The last item to round out our tour of Egypt so we could leave with No Regrets was a trip to Garbage City. If you ask Carter to describe Egypt in one word, he will say, “trashy” since the piles of garbage all over are pretty unforgettable (and thankfully he doesn’t know the real meaning of “trashy” yet).
There’s an area of Cairo called Garbage City, inhabited primarily by Christians who survive by sorting and recycling garbage. On our way there, we stopped by the cave church that serves this Christian community.
close-up of the carving in the photo above
This is the street level entrance — we walked through the arches and down a long hill to get to the front of the church.
A local guide told us the place seats 20,000 people
The “miracle” of the cave church is that this carving of Mary and Jesus appeared on the roof of the cave out of nowhere. It was not carved by human hands. Supposedly another miracle also happened on this site — the mountain/cave moved several kilometers from somewhere else to this current location. I wasn’t exactly following what the guide was saying. I’m not much into guided tours.
There was a big funeral right before we arrived and another one as we were leaving
No clue what they’re measuring with their hands. It might be when the guide (striped sweater) is explaining that the sculpture of Mary was a miracle. This is around the time I was looking to get off the stage because I saw the next group coming in with a coffin.
Carved into the side of the mountain. There are several similar carvings depicting scenes from the Bible on the walls of the cave above where people are seated to worship.
view from 1/2 way up
Coptic Christians all have cross tattoos on their wrists (men and women). Josh said most Christians get them when they are kids, sometimes even as babies.
This guy was getting a large cross on his arm. Josh said the tattoo gun looked very primitive. Ouch!
When I was looking for more info on the tattoo crosses, I found this great blog post by an expat family currently living in Cairo that explains more about the Coptic Christians living in Garbage City and about the tattoo shop in the above photo: tattoo crosses
Local kids, asking everyone’s name.
Next stop: Garbage