Walk like an Egyptian

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We arrived in Cairo dazed and confused as our flight was late. We finally got to our first hotel at 5am. It wasn't the best of accommodations, as I don't think they have ever cleaned our room. We stayed for one night and moved to Dahab Hotel, which is a backpackers on the rooftop of an 8 story building. It had a cool atmosphere and we quickly made it our home base. We spent the first few days getting to know Cairo. We had dinner one night on the Nile at a nice restaurant called Sequoia in an area called Zamalek with a girl named Caroline, who was best friends with my cousin Kristen from high school in Munich. During that first week we visited the Egyptian Museum, which hosts a lot of ancient treasures, most notably King Tutankhamen and two rooms with mummies including Ramsey II. We also went to a free traditional Egyptian dancing show called Sufi. Sufi dancing goes back over 700 years. These guys spin for what seems like almost an hour on stage. We watched this show in an area in Islamic Cairo called Khan al-Khalili, which has the best souvenir shopping in Cairo that I have found. There are also a lot of very old Mosques that you can tour in this area. I spent an afternoon in Coptic Cairo, which is the oldest part of Cairo built by Christians. There were a few nice churches in that area. The Hanging Church was probably the most interesting one to visit.

After almost a week of lounging and looking around, we took a 3 hour train ride up to Alexandria on the Mediterranean cost. When we arrived, the weather was a lot cooler (upper 70's compared to around 100 in Cairo) and no smog which was a nice change. Alexandria had a lot of history. It was established in 332 BC by Alexander the Great. There are a few interesting sites to see there. The most popular is probably the Citadel, called Fort Qaitbey, which is an impressive structure on the outside of the main bay. It was built on the remains of The Pharaohs lighthouse, the worlds first lighthouse, which was one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world before it was destroyed by earthquakes in the 14th century AD. We also went to to the bibliotheca Alexandria, which was huge, very modern, and had about everything you could think of. The rare section had some books that were very old and I'm sure very valuable. Most of the time we just relaxed and sat on the beach. The best activity I did in Alexandria was going scuba diving. I had never been scuba diving in my life, and they let me go on an Archaeological dive to see the remains of the Pharaohs lighthouse, as well as the remains of Cleopatra's palace, who was the last Pharaoh of Egypt. If you want to know more about Cleopatra's sunken ruins, copy and paste the following link into a web browser.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/26/sunken-ruins-of-cleopatra_n_589998.html

Unfortunately we did not have an underwater camera for this dive. We first went to the lighthouse. When I went underwater for the first time, it was a little freaky, as the water was very murky at the surface, and the only training I had diving was a quick 5 min verbal overview from a guy with broken English on the boat ride over. I remember thinking, I can't believe they are letting me do this. I went through my air twice as fast as another diver did from Belgium that was on the dive. Luckily he had experience and spoke good English, or else there would have probably been some drama. Both dives were equally impressive. The lighthouse was only 10 meters deep, and the palace only 5. They were shallow enough that certification was not required. I saw a lot of pillars. I saw a couple of sphinx doing a face plant on the ocean floor. Near Cleopatra's palace, I could see a lot of pottery and stone flooring. There was also a British plane from WWII that crashed right next to the palace. I found the pilots helmet in the cockpit that was still intact.

After a week in Alex, we took the train back down to Cairo and went back to Dahab for a couple of days until my Dad and Brother arrived. We moved to the President Hotel on Zamalek which is the northern part of an island on the Nile in the middle of the city. We picked them up from the airport, got up early the next morning and went straight to the great pyramids and sphinx at Giza. This place does not fail to impress. We first went to the sphinx, then rented 4 camels for an hour and went out into the desert a little bit. After that we went to look at a boat that was used to carry the stones up the Nile that were used to make the pyramids. We also climbed into a tomb. When we were done, we took our taxi down to Saqqara. The most impressive thing to see there was the Step Pyramid, which is the worlds oldest stone monument. After that, we went to Memphis, which was the former Pharaonic capital. Then it was back to the hotel for a rest, and off to Khan al-Khalili for dinner and some quick shopping. We finished our city tour on a felucca on the Nile, which is a boat that had a lot of different colored lights, loud music, and dancing. I think my dad was ready to leave the boat before he got on. We ended that night with a few drinks at the hotel bar and a skype conversation with my almost 3 yr old niece. She told us to bring her back a cat and a camel.

The next day we got up, did a quick tour of the Egyptian Museum, then caught an hour flight down to Aswan. Aswan has a large population of Nubian people. It feels a little more like the Africa I've gotten to know over the past few months. Egypt overall definitely had an Arabian feel. We had to catch a free ferry to our hotel, the Isis Island Resort, as there was no bridge to it. It is very nice, very large, and very reasonably priced. We got up at 245 am (my dad loved that ) and caught a 315 ferry back to the east bank to catch our cab to catch a 4 am convoy down to Abu Simbel, which was about 280 km south, not far from the Sudan border. Its necessary to travel by convoy, which was basically a bunch of buses racing to see who can get to the temple first. Our guy was going 160km/hr at times (100mph). Abu Simbel was built for Ramses II, and is known as one of the most impressive if not the most impressive temple in Egypt. I was extremely mesmerized by it. Outside are 4 huge statues (one of them has fallen to the ground) of Ramses facing East. I guess twice a year, during equinox, coming up soon on Oct 22nd, the sun shines into the main entrance of the temple clear to the back room which has 4 statues, 3 of which are gods and one of Ramses. If you ever have a chance to go there, the second room on the right has the best hieroglyphics that I have ever seen. Each of the pictures that are carved into the walls still have full color to them. The whole temple had lights from the floor shining up on the artwork. There was also a center hall with huge statues facing each other. Even the ceilings were decorated. It was simply incredible, I don't know how else to describe it. Next to Ramses temple was the Temple of Hathor dedicated to Nefertari, his chief wife. It was basically a smaller version of his temple with equally impressive artwork on the inside. They both were carved into a hill right next to Lake Nasser. In the 60's, both of these temples were somehow moved to higher ground so they would not be submerged in the lake. They were huge and I have no idea how they were moved.

Tomorrow we plan to take a train up to Luxor, formally know as Thebes, and meet up with my cousin Jeff who stayed behind in Cairo to entertain a friend of ours that was passing through that we met in Kampala, Uganda. Luxor has a lot to see, including the famous Valley of the Kings, which is home to many tombs, including King Tut's. We will spend a few days there and then fly back to Cairo. When my dad and brother leave to go home, Jeff and I will move on to the Sinai Peninsula, which used to be occupied by Israel and is a part of Asia. This will be the first time that we have left Africa.

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Photos

The boat
that was used to haul rock from the South to build the pyramids

Memphis
Dad taking in the view of a Ramses II statue

Khafre Pyramid Tunnel
This tunnel leads to the center of Khafre Pyramid, which is the middle Pyramid at Giza

Alex
View from our first hotel balcony

Beach in Alex
I have to be honest, we spent most of the week doing this

Scuba Dive
This was the site of the Pharaohs Lighthouse

bibliotheca Alexandria
This place was impressive

Cairo Sunset
This was taken at a park that was built on a landfill

Dad on his camel
It looks like they are singing together

Abu Simbel
All of these people wouldn't move out of the way for my picture

Hieroglyphics
This was inside of Abu Simbel

1800's Vandalism
I saw a lot of this

Ramses II and Nefertari Temples
Imagine trying to MOVE these back away from the water???

Comments

[Betsy]

That's just friggin amazing. No words for the beauty.

[Peter]

How they moved them...
The salvage of the Abu Simbel temples began in 1964 by a multinational team of archeologists, engineers and skilled heavy equipment operators working together under the UNESCO banner; it cost some $40 million at the time. Between 1964 and 1968, the entire site was carefully cut into large blocks (up to 30 tons, averaging 20 tons), dismantled, lifted and reassembled in a new location 65 meters higher and 200 meters back from the river, in one of the greatest challenges of archaeological engineering in history. Some structures were even saved from under the waters of Lake Nasser. Today, thousands of tourists visit the temples daily. Guarded convoys of buses and cars depart twice a day from Aswan, the nearest city. Many visitors also arrive by plane, at an airfield that was specially constructed for the temple complex.