2026 - Ramadan Is Coming!

 Ramadan is coming soon! The precise start is, of course, unknown until the sighting of the crescent moon appears in appropriate fashion:

"To mark the beginning of the new month, two conditions must be met: First, the crescent moon must have been born at least four hours before sunset on that day. Second, the new crescent must remain visible above the horizon for no less than five minutes. "

While we suspect that all conditions will be met tonight, nothing is certain until the authorities speak.  Meanwhile, preparations have been underway for the past month, but particularly in the past few days.

Mohamed and Abdul were arranging the vast display of oranges at our favorite fruit market a couple of days ago. The evening breakfast meal frequently begins with a glass of orange juice.

Out in the countryside, the displays are smaller but still prominent. 

 

 

Lights have been strung making the local shopping streets more attractive.

Colorful banners have been strung across the sidewalks.

And the fanous (lanterns) have been hung - many lighted in anticipation but some held in reserve until the magic moment arrives for certain.  

More photos at this Flickr Album, of course.

Other posts on this blog pertaining to a particular topic can be found by entering the topic (such as Ramadan) in the search bar at the top of this post and clicking the little magnifying glass nearby.

 

What's New on Our Block

It's always interesting to take our first walk down the block after arriving at our Cairo apartment. Since we are absent for nine months each year, a lot can change as new shops come and go.  We live on a long, long block. It's about a half mile long and can easily take an hour to circle completely when stopping to visit with people who recognize us.

This year, the biggest surprise was to see a new shop taking shape above the entrance to our building! Since moving in seventeen years ago, the majority of the ground floor and the entire next floor have been vacant - but available for rent to some enterprising merchant. We have always hoped for a bakery to occupy the ground floor - but so far, no luck.

Part of the ground floor has been occupied; an auto dealer selling the Chinese Chery was there for two or three years, then the space was occupied by a luxury wedding palnner -  and as the sign indicates, a swimming pool supply and construction company was present for several years; they moved down the block to more spacious quarters about four years ago.

  

When we arrived on January 5th, I noticed the electrical wiring being installed. It is now more than a month later and air-conditioners have been connected to the wires and some paint has been applied. Construction can be slow in Cairo. (Our place took nearly three years to complete) The rumor is that this is going to become a furniture showroom. We'll see.

 

Another sign of change was spotted next door at the Auto1Mazar shop. This is the neighborhood used-car lot and has been here for many years. It usually has about three used cars squeezed into the interior and during business hours, maybe three more with their rear wheels up on the curb and front wheels out in the street. The shop opens at noon and usually has two or three salesmen out at a table in the evenings. The key thing to note in this picture is the sign that says "Shop for Rent - 250 square meters." I guess these neighbors will be leaving.

Part way down the block, there is a new electrical supply store.  Electrical stores are always recognizable by the coil of orange flexible conduit hanging near the entrance. I stopped in to buy a light bulb shortly after we arrived. The owner is frequently working on a project for some customer when we pass by.  The dress shop next door is also new.

At the end of the block, there is a major change. This is busy, high-traffic area. The cart in the street on the left side of the photo is where we buy our fresh bananas, oranges and strawberries.  Linda waits patiently for me by the neighboring coffee, tea and shisha shop as I capture this photo. 

The shop on the right is a bakery where Linda likes to buy fresh balady or shami bread. We wish they had a railing on those stairs!

 

But right on the corner is a new store. This shop has been a mattress store for as long as we have lived in the neighborhood but has now become a telephone and computer accessory store.

The signs on the storefront indicate that they can even take on hard-drive repair. The store name translates to "Blessed" and appears to be a branch of a well-known local company. The "Barakat" displayed vertically is the phonetic pronunciation of the store name. Fawry is a major Egyptian electronic payments system.  I used Google Lens to produce the translations in this photo.

Upon discovering that the cordless mouse I brought along this year was totally incompatible with my current office space in the apartment, (too much RF interference of some kind) Linda and I headed down the block to check out the store. They had four mouses (mice?) in the window, two cordless and two with cords. Each one was priced at 150EGP - a bit over three dollars and all made in China. 

Like most shops one finds in Egypt, what you see in the window is what you can buy.  There is no "stockroom in the back!"  Two windows flank the entrance to the Fawry/Barakat store.  On the left are telephone accessories.  The window to the right of the entrance displays computer accessories.    

  

More photos at this Flickr Album, of course.

Other posts on this blog pertaining to a particular topic can be found by entering the topic (such as Chery) in the search bar at the top of this post and clicking the little magnifying glass nearby.

 

 

The Ladies Visit the Blue Lotus of Sakkara Restaurant

This year Linda and the Ladies Tour visited a new restaurant "out in the country" offering a wonderful buffet luncheon of Egyptian home cooking.

When making the twenty mile drive south from the Giza Pyramids to visit the Step Pyramid at Sakaara (Saqqara is spelled in a variety of ways!) you drive past a number of "carpet schools" as you near the destination. Here a visitor can stop, meet the students, learn the ways of the Egyptian carpet weavers and, of course, experience the ways of the Egyptian carpet merchant!

  

 

Nestled in among the several carpet establishments as one nears Sakkara, a modest driveway leads to a rest-house with a delightful garden courtyard. Operated by the Bakr Fahmy family, the Blue Lotus Restaurant offers a great buffet featuring many of our favorite local dishes.

 

 

The first welcoming sight upon arrival is the bread baking operation out in front of the entrance.  The bread lady is carefully preparing the pallet to place in the wood-fired clay oven.  This ensures that the bread inside the restaurant is fresh and tasty.

 

  

 

After being seated and ordering a beverage, the guest picks up a plate and chooses from the savory and colorful selections on the long buffet table.

  

 

The two potato dishes were flavorful additions to the chicken, kofta and stuffed vegetables that form the bulk of the luncheon. Oh, what to choose? How about a little of everything. This isn't restaurant food, it's genuine home cooking.

 

The courtyard seating arrangement offers a choice of sunny or shaded seats.  Beverages are served to the tables.  After a return trip or two to the buffet line, the typical desert fruits of banana, yousafandi (mandarins) and dates make a fine finish.  

 

 

The ladies enjoyed meeting Mrs. Fahmy who personally supervises the food operation.

 

Linda and the ladies visited in January and gave it a thumbs up so she and I returned in February for an afternoon outing. We rate it five stars.

 

Additional photos for this post can be found on this Flickr Album.

Other posts on this blog pertaining to a particular topic can be found by entering the topic (such as step pyramid or sakkara) in the search bar at the top of this post and clicking the little magnifying glass nearby.

 

 

 

 

 

Annual Gasoline Price Post - 2026

We were visiting friends a couple of days ago in Family Park in New Cairo, about a twenty-five mile drive from our side of Cairo - and a world apart, culturally.  Life in New Cairo requires a car and the suburban lifestyle is far removed from the lingering ancient Egyptian life with donkey-carts, goats and live chicken markets that we love near the pyramids and tiny farms on the edge of Giza.  In this area there is no walking to the bakery and vegetable market and passing the tiny used car dealers, as in our part of town.  We passed IKEA, the Mirage Mall, the J W Marriott, the Mercedes and Audi dealerships along the Ring Road before nearing the airport and turning east toward the new Administrative Capital.  

We traveled both ways courtesy of inDrive, an "Uber-like" app on the phone that seems to have eclipsed Uber as the favored way to find a ride.  inDrive has much quicker availability of rides; I suspect that there must be a financial advantage for the drivers who seem to have quickly adopted it.

When we got into our driver's KIA for the return trip, I noticed his dashboard console was signaling "low tyre pressure," but that was no concern since tire repair and inflation shops abound in Egypt.  But soon, the "low fuel" indicator came on as well.  About 45 minutes into the ride as we neared our apartment, our driver exercised caution and pulled into a Mobil fuel plaza.  This gave me the opportunity to grab a picture of the fuel pump and prices.

 

I always like to capture an actual pump and maybe more for these gas price posts.  (see this post for a good example)  The price is uniform throughout the country and across companies as it is set by the central government which provides the subsidy to keep the price affordable. 

Gasoline prices continue to rise in Egypt. This year, the price of 92 octane petrol has reached 19.25 Egyptian Pounds (EGP) per liter. At the current exchange rate of about 47 EGP per US Dollar, that translates to $1.55 per gallon.

While that sounds like a bargain to the visiting American, consider the plight of an Egyptian driver who paid only 15.25 EGP per liter last year and sees this as a 26 percent increase. 

The next day, we passed an OLA Energy station near Sakaara with a nice sign displaying the prices of the low grade 80 octane and diesel alternatives.  On another day, our driver had a compressed natural gas (CNG) powered vehicle and refueled at the rate of 10 EGP (per cubic meter?) at a Gastec station on the edge of downtown Cairo.   

 

Here is my updated table of gasoline prices for 92 octane fuel over the past few years. 

	EGP	US $
Year	per liter	per gallon
2007	1.50	1.04
2011	1.42	0.93
2013	1.85	1.04
2014	1.85	1.01
2016	2.60	1.26
2017	3.50	0.74
2018	5.00	1.11
2019	6.75	1.46
2020	7.75	1.83
2021	COVID	COVID
2022	8.50	2.05
2023	9.25	1.19
2024	12.50	1.00
2025	15.25	1.15
2026	19.25	1.55

Notice that back in the "good old days" of 2007 it only took about one and a half EGP to buy a dollar versus the current 47!  That is a genuine "affordability crisis!"

 

 

 

   

 

We Lost Another Friend. In Memory of Hussain.

Hussain
July 5, 1972 - August 4, 2025 

A few days after our arrival in Cairo this year, I was walking down our street to visit one of our local convenience stores.  As I passed by the Golden Eagle Perfume Palace, I scanned the benches outside the store for one of our favorite friends, Hussain.  

Hussain is easy to find in a crowd, his large size and even larger personality stood out in any group.  But, he wasn't there in front of the shop - nor the previous day.  On the way back, another of the perfume salesman came out and approached me.

"You are a friend of Hussain?"

"Yes, yes!  Is he working today?" I replied.

"No, he died a few months ago"

I was devastated.  We had brought a gift from home for him and were looking forward presenting it to him and to renewing our frequent conversations.

Hussain had befriended us in 2013 noting our frequent passage past the perfume palace with bags of groceries.  He always had a smile and friendly greeting for us.  After learning that we live nearby, he invited us to dinner with his family.  

Hussain was always interested in our activities and when he learned that we were helping out a needy family nearby, he pitched, in finding craftsmen or arranging transportation for bulky items that we might be bringing to our project.

Linda, as neighborhood "cookie lady," often baked  batches of chocolate chip cookies for Hussain, who shared them with his fellow perfume salesmen (and made sure to save some to take home to his family).

It was Hussain who introduced us to our now favorite Syrian restaurant and who found specialty grocery products for us when they were difficult to get.  When we were trying to find a cruise on Lake Nasser, Hussain took us to a travel agency and set us up with the perfect tour.

Hussain leaves behind a wife and five wonderful children who miss him terribly.  We were blessed to have known him during his too short a time in this world. 

 

 

 

 

 

2026 - The Ladies Go South to Visit the Temples at Abu Simbel, Part II

A visit by bus to the southernmost part of Egypt at Abu Simbel is typically offered as part of the southern experience and our group spent a full morning on this outing.The fact that the boat provides a breakfast box to those leaving Aswan before dawn is little incentive but the visit to Abu Simbel is an absolute must.

 

 

When the Aswan high dam was constructed in the 1960s and the area now known as Lake Nasser began to flood, the world rallied to preserve a number of the existing monuments on the upper Nile. The temple of Abu Simbel is the best known along with the Temple of Isis at Aswan. But more than twenty monuments were preserved - the story is best told by Jocelyn Gohary in her fine book, "Guide to the Nubian Monuments on Lake Nasser." 

 

In and around Aswan, along the route to Abu Simbel, and generally throughout the countryside, scenes of rural and small-town life offer a myriad of photo opportunities. Have a camera ready and find a window seat on whatever transportation you use. Be alert! Life is fascinating.  (That is a bird flying north as we travel south.)

    

    

 

The village of Abu Simbel lies just twenty-five miles north of Egypt's border with Sudan.  Current borders blur the region long ago known as Nubia that extended some seven hundred miles from around Aswan to Khartoum.   After passing through the tiny town of about 2,500, tourists approach the site of the well-preserved temples.

  

 

Abu Simbel is best visited in the late afternoon after most of the crowds have dispersed - or better yet, at dawn, before the crowds arrive. Nevertheless, it is a "must see" destination for anyone visiting Egypt  Yes, the statues and relocated temple of Ramses II are worth the bus ride from Aswan, the wait for admission and the walk down the hill to see them, No. Doubt. About. It!

 

Our guide, Roshdy, accompanied us on the journey from Cairo and gave us an introduction to the history, archeology, and mammoth engineering project required to move the monuments onto the top of this hill.  For a new visitor to Egypt, the significance of Pharaoh Ramses II is beginning to sink in. 

 

The walk down the hill, while not particularly long, can be bypassed by those looking for a little bit of assistance.

 

I took this photo of a Bloomington friend back in 2010. At the time, a popular photo opportunity for visitors to Abu Simbel was this one showing a picture of the giant statues on the Egyptian one pound note in comparison to the actual scene at the temple.

 

 

Sixteen years later, the value of the Egyptian pound has sunk so low (it's now worth about two cents, U.S.) that the one pound note can no longer be found except on sites such as Etsy or eBay where it is valued as a collectible!  

It's 2026 now. Almost everyone is a journalist, an Instagram Influencer or a YouTube star. I admire the "unipod in a weighted bag" mount for this videographer's phone! Like many folks who have been blogging for twenty years, I remain wedded to the now ancient technology of the written word with still photos,

 

 

The interiors of both temples as Abu Simbel have wonderful images that make the extra effort to reach the site worthwhile. Linda concentrated her viewing time inside the smaller temple of Queen Nefertari, said to be the favorite wife of Ramses II. 

  

While Linda browsed that interior, the rest of the group approached the exterior facade.  It is difficult to imagine the great temples and statues cut into blocks and reconstructed here.  For the curious, both short form and lengthy videos detail the construction work. 

 

A few "minders/watchmen" of the tombs are on duty. I imagine they would be right on you if you attempted to climb a statue or otherwise violate protocol. Linda captured a couple of images to add to our collection.

 

 

We're pretty sure this is also a "minder/watchman" of the tombs. He was having great fun photographing ladies through a "key of life" that he had handy. All the ladies surrounding him had great fun as well as getting a unique photo as a memory.

  

 

At the exit from the site, there is opportunity to view some informative exhibits about the site. There is also a nearby refreshment area and of course, the ubiquitous stands of souvenir salesmen.

 

It doesn't take a long time to tour the site, then it's back to the van for the return trip to Aswan. The number of buses in the parking lot comes as a shock if one hasn't visited Egypt for a number of years. On this particular day, most were filled with Asians. Americans are relatively few in number at the tourist sites with South Americans seeming to rank next after Asians. The Chinese, in particular, appear in large numbers in January.

 

Our touring van from Aswan to Abu Simbel came with two drivers - a safety feature now required for vans and buses. The early start and long two-way drive had yielded too many accidents in the past.

 

The return trip to Aswan offers opportunity for a nap or a few more glances at the scenery. Soon the visitor is back in Aswan and has the opportunity to tour the bazaar, visit some spice shops or otherwise enjoy the town before the cruise boat sets sail for Luxor with stops at more temples along the way.

  

  

 

A reminder that electricity is Aswan's most important product. Many lines lead north toward Cairo.

 

With the return trip to Aswan completed, the group and drivers paused for a group photo. Back on the cruise boat after a nice buffet lunch, they will plan their afternoon adventure.

 

Additional photos for this post (and the previous post from Aswan) can be found on this Flickr Album.

Other posts on this blog pertaining to a particular topic can be found by entering the topic (such as Abu Simbel) in the search bar at the top of this post and clicking the little magnifying glass nearby.

 

 

 

Last year's visit to the Nubian Monuments on Lake Nasser were blogged by us beginning here and continuing to "newer posts".