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Published: September 7th 2008
Holly, Karl, Vicki and I
At the Valley of the Kings.Hello again!
So much has happened since I last posted...as always! Maybe one of these weeks I'll have a really boring week and have nothing to write. Maybe one of these days I'll catch up on sleep. Then again, knowing me, maybe not 😊.
Well, I'll begin with the main thing for this week- Luxor and Aswan! We had an 'extra' week before classes started (they just started today, I'll get to that soon) so 3 of my friends--Holly, Vicki and Karl--and I decided to go down to Luxor and Aswan. Actually, they decided and I was going to spend the week in Cairo catching up on stuff (mainly sleep, actually) but in the end they convinced me, and am I glad they did! We had a blast! We took the train from Cairo to Luxor on Monday night, and found a hotel (more like a hostel) that Lonely Planet recommended, which was actually really nice. It was only 15 pounds a night, breakfast was included and it was really clean. I don't think that there's anywhere in the U.S. that you could pay $3/night and not be completely sketched out...actually, I don't think there is anywhere in U.S.
Colossi
They're HUGE! where you can pay $3/night period! We meet two American girls who were traveling, and ended up going to the temple at Karnak with them. After that we wandered back to the hotel, seeing the temple of Luxor from the outside (really, there was no point in paying to go inside because you could see most of it from the street) and getting harassed every step of the way. Horse carriages would literally chase us down the street asking if we wanted a ride. We made the mistake of wandering into a more residential neighborhood, and in less than a second had a group of Egyptian children following us, every Egyptian trying to sell us something or trying to lead us somewhere in return for baksheesh. Seriously, if you ever come to Egypt, avoid tourist towns in the off season, because there is nowhere to hide! Other than the hassling, Luxor was really nice. There was this awesome (cheap!) restaurant named Sofra right next to our hotel that served very, very yummy food, had a very nice roof top terrace and even had sheesha.
On Wednesday we explored the west bank of the Nile, which means we saw all
of the fun tombs. Yup, think Valley of the Kings, Valley of the Queens, the Temple of Hatshepsut and the Colossi. Talk about non-stop running around! We ended up doing it through a cheap tour which was nice because we didn't have to worry about transportation or anything, and we still got to see a ton. In the Valley of the Kings Vicki and I ended up going into a fourth tomb (we were only supposed to go into 3, but these things happen around her!) which was actually pretty cool because a king and queen were buried there, and the tomb itself was pretty well preserved. Its amazing how well this stuff survived! And no, we did not go into King Tut's tomb, because all of his stuff is at the Cairo Museum, so his tomb is apparently pretty boring inside. The Temple of Hatshepsut is very, very, very impressive close up. It looks like it could have been built yesterday its that well preserved! The bottom 2 floors were buried in sand until recently, so they survived the best, but some sort of Polish expidition is working to restore the third floor, and they are actually doing a
In a Shop
Me and a shopkeeper in a shop in the Souq in Aswan. He swore I was Egyptian...actually, a lot of people tell me that. Who knows, maybe there is some Arab blood in me, from waaaaayy back when...maybe :). pretty good job of it. At the Valley of the Queens we saw two more tombs, one of which had a mummified fetus (apparently Queen Titi--not to be confused with Nefertiti-- miscarried when her other son died, but that could just be a folk legend) which was pretty creepy to look at. Nefertiti's tomb is supposed to be impressive, but is closed for restoration (apparently this happens a lot) so we didn't actually get to see it. We ended the day with the Colossi, which are HUGE! If you look at the pictures, you'll see one were I'm zoomed in on Holly, and one zoomed out to see the whole statue, just to give you some perspective.
After we got back we went straight to the train station and got our tickets to Aswan (we made a slight change in plans and decided to leave Luxor a day earlier than we originally planned) and then just chilled until the train was supposed to come. While we were waiting on the platform, Holly and I decided to buy some chocolate from this one vendor, who ended up offering me six million camels and one donkey to marry him. I'm getting
Holly
In the hostel in Aswan, which was by far worse than the one in Luxor, but considering we spent $3/night and got air con, I can't complain! pretty good at bargaining, so I got it up to six million camels and one horse. It was hilarious! It also forshadowed our time in Aswan, where I lost track of the amount of camels I (and Holly and Vicki!) was offered. Holly started writing down all of the ridiculous Egyptian pick up lines we get...something tells me we will have an unending supply when we get back to the states!
Aswan was very laid back and relaxed...at least for Holly and I. Vicki really, really wanted to go down to Abu Simbel (which I want to see eventually as well...) which entailed an 8 hour round trip bus ride. Her and Karl ended up getting up at 2:30 to get on a bus to go down to Abu Simbel (this is after getting into Aswan at about 11:00 pm). They said it was amazing, but I'm not going to lie, I liked my sleep just fine 😊. Holly and I wandered around a bit and saw the sights, which mainly meant getting sucked into random conversations with Egyptians and Nubians at the Souq (market). I had a 45 min conversation in Spanish with one guy, and another Nubian
Nile at Sunset
Looking out over the Nile our last night in Aswan. We were sitting on the terrace of McDonalds...classy, right? was probably the most enthusiastic Obama supporter I've ever met. And thats saying a lot...I go to school in DC! We woke up Karl and Vicki around 5:30 and we all took a sunset felucca ride on the Nile, which was amazing (I feel like I use that word way too much, but really its the best I come up with) and ended the night fairly earlier. The next day was our last day, and we ended up going to Elephantine Island, which has a couple of Nubian Villages and some old ruins. I got henna...yay! I was trying to get the brown henna, and somehow ended up with black henna. For those of you who know anything about henna, its naturally brown, and the black has chemicals that are apparently dangerous, but don't worry, I'm still alive! Actually, I think the general consensus is that I am built like a tank, and can even drink Nile water and be fine! (Don't worry, the water was boiled first 😊).
We eventually made it to the unfinished obelisk and then went to McDonald's to await our train. At McDonalds we ran into 2 other AUC students and watched the sunset over
Karl and Holly
In the lazy tram :) the Nile. After that we split up, and Vicki and Karl went back to the Souq to do some shopping and Holly and I went to go sit at a local cafe (bear with me, this gets interesting, promise!). Holly and I were sitting chatting with the cafe worker (who also is the Muslim equivalent of a preacher) having a jolly time. Our train was scheduled to leave at 8, and the other AUC students we had met warned us that this one would actually be on time (the train we took from Cairo was 2 hrs late, and the one from Luxor was about an hour late) so we were keeping an eye on the time. At about 10 to we decided to head to the train station, and low and behold the train was actually there! We got a bit confused, but were finding our car when the train started to pull out of the station. Thats right, we were still on the platform, and the train was moving. We literally jumped onto the moving train! Actually, Holly was shoved onto the train by an Egyptian man, and I jumped in after her, after rapidly figuring out what
I was supposed to do. So now I have not only showed up to the airport on the wrong day, I've almost missed my train and jumped onto a moving one! Man, by the time I come home in December I'm going to have all sorts of random transportation stories!
The rest of the trip was uneventful...we actually made it into Cairo a lot sooner than expected, which was pleasant, considering classes started the next day (today...wow it seems like way longer than that!). Classes were fine...my shuttle driver got a bit lost on the way to campus this morning (really not surprising here in Cairo) so I was a bit late to my 8 am Arabic class (ya, thats fun). Its about 12:30 am here now, and Steve and I have been struggling to watch the Chargers game online for the past 2 plus hours, so I'm actually going to leave you all on that note. (Ya I'm in Zamelek at midnight, I still have to make it back to my hotel, which will take at least a 30 hr, and I have to be downstairs at the shuttle by 7 am...some things never change!) I will try
to make my next update a bit more coherent...promise! I hope you are well wherever you are, and I will keep you updated as much as possible!
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michelle
non-member comment
nice pictures
the pictures are great -your writing is great... to but the chargers had 2 seconds too many...