i've just returned from a fantastic 2 weeks in egypt. the trip was an organised tour with the imaginative traveller, and although i tend to be quite anti such tours, it was really an awesome trip, with the super-friendly people in the tour group really adding to the experience.
saturdaywe started out over two weeks ago landing in cairo. it's a bit of a crazy city, with something like 18 million people (it's all a bit uncertain) crammed into the fertile bits as the nile reaches its delta and begins to spread out towards the mediteranian. there wasn't time for much except getting to the hotel, meeting the rest of the group (3 australian couples, 1 nz couple, and 2 other aussie girls, with a nz tour leader!), and getting some sleep. i was still in the midst of the flu, so wasn't really up to much more anyway.
sundaysunday morning we were off! first to the pyramids, which rose out of the cairo sand haze just where the metropolis ended and the sahara began. their bulk, age and grandeur were almost overshadowed by the continuous sandy wind pouring off the desert and our first experience of egpytian sales-men and -kiddies. our tourguide had told us that a few firm 'la shakran's (no thankyous) would ward off most troubles, but it was still a bit intimidating.
we also had time to go down inside the burial chamber of the second pyramid. about 10m vertical down and back up again along a narrow steeply sloping tunnel brought us to the centre of the pyramid, with a rather plain looking stone room. with thousands of tourists a day cramming through, the claustraphobia and stale humid warmth was a bit much, but they were certainly amazing feats of imagination and organistation, just to ensure the phaorohs' safe passage to the afterlife.
the sphinx was just down the hill from the giza pyramids, so that was next on the agenda. we learnt that there is actually a sphinx for every one of the 97 pyramids in egypt, as well as 3 mini-pyramids for the phaoroh's wives and daughters. the real story of the lost nose was still unsolved though, since the tourguide (with a phd in egyptology) claimed it was fundamentalist bedohins in the 1800s, our guidebook said it was already reported by arab traders in the 11th century to be broken, and constant rumours of obelix or napolean being to blame.
a papyrus museum was next stop, and it was really cool to see a papyrus sheet being scrunched in a ball and soaked in water, only to be flattened out and dried again, ready for more writing. amazing stuff!
but the highlight of the afternoon was the egyptian museum. literally millions of pieces (anywhere you dig in egypt turns out to be an archeological site), ranging from incredibly intricate small crystal sculptures to granite sarcophogi, larger-than-life-size but perfectly lifelike pharoh sculptures, and actual mummies. the most shocking thing for me was that almost all of these things were just out in the open air, with only signs please asking people not to touch, which of course worked only about 90% of the time. it feels hugely frustrating to contribute (even if just by walking by and breathing on them) to the distruction of these monuments that have survived for millenia.
our tourguide (the phd in egyptology), became very conspiratorial at one stage in front of an old (!) looking mummie. apparently this pharoh was 90 when he died, but had had full-blown leukemia since he was 40 years old, without any symptoms! tissue samples have been taken and analysed, and the genes responsible cloned and characterised, which will lead to radical treatment and even cures for leukemia in the next year or so! all of this if the tourguide is to be beleived. i'm sure he knows his stuff about egyptology, but he seemed to be even better as a storyteller...
Monday
Overnight train trip way down south in egypt to aswan was long, and with the 3 hours of delay throughout the night even longer. there was still an afternoon of fun to be had though, so michelle, kylie and i went on a hunt for the ferry across the nile to visit 'the tombs of the nobles' the ferry was very hidden, but we tracked it down and crowded on. halfway across i realised that although the front of the boat was very spacious, it was also (almost) entirely female. i just stayed hidden beneath my sunnies and hat, and think the only real harm was to a young girl sitting near me, who was staring at me the entire way across, wondering how on earth western women could be so ugly...
the sahara comes literally right up to the nile, and the feluccas on the river made us very keen for the felucca cruise downstream in a few days time. the tombs were also quite cool - carved out of the solid stone of the hillside, and with some amazingly well preserved painted sculptures on the walls. it was also reassuring to see some egyptian tourists out looking at the same things we were!
tuesday
abu simbel is an amazing site. but to get there was a bit of an effort. up at 3am to meet the tourist bus convoy at 4, and finally out down near sudan at 7. (tourists in southern egypt have to travel in groups, with police escorts, since the 1997 shootings and bombings. it's a bit annoying, and having all those guns around me just made me nervous.) at abu simbel is a temple to the greatness of ramses II, carved out of the solid rock hillside (although there was probably originally a cave there also). it's quite big. also quite impressive is that in the 60s, egypt built a huge dam in the upper nile, which would have flooded this, and many other, ancient monuments. so unesco got together and moved them up out of the reach of the waters. they basically cut up a hill into 2x2x2m blocks, moved them up the hill, and rebuilt them exactly as they were. not a bad bit of engineering.
there were lots of engravings inside the temple showing how cool and strong ramses II was. by the looks of things, he was really into trampling his foes, smiting his foes, sacrificing his foes, and hanging out with the gods. good on him. he did build a temple for his favourite wife right next door though, so he was a bit of a ladies-man also.
wednesday
ahhhh. life on a felucca is as it should be. nothing to do but sit, read, snack, sip, sleep, and soak up the slow rythmn of tacking down the nile. having to pull over to the side to go to the loo didn't take too much getting used to, and the food served up by ali baba and mohammed was rather tasty.
thursday
more life on the felucca. much the same as before really. we also stopped off at the temple of kom ombo, where sobek the crocodile god used to hang out. there were some really cool heiroglyphcs too.
friday
um. life on the felucca is the best.
saturday
no more felucca :(. but edfu and karnak temples were on the cards, and were mighty impressive. they are big. they have lots of engravings of pharohs slaying and smiting and being all chummy with the gods. karnak was a really interesting insite into the construction of the temples too - lots of mud-brick scaffolding was used to put the stones up, and then gradually torn down afterwards. the cash ran out during construction though, so there were still bits of the scaffold left! pharohs must have had difficulties balancing their project management skills with their egos.
the suoq (bazaar) in luxor was brilliant. so much less hassle than in aswan, and so much better prices - it was great fun! we were probably much better practised at our bargaining skills as well, and hunting in a pack also helped intimidate the shop owners :).
sunday
we got to ride donkeys! they're so cute and friendly! and they go pretty fast too (if they want to). since i was the tallest in the group, i got the biggest donkey, and he just wanted to go fast. it was great! we also visited the valley of the kings, but the donkeys were the highlight of the morning.
monday
dahab is a long way from luxor, but we made it after lots of bus, VERY rough seas crossing the gulf of suez and more bus. dahab is chilled. still lots of hassle, tourists and salesmen, but since you can just sit on cushions right next to the red sea downing the mango juices, it's much more bareable. it was very windy though, and i wished i was a windsurfer, since they looked to be having all the fun.
tuesday
bit of snorkling (very nice!). bit of relaxing and wandering around. very nice really.
wednesday
not much again. very nice. there was an egpytian hairdresser across the road from the hotel, so i gathered my courage and ventured in. he was the friendliest hairdresser ever, and for the princely sum of 15 egyptian pounds ($A5) i got a very classy haircut. then for free (it really was actually), he through in an egyptian beauty treatment, which involved twisting and untwisting a piece of string across my face to 'epilady' out all my offending hairs. i didn't know i had hairs inside my ears, but it hurt, so i don't anymore! luckily for him the whole procedure was so fast i didn't have time to understand what was happening and react ;)
it was jenny (our tour leader)'s birthday too, so we had a bit happy birthday dinner and a nice big cake for her at a local favourite restaurant. good fun.
thursday
michelle and i finally managed to organise a trip out to a canyon in the sinai desert. bob (seriously!) our egyptian tour guide showed us round, and his mate mohammed came along for the freeride as well. good to have some more egyptian tourists around again! the canyon was really cool, and the desert was incredibly silent. we hung out at a beduin oasis for lunch of tea and bread, and blended into the scenery for a bit. it was embarassing to watch the groups of tourists arrive, looking so out of place and gawky, especially when i realised that's exactly what i looked like. the kids in this oasis settlement don't go to school, since it's too far away, so all they learn is a few tourist phrases, to be able to sell trinkets. so i felt guilty either way - buy something and cement their lifestyle, or don't buy anything and not give them any freedom to choose at all.
friday
we'd moved on to st katherine thursday arvo, so we could rise at 3 to go climb mt sinai for dawn!! the climb was chilly, but not too long, with spectacularly clear skies and stars, and the looming presence of mountain shadows above us. sunrise was cold, and pretty, but the chanting/hymnsinging pilgrims were the most fascinating fixture. the koreans were a bit out of tune, but very enthusiastic, and the chanting group of europeans was quite offputting. being where moses got the 10 commandments, it is a sacred site for muslims, jews and christians, so it should be popular i suppose. i was very impressed myself by the huge climbing potential of the region. the rock seemed to be generally supreme, and the peaks looked straight out of a (desert) mountaineering magazine. mmmmm.
st katherine's monastery had a special feel about it. the mood of comtemplation and sacrifice was tangible, and the burning bush (moses's buddy) was still looking very fresh and green. there was a perculiar lantern there though, which showed 666 from every angle. maybe it's just me...
then followed a 6 hour bus trip back to cairo. the suez canal was interesting. you don't see that many freighting ships so close together every day, and the puppies at the road house were very cute :)
friday night back in cairo we went out for a group goodbye dinner on a cruiseboat on the nile. the service wasn't great, and it was a bit spense, but there was a belly dancer who pulled me up on the stage to shake my booty! i was pretty stoaked, but i think she was a bit disappointed that i didn't really have much to shake.
saturday
michelle and i bid farewell to all our new co-imaginative traveller buddies, and went about exploring cairo by ourselves. the egyptian museum deserved more than just one more visit, and filled up half a day without even trying. incredible stuff. we wandered a bit further into the centre of cairo, got rained on (which doesn't happen all that much in egypt!), bought yum felafel sandwiches for lunch for 10 cents each, and finally made it to kahn al-kahli, the big cairo suoq. lots of fun, lots of tourists, lots of hassle. the mosques of islamic cairo right next door were impressive too, and people were much friendlier on the mosque side of the road than the tourist suoq side.
we had some yum and filling trusty kosheri food for tea, sadly our last dinner in egypt for a while.
sunday
shell flew out at 11, so we caught a taxi together out to the airport at 8. then i got to hang around until 4. cairo airport is one of the most boring places in egypt. but at least it was relaxing, although with not quite the same ambience as a felucca :)
