LA SHUKRAN

Trip Start Aug 16, 2005

Trip End May 02, 2006

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Flag of Egypt Cairo, Egypt
Thursday, January 26, 2006

"No thank you. No thank you. No thank you!!!"

You learn how to say that in Arabic real quick! Course, learned it in Morocco but really putting it to good use in Egypt, especially Cairo.

Arrived rather disastrously from Malta, a 2 hour wait in the undesirable Cairo airport at 3a.m, hostel never showed to pick us up, scary drive from none other than Mohammed, the cab driver who did finally take us to our apparently fully-booked hostel. The manager, Ash, who has since taken good care of us, apologized and gave us a free night. That is a MIRACLE in Egypt!

The first few days were spent doing "errands." Yes, even on vacation, there is a lot of homework to do to ensure things go smoothly, at least some of the time

Bonnie and Devon

. Visited the Egypt Air office to change our departure dates out of Cairo, something we have since decided was a mistake. And had the inexpressible pleasure of visiting the immaculately efficient and kind Indian Embassy in downtown Cairo. Not! Wow. A hint to what sort of hassles await us in India. But also did a little research for the first time on what exactly we hope to see there and if all goes well I think we will have some magnificent tales from India!

On our third and final day in Cairo (until we head back to fly out) we visited the famous pyramids of Giza, Saqqara and Dashur. Ohhhhhh...how to put that experience into words...

Can I just say it was probably the worst case of ancient world wonder meets modern day schmuck. My God.

The Pyramids are incredible, everything they are cracked up to be and more. The stories and history surrounding their purpose, their creators and their architectural genius are every bit as good as one reads. They are spectacular.
Modern day Cairo, however, is the blatant opposite. It is a huge, extremely polluted, busy, dangerous city

Dinner at the Hilton

. The smog, the noise, the people, the streets, the traffic are overwhelming. It is ugly and one of the most surprising things is that it was basically built up right on the outskirts of the pyramids. Such a striking contrast. I actually found myself feeling very sad while at the pyramids. They seem disrespected in the worst possible way to me...but our first glimpse of them from the highway in Cairo as we reached the outer parts of the city was a wonderful thing. Three mighty and perfect triangular shapes jutting out of the desert sand in the distance. They are enormous and can be seen from very far away. I honestly had butterflies in my stomach when I first laid eyes on them from that cab.

Giza is the most famous pyramid site and the one we usually see back home on television and in pictures. There are 3 large pyramids and the famous Sphinx that make up Giza. Khufu is the oldest and largest of the pyramids. It was built using 2.3 million limestone blocks, each weighing in at over 2 and a half tons. Khafre is the one directly behind the Sphinx and the only one still preserving some of the limestone casing at the very top. The rest was stripped away by successive builders centuries ago for their palaces and mosques. Menkaure is the smallest of the three.

We took a camel ride in Giza right around sunset

King Tut's Tomb

. Sounds dreamy and mystical but was a bit of a fiasco at first. Negotiated our price with the camel/horse owner and no sooner than 2 minutes later, when the three of us were up and riding (an American girl named Devon joined us) they were informing us we would also be paying for the horse that our "guide" was riding! They really pull out the stops here. We of course protested and said "Stop Now. We're getting off." And they sure did. They commanded the camels to kneel back down, this time not so nice-and-easy as they had done to let us on, when they still had hopes of getting our money. We were nearly pushed off of them and then were asked for "backsheesh" for our two minute ride! A tip they wanted for the lie they fed us. Found a second camel hustler who I am pretty sure was friends with the first. Only rode for about 20 minutes and it was a lot of fun and worth it for the pictures we were able to take. Having said that, by the end of it, I think those 3 Egyptian camel riders who insisted on riding our camels with each of us should have been paying us. Let me just sat I think they rather enjoyed three young western girls trotting along behind them on the camels. Devious little men they are...

Also visited the pyramid of Saqqara, the funerary complex of Memphis, the first capital of Egypt. Saqqara is the only step pyramid and also the oldest one. Dashur consisted of two pyramids, the Bent and the Red which were worth seeing as well

Me and the Sphinx

. Especially because they are a little more remote, away from the hectic city and there are far less tourists.

Left Cairo late at night on a train to Luxor, ancient city of Thebes. Spent two days visiting the Temple of Karnak, the Valley of the Kings, and Valley of the Queens. Again, spectacular places. The tombs in the Valley of the Kings surprised me. I was not expecting to be terribly impressed but I was. They are just beautiful, even today more than 5,000 years after they were built. The most famous tomb is that of King Tutankhamun which was discovered in 1922. As it turns out, King Tut was not really a very special pharaoh. He ruled for a very short period of time and died young after a less than eventful reign. His tomb is famous because it seems to have been the most well preserved, discovered almost intact I believe. The treasures that were found inside were many. Thousands and thousands of beautiful things including jewelry, clothing, gold, food, statues, all of which are currently on display in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, another place we visited. The treasures are far more impressive than the tomb itself which we actually did not see because it cost extra and we were told by our guide it wasn't worth it. We did visit the tombs of Ramses the III, IV and IX. These were beautiful. Long corridors make up the entryway and the walls and ceiling are just covered with beautiful hieroglyphs and paintings

Our Ride

. The most impressive thing is the incredible detail and the preservation of the colors. They have not been retouched at all and are still bright and beautiful in many parts of the tombs. The corridors or entryways lead to the site of the coffin, a large room with the mummified body of the pharaoh inside, sometimes several layers of coffins. The more important pharaohs had several rooms in their tombs, all filled with treasures for them in the afterlife. Of course the treasures do not remain in the tombs, but what is left of them is amazing, hard to believe even, especially the colors of the paint they used to decorate the tombs.

I was really impressed with the Valley of the Kings, not only were the tombs beautiful but it is interesting to see the site itself. Clearly, the ancient Egyptians wanted to hide these important treasures from the world and they did a magnificent job.

That was the extent of the historical visits we did in Egypt. Much like the ruins in Peru and Bolivia, if you are not a historian or an Egyptologist, there is only so much rubble you can look at before it all starts looking the same. The greatest thing about these places is where they take your imagination. To stand there and look and touch something that was made by human beings in ways we still do not understand so long ago is an incredible feeling

Saqqara

. I am by no means a history buff or even very well educated on the places I have visited on this trip so far. But one of the wonderful things about this trip is how much it is teaching me about such places when otherwise I would probably never have taken an interest. Now I find myself reading about the history of the countries I visit, wanting to know more about their past, their present, how they fit into the world today. It is an incredible education.

Two things I regret we did not do in Egypt. The first is visit Aswan, south of Luxor and from which the most famous temple of Egypt, Abu Simbel, is visited. The second is take a ride in a felucca on the Nile. I am still hoping to do this in Cairo before we fly out but it will not be the same. Sadly, but not surprisingly, this mighty river is extremely polluted. I could not believe the amounts of trash we saw while driving alongside of it in some places. Others, in the more rural parts of Egypt, were just beautiful. The banks of the Nile are very fertile land and used for farming, mainly wheat and cotton. It is beautiful to see the lush green crops, the tall palm trees that line the banks, Egyptians farming the same way they have for hundreds of years. There have been many times in Egypt that I feel we have been transported back to biblical times. The way that the men dress with the long dresses, sandaled feet, sun-scorched cheeks, gorgeous commanding eyes and the white, black and red head scarves to protect them from the elements. There is something very peaceful about them...Not the people in Cairo or the big city, but the farmers, the herders, the craftsmen, they are such strong people and yet kind and friendly. It is too bad that more of Egypt (perhaps the world for that matter...) cannot be governed by such people.

We left Luxor on a late afternoon bus and headed to the town of Hurghada for an overnight stay before boarding the ferry to cross the Red Sea into the Sinai Peninsula.