The Winter Palace, Denderah and Abydos
Trip Start
Apr 16, 2006
1
7
39
Trip End
Jun 07, 2006
Luxor,
Egypt
Sunday, April 23, 2006
After a 5am flight (UGH.), I checked into the Old Winter Palace, which apparently is where Howard Carter stayed during the time he was searching for King Tut's tomb. It's very colonial, you kind of feel like you're stepping into 1920s expat Egypt. Over an after-dinner screwdriver (they have GREAT orange juice in Egypt!) I made friends with the bartender in the old bar, he was very cool. We talked about George Bush and America and Egypt. He was one of the many Egyptians I've met who wanted to tell me all about how much he likes Americans. As I've said, Egyptians may not like George Bush (Who should be surprised?) but they really do like and respect us as people, and often confiding that they prefer the Americans they've met over the other nationalities that frequent Egypt more regularly.
During the day, my Luxor guide Mahmoud and I joined the tourist convoy to Denderah and Abydos
A temple guard
. The convoy itself fascinated me, just how the security forces have been organized in Egypt since the violence at Hatshepsut's temple in 1997 is kind of amazing. It used to be that there wasn't much security going to the ancient sites, the first area that had any guards was kilometers away. But then there was this surprise attack. It really threw the Egyptians, because there was really no reason for those people to have been killed. It was all about trying to make people feel unsafe in visiting this country. The motive was not about killing specific tourists from specific countries, it was about punishing Egypt and make people scared to go there.Since much of Egypt's revenue is from tourism, they couldn't afford to lose visitors. So they created a Tourism Police force and now no matter where you go there are hundreds of officers and guards carrying guns, and checkpoints constantly throughout the country to keep track of exactly how many tourists are in every spot. Being from America, when we see guns and checkpoints we assume that is a sign we are in an unsafe place... but in this case it's the contrary. They have really done overkill on the security throughout most of Egypt (excluding Sinai, which is why Sinai is still attacked... the peace agreement in Sinai doesn't allow that kind of policing), but the thought behind every gun is for people to know they are constantly protected so that they can relax and feel safe.
At 8am the minibus joined a line of buses and other cars
Denderah and Abydos
. Rather than having tourist buses driving around alone, they've created a tourist convoy system. Once a day a group of vehicles (sometimes only a couple, sometimes many) drives together to specific sites. The roads are entirely closed off for the convoy so they never have to stop for any red lights or other vehicles. And on each side of the road are police and people waiting for the convoy to pass. I would say we drove about 3 hours during the day, and there wasn't a moment where I couldn't see at least ten officers on the road. If we were anything, we were safe. If there was a pebble on the road they could've shot it out of the way.During the drive, it felt like my guide Mahmoud was more fascinated with staring at my injured foot than anything, though. I had been warned that there are gigolos in Luxor, and had a few calling "Talk to me!!! I'm ALONE!!!" after me on the street when I took a walk so I kind of knew what kind of town I was dealing with. Even so, I didn't really expect it from my tourguide. I try to be very personable with my guides, but was a bit surprised when after an hour or so of meeting me Mahmoud began claiming he had met me before... perhaps in a dream. I kind of laughed it off because he was harmless. But then at one point he made a joke about another tourguide and I said, "Oh, you tourguides are so competitive." His response was, "Today I am not a tourguide. Today, I am a tourist." I just kind of looked at him and said, "Okay..." Then a few moments later he said, "And today I have two wishes
Happy Land!
. One is to walk around the temple holding your hand. And the second is to have love kiss. But I do not know if there is time for this since you are only here one day." I just wanted to just see the temples so although I just laughed it off, his amorous attempts kind of annoyed me a bit after a while. I mean really, how freaking cheesy can you get.I really enjoyed seeing the temples and at one point crawled down into the crypt. The heiroglyphics were really cool. Mahmoud was kind of hesitating going into the crypt and I couldn't figure out why. Then as I turned around I noticed that all of the other tourists were leaving the crypt and that in a second it was going to just be Mahmoud and me. Since he had made a failed attempt at holding my hand already, my little alarm system went on and I realized I needed a gameplan to get myself out of that crypt fast. So suddenly I started looking around crazily and putting my hand on my chest and I rushed past him for the steps back up. I walked towards the front of the temple and when he joined me I said, "I do not like small spaces." Then I taught him the word "claustrophobia."
Love kiss averted. Phew.
After I returned to Cairo, I told Bassel about Mahmoud's various pick-up lines, and he scrunched his face and said "Ok, that's just retarded." I was shocked that Bassel knew that word, especially since he couldn't have picked a better one. So that made me laugh out loud. It definitely was pretty retarded.
