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Published: January 25th 2011
“Welcome to Egypt” the immigration official said right after we paid him $15 each in US currency to buy a visa. We thanked him as we entered country number 13 on our trip.
Ah, Egypt. It is a country that fills the imagination and often exceeds expectations; a country with an amazing past and a rocky present. We are touring Egypt on a group tour but there are only five other people in the group (all of them younger, some much younger.) Our guide is Mikel and our fellow tour members hail from Australia (3), Canada (1) and the US (1). John and Mikel are the only men in the group.
We expected to be amazed and delighted by Egypt and our expectations were soon met. On our very first day we went to Giza to see the pyramids and the Sphinx. Cairo is the largest city in Egypt with ¼ of all Egyptians living there. It is on the west bank of the Nile. Right across the river is Giza. When the pyramids were built it was just a grave yard but now it is a bustling bedroom community for Cairo and the third biggest city in Egypt.
It was really exciting to see the pyramid peaking through the high rises. I had expected the pyramids to be in the middle of the desert but the city of Giza has grown so that it is right next to the pyramids. In this complex there are two large king pyramids (Cheops and his son), one medium king pyramid (for the grandson), eight small pyramids (for the queens) and lots of other tombs for the engineers and the workers.
We got to go inside the smallest of the three big pyramids. The actual chamber is below ground and the shaft starts at ground level and slopes at a 30 degree angle for about 100 meters. The ceiling of the shaft is very low, sometimes no higher than 4 feet. We saw four chambers inside that have nothing in them but it was still neat to be inside a pyramid.
Next we drove to the Sphinx which is near the second big pyramid. It was originally a rock outcropping but it blocked the way to the temple so they carved it into the Sphinx and made it part of the complex. It is in worse shape than I
Beth and a Pyramid
We went inside this one.imagined but, considering it is 4000 years old, it is still pretty neat.
We also visited the Egyptian Museum in downtown Cairo. It houses 120,000 treasures from Ancient Egypt (including several over 5000 years old) and all of the artifacts found in King Tut’s tomb. Mikel (our guide) is a trained Egyptologist who spent four years at University studying the history and artifacts of Egypt so was able to show us around. Unsurprisingly, the best parts were the artifacts from King Tut’s tomb. The caskets and the death mask were something to see as well as all the crypts, furniture and servant statues.
That evening we boarded the overnight train south along the Nile to Aswan. Our first stop in Aswan was the Nubian Museum. It was created jointly by Egypt and UNESCO after the High Dam at Aswan was built in the 1960’s. There were so many historical sites about to be flooded by the newly created Lake Nasser that UNESCO and about a dozen countries worked to preserve them. There were three different ways to preserve a site. First, for the most spectacular sites, they physically moved the important aspects of the site to higher ground.
Second, some sites were sent to other countries like a small Christian chapel that is now in Turin, Italy. For everything else the site was documented then allowed to be submerged by the rising water such as the remains of a fort from the 4th century. They had so many artifacts after all this research that they built the Nubian Museum (named after the local people who call themselves Nubians).
That night we had dinner at the home of a Nubian family. It was interesting to see the inside of their home. It is mostly an open courtyard with a sand floor. There are a few enclosed rooms, two for storage and one where everyone sleeps. It was brightly painted. We sat on cushions on top of mats on the sand. The food was fine but not very interesting. There was grilled chicken, vegetables, bread, French fries, pasta and soda. It all seemed very western.
The next day the alarm went off at 3:30am and just a few seconds later the phone rang with a wake up call. We pulled ourselves out of bed and hurriedly dressed and went downstairs. We were going to Abu Simbel and it
Abu Simbel
Ramses II Temple is so close to the border with Sudan that they have a daily convoy with a police escort that leaves at 4:30am for the three hour drive.
Abu Simbel is the name for two temples built by King Ramses II for himself and his wife, Queen Nefertari. When the Aswan High Dam was built, they knew it would flood the original site so they hewed the temples out of solid rock and moved them to higher ground, positioning them at the same angle to the sun and in almost the same position but 200 meters higher. It was a herculean effort and it saved the monument.
The monument itself is amazing. First one sees the four 50-foot tall statues of Ramses II (he had quite the ego). The face of the second statue fell off shortly after the original construction (50 years or so) so when they moved the temple they placed the face in the same relative position on the ground. Inside were more statues of Ramses II including one where he sat as an equal with three gods. (Did I mention that he had a big ego?) The walls were carved and painted and enough of the
Abu Simbel
Nerertari Temple paint remained to get an idea of the original grandeur.
The second temple was much smaller and was dedicated to Nefertari. Outside it had six large statues half the height of the ones on Ramses’ temple. Four of the statues were Ramses and two were Nefertari. Inside was artwork similar to the other temple but with only four rooms instead of twelve.
The next day we awoke to the “Call to Prayer” from the nearby mosque at 5:45am. It certainly lets us know we are in a foreign country. We spent the day sailing a felucca on the Nile. A felucca is a sail boat with a single hull and a distinct triangular sail. The spar is angled at about 60 degrees to the mast. The main part of the deck was covered with a thin mattress and had pillows scattered about. It was covered with a tarp at about four feet high so standing up was not an option.
We set sail and cruised down the Nile for the day covering about 10 miles. We played cards and read and simply watched the iconic palm-lined banks of the great waterway unfold around us like an old
papyrus scroll as we drifted down the river. For lunch we stopped at a tiny island in the middle of the Nile where our support boat was waiting for us. The support boat had toilets and was where we ate our meals. Lunch was potatoes, pasta and bread and melon for dessert; it was filling but dull. After lunch we sat in the sun and the ladies discussed weddings and even how to answer nature’s call in a wedding dress (poor John just tuned us out). We re-boarded our felucca and continued sailing. After a couple of hours we stopped on a bank for a walk to look at the animals grazing (camels, cows and donkeys) and watch the people tending them. About 5:30 the support boat took us and another felucca in tow to take us to the overnight spot. After dinner we all played a spirited game of spoons until 10pm then bedded down on the deck of the felucca. The deck had padding and we had enough blankets so we were warm enough but it was still a hard bed and a fairly uncomfortable night.
And so begins our adventures in Egypt. Our next stop is
Sunset on the Nile
Have you figured out that we like sunset pictures? the famous Valley of the Kings.
A word on tipping in Egypt. The way Mikel explained it, the paycheck of every one in the service industry is so low that they need tips to survive. Consequently we are expected to let the bell boys carry our bags so we can tip them. We are supposed to tip the hotel front desk staff and the house keepers and the bus drivers. Standard procedure for Gap (our tour operator) is for everyone to contribute money to the tip kitty and Mikel uses it for all the tipping. It came to just over $4 per person per day. But there are still occasions where we must tip. I understand tipping in the restaurant or when we use a public bathroom but when we were at the Great Pyramid, the guards were encouraging tourists to stand on a particular spot to take pictures then shook them down for a ‘tip.’ These are government guards on duty doing nothing more than pointing out a good place for a photo or encouraging tourists to cross the safety barrier to touch the pyramid then expecting (even demanding) a little ‘appreciation’ in return. It feels like something
Gazing Across the Ages
Mummy at the Nubian Museum in Aswan. between bribery and extortion. I know that this is just their culture but it makes me wonder how prevalent corruption is in other aspects of life.
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Chris
non-member comment
Politics
Curiously, you are in Egypt and Egypt is in the news! Watch out for the water canons!!!