after not having ridden one for many years) and see them up close. Later, Magdy, who was friends with the stable owners, got us lunch with his friends, and took me to the top of this building. On the way up, I saw the stables where the camels were kept. Further up on the roof were piles of straw everywhere.

Cairo has juxtaposed right next to each other an ultra-Orthodox religious community in which women walk around covered from head to toe, with sometimes even their faces covered, and a more “youthful” culture which is more or less like what is in the West. Most of the companions I met were charming enough, but they were mostly male. I met a few of the girls, though, particularly some local school girls. They spoke very little English although they were very sweet, and they were all over me as well. I think they mostly wanted to touch my hair and clothes. I did run into Omar later, and spent more time with him. It was through him I met more of the younger crowd, or rather mostly twenties and thirties. These people tended to be mostly in coffee shops, at what was Cairo’s version of a mall, or else at their houses.

Exploring the Pyraminds By Horse

The thing is, and this is not news to many, there are “hustlers” in this region, Cairo in particular. They approach you in a friendly manner and offer to take you places. Many of these people have ulterior motives and see you as a money source, although they’re typically not dangerous, they are an annoyance when what starts out as a friendly conversation turns into a plea for cash. Still, although these people exist, and sadly I did have a few encounters like this, not EVERYONE is this way. I will say this, though. Tourism is to many their only real source of income, and they depend on that. Most of the time I’d say rely on your sixth sense, or at least that is what worked for me. This is a country where things don’t happen the same way they do in the West, and the same rules don’t apply. I wouldn’t say that the majority of them have bad intentions, but they have to make a living like everyone else. And we have generally much more money than they. That said, I can say that Magdy had genuinely friendly intentions with me, and we spent many hours there together. I really didn’t have many other companions there except for people I met in the hotel but I didn’t get too close to any of them, and Omar for a while was MIA.

Magdy and I met one morning and he, speaking Arabic, managed to find the main bus to Zagazig. Persistence paid off, finally! This trip out there took us through a desolate area with mostly broken buildings and, later, farmland and donkeys. There wasn’t anyone, really, around who spoke English besides us.

Zagazig is a very cute and charming town, from what I briefly saw of it. The buildings are colorful and though there aren’t many travellers there, there are many small shops to get food and drinks. We took this bus to Tel Basta, which my friend found (I doubt I’d have been able to myself), was full of decorations and little gadgets, with Egyptian music playing. We got off finally at the Tel Basta museum. As it was, they had closed it early. However, Magdy bribed one of the guards, and that is how we got to see it.

Getting there at last, well, what did it consist of? On the surface, not much. There were no people around except myself, Magdy and the guards. What is a museum is actually a site of ruins; really what you see is giant stones scattered around in no real order. There are statues, one of them of a lion-headed goddess who could be Bastet or Sekhmet, along with what appeared to be hills of dirt. Then, someone mentioned to me, I think the guard, that cat mummies, I think thousands of them, are buried here, and I was possibly standing over them. There were also live cats everywhere, as is the case with most of Egypt. In its day, three thousand years ago, Bubastis was a gorgeous and very important town with superb architecture. I asked why apparently the temple was destroyed, as it was evident someone (or many people) had knocked it down. I was told that when Ramses took over, as he wanted to take away any reminders of past rulers; however, I can’t be sure if this is really the reason. I can say that this place was much brighter than I had thought it would be; and smaller. I really wasn’t sure what to expect of this place, but not being an archaeologist, it can be confusing to walk around all this stuff but not know what it means. But what I did get was a recurring fantasy of filming a dance video in Zagazig (musicals are very big in Egypt).

After this we got back on the bus to Cairo, as it was I who decided not to spend the night here. Plus, I had plans to go to Dahab, but also decided to see Alexandria. We both fell asleep on the way back and by the time we were back in Cairo I was groggy and my vision pretty blurred. I went back to the hotel to get up the next morning to leave. It turned out to be easier, for some reason, to go back to Cairo then leave from there to Alexandria than to continue there from Zagazig

The next morning, once again I was depending on Magdy to show me the buses and trains to take. His phone wasn’t on this day, and I was on my own this time. I packed my stuff and somehow, with much difficulty and navigating through crowds, managed to find the train station, and get on a train headed there, with the help of a local man who approached me.

Long story short, I am absolutely glad I went to see this place, and I would say if you’re making a trip to Egypt definitely go to Alexandria, because to really understand this country it’s necessary to see the different towns, because they are just that, very different from one another.

Alexandria is a very pretty city, about three thousand years old, with sort of a European and Mediterranean influence, and it’s very different from Cairo. Not to mention that a whole other city, the original Alexandria, is buried beneath the ground. Cleopatra VII and Saint Catherine of Alexandria (one of Joan of Arc’s voices) both lived here. It feels almost like a resort town, and you can get a room which is relatively clean and safe for maybe $6 per night. I found one out of the blue in my Lonely Planet guide after arriving here around midnight from Cairo. There is also a hostel, and pretty much all of these places are near the water.

What occurred to me while I was in Alexandria, and this is just me, I wanted to see the Sea. The last time I’d been anywhere near the Mediterranean Sea was when I was twelve and had gone to Italy, for a day. This was December, but it was sunny out the next morning and felt like early summer. So I headed straight for the blue water as soon as daylight hit, and ended up spending at least a couple of hours walking around the coast as there is a long walkway that stretches from one side of town to the other
I had planned while I was there to see the Greek museum, so I began to search for a cab driver who could understand me.

Instead, I ended up by accident at the Quaitbay Citadel Alexandria, which I had before then never heard of, as the cab driver misunderstood me when I asked to go to the Greek museum. But, I’m glad I got here, and didn’t miss it! The Citadel is right on the sea. This medieval fortress was built in the 14 th century and other parts in the early ones AD, like around 800. This site attracts many tourists and when I was there, a whole group of boys surrounded me wanting to take my picture, or to get their picture taken with me. They spoke some English, and before I knew it I was surrounded by about 15 of them. This was the only time I had felt particularly nervous there, as they descended on me all of a sudden. After many pix were taken, they slowly went away. I spent a couple of hours going from one corner of this place to another, and the interior was pretty barren, but clean. The windows in this building were small, but the light came through in a peculiar way, making various shapes and it was pretty bright in there regardless.

Leaving the Citadel, I did get a cab to the Greco Roman museum, with the help of a woman at the museum. Many old statues are at this place, sort ritualistic ones of their gods and mythical figures and this is a side of Ancient Greece I never had before. I mean they aren’t the typical naked men, plates and vases I saw at the Met in NYC but more sort of dramatic figures and marble male and female faces with sort of perturbed expressions. I was fascinated by this stuff in particular, and spent a good deal of time studying it. I think I was here for at least two hours, and here you get at least a glimpse into the effect the Greeks had on this city, which was in fact founded by Alexander the Great (just before coming here I had seen the film Alexander, which was advertised all over the city). These are some of what were probably thousands or millions of artifacts of the time: mostly masks and statues of their gods and goddesses. This was all Greek, not Egyptian, and the style is different as well.

The streets of Alexandria are full of beautiful European-style buildings and many small bodegas and corner stores selling falafel for 75 piastries, as well as Nescafe, a constant drink here. There are tourists in this town, and also many groups of young men, or at least that in particular stood out for me. The thing about this town is there seems to be a tendency on the men’s part to catcall and otherwise give women passing them all kinds of attention. I think it’s actually more intense here than it was in Cairo. I don’t really think they’re malicious or dangerous, but they see it as flirting in a way and it can be very exhausting as a lone female to walk around here, particularly at night when I really don’t recall seeing many women out, and really not alone. The best I could do at the time was not respond, but I can say that it didn’t prevent me from walking around the city nor was it so incessant that I couldn’t handle it, but it was there nevertheless.

If I had it to do again, I would definitely spend more time in Alexandria, and have thought about returning to spend a couple of months here. I barely scratched the surface in the time I had, but in my future meetings it would make a big difference knowing this place as I began to meet more people from here.

After this short excursion to Alexandria, I returned to Cairo, as I had plans to go to Dahab, which is completely different from either city. My advice is if you’re planning to travel definitely consider Egypt, as this country has so much to offer and is generally safe and not expensive, if money is an issue. There are buses and trains going all over and if you can get past the Arabic, it’s fairly easy to get around. The people are pushy but mostly friendly and benign. Egypt in itself can be a shock to Westerners, as much of it, with the exception of Dahab, is not really a vacation-y place, and Cairo may not be for everyone. It is an extremely intense city, and although it’s safe (for women as well) and full of travelers, the energy here is extremely high and chaotic, so if you’re someone who likes serene and thoughtful trips with little human intervention I’d advise them to skip Cairo and go to Alexandria or Dahab.