In Cairo, A Father-Daughter Bond Deepens (2023)

Not long after sunrise, cars, buses, and horse-drawn carriages begin disgorging their thousands of passengers onto the sands of Giza. In the distance rises the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World still standing: the Great Pyramid. In person, it’s almost unfathomably colossal, all but blotting out the sun—a 4,500-year-old skyscraper.

Ivan and Tiffany duck out of the light and into a passageway inside the pyramid. Thousands of years ago, the pharaoh’s body was borne through this passageway to its final resting place. To navigate it, father and daughter must crouch while squeezing themselves between narrow walls. They emerge into a dim, square chamber that is one of the world’s most storied tombs.

Ivan scrutinizes the walls of the king’s chamber. “How did they breathe when they worked in this room?” he whispers. The chamber holds about 20 visitors. Some stand quiet and motionless, in awe. Others illuminate every crevice in the ancient stones with flashlights.

A guide describes aspects of pharaonic society—its royal harems, its political traditions. He says a few words about the Nubian pharaohs. “I’ve always been very curious about the impact of the Nubian community on Egyptian culture and history,” says Tiffany. Great admirers of ancient Egyptian civilization, Nubian rulers oversaw the revival of its art, religion, and architecture during the 25th Dynasty, between about 744 B.C. and 656 B.C.

Many of the country’s heritage sites have had multiple lives. The Marriott Mena House was originally constructed as a hunting lodge for Egypt’s royal families. Today it’s one of the oldest hotels in North Africa. It offers both a connection to the past and modern comforts to the many travelers who pass through its doors annually.

Exploring the property, Tiffany admires the golden chandeliers, marble floors, and meticulously-crafted lattice windows framing arched doorways. “I feel like a princess,” she says to Ivan. In that moment, she’s a little girl again, gazing up at her dad.

After their meal, Tiffany and Ivan walk to The Loft Gallery, a nearby vintage shop. As she browses Syrian ceramics and turn-of-the-century daybeds, Tiffany comes upon several depictions of Nubian civic life. She recalls what she learned at the pyramids about the Nubian Pharaohs’ veneration of early Egyptian culture and art. In these images, she glimpses ordinary citizens—the pharaohs’ subjects—engaged in the everyday cultural and commercial activities of their time. They congregate and debate, journey across the desert by camel, and navigate the Nile.

At sunset, Tiffany and Ivan venture onto the Nile on a riverboat crewed by a man and his nephew. “I couldn’t wait to get here,” says Ivan as the boat glides away from the riverbank. From Moses’s bulrushes to Cleopatra’s barge, the Nile has been an iconic wellspring of world myth and history.

Looking out over the boat’s railing, Ivan ponders the way water can enter the spiritual lives of the communities that surround it. A mystical relationship with water shaped his own early life. “I grew up on the coast,” he says, “and people who live near the ocean, lakes, or rivers, are one with them.”

Tiffany recalls the portrait from the vintage shop of Nubians on the Nile at dusk. The river must have carried their boat just as it’s carrying mine, she thinks to herself; they must have felt the same breezes. Although these ancient Egyptians may be distant, she feels they’re very close to her right now.

A group of older musicians lead the performance, accompanied by an energetic youth orchestra. Together, the two generations play operatic Egyptian ballads and contemporary hits like “Crazy in Love”. The Egyptians in the audience respond to the music as ardently as Ivan and Tiffany do, providing cheerful harmonies.

The Khan El-Khalili market, one of the world’s most renowned, began in the 14th century as a trading post for gold merchants, spice vendors, and coppersmiths. On day four, the Ferrettes explore some of its roughly 1,500 stalls, most of them family-run. The market excites all of the senses at once, from the vivid colors of its textiles to the inviting fragrances of its spices and coffees to the distinctive music, unchanged through the centuries, of artisans hammering metal.

Down a narrow corridor amid the market’s medieval warren of stalls is El Fishawy cafe. More than two centuries after its founding, members of the Fishawy family still work there. It’s the perfect place to enjoy the sights of everyday life in the city—a family sitting down to yansoon tea, an elderly woman taking selfies with a stray kitten.

Savoring a Turkish coffee, Ivan reflects on the extraordinary sense of continuity and connection Cairo’s inhabitants have sustained over the city’s long existence. “Every day that I've been in Egypt, something has touched me,” he says. “Even in this market, the families carrying a business from generation to generation. I'm just learning beautiful lessons.”

The next morning, at the Al-Nasir Muhammad Mosque at the Cairo Citadel—the stronghold of Egypt’s rulers for six centuries—Ivan notices the mosque’s exterior wall: sunlight has washed the color of these uppermost stones from brown to pale rose.

Tiffany gazes up at the mosque’s two minarets, with their green, white, and blue tiles. “It’s like stepping back into a different era,” she says. The stillness of the mosque’s single chamber is broken by the laughter of schoolchildren, who pause to remove their shoes before running through the vast space.

Not far off is Al-Azhar Park, where Tiffany and Ivan engage in one of humanity’s oldest and most enduring pastimes: people watching. In the crowded park, groups of teenagers show off their dance moves. Elderly folks sit on stone benches lining a man-made lake. The hush and awe of its ancient past belies the vibrancy of public life in modern Cairo.

At a nearby gift store, Tiffany purchases a serving tray. It’s a symbol to her of the hospitality and community she’s found in Egypt. “The people here treat you with such care. They don’t rush you. You feel at peace,” she says.