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Published: November 30th 2010
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One word: HOT. It was freakin super hot in Egypt. I know you aren’t supposed to sweat so much in dry heat… but I schvitzed like a mo’fo! Our last day we had a 5:30am wake up call. We headed out at 6:30am to meet the donkeys. I actually made the decision to not ride the donkey earlier in the week as I rode a mule at the Grand Canyon and did not enjoy it. I also rode a camel (again) and thought ½ the time that I would rather walk with the camel than ride it. Anyhow, the Canadian Nazi (ok, she isn’t a Nazi, just naïve and chews a lot of gum and looks like Violet from Willy Wonka also had no interest in riding. We had to look at each other for 1 hour until the donkeys got to the meeting place – The Valley of the Kings. There are no cameras allowed at this place. I understand why as some things are so well preserved, that why ruin it?
The Valley of the Kings is quite a fascinating place. Basically you walk up really high to some tombs or below ground for others. I have no
idea in a million years how these tombs were initially built thousands of years ago. I have no idea how people found these in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. The only thing I do know is that King Tut (the 19 year old wonder boy) was the only mummy actually found in his tomb with over 4,000 pieces of treasure and artifacts in 1922 (the last tomb found). Most of the other tombs were found empty due to the mysterious Tomb Raiders (the theory is the artisans who built the tombs raided them as they were the only ones who knew where they were!).
Anyhow… after mesmerized sweating until 9am we headed to Hot Chicken Soup’s home (Hatshepsut). By this point, I decided I had enough of the heat and enough of the History of Egypt. This is the last thing I learned that Queen Hatshepsut had a huge set of balls and declared that she was the King and Queen of Egypt for over 50 years (1400’s BC). Her stepson wanted control and she said he was too young. When the stepson became a man – he went in and destroyed her palace. OYE – kids back
in the day… Saad our guide was nice enough to walk Brie and I to a local restaurant for some lunch. For $3 we had some falafel (remember the falafel here is with ground brown beans, not chick peas), baba ghanoush and koshary (noodles, rice, spices, etc…). It was nice. We spent the rest of the afternoon napping before our sound and light show at the Karnak. This entailed horse drawn carriages; however a dull pathetic show. We all would have loved to see these temples in the daytime, but it was just too darn hot.
Overall I learned that I am certainly not a history buff. I am stubborn and I like to see things and then ask questions. I have a bad attention span for detail regarding things I am yet to experience! So basically, as I practically failed history in high school, I simply tuned my guide out most of the time. I did learn a lot more than I would have imagined as some things were so awkward, confusing and fascinating that I had to pay some attention some of the time. I am glad I came to Egypt. For me, 8 days was more
than enough. My favorites were the Sphinx, Pyramids, Felucca ride, Nubian village and perhaps the Valley of the Kings minus the heat!
If you want to come to Egypt, wait until November or December please!
Things to think about before coming to Egypt:
• DO NOT under any circumstances travel alone.
• Expect to be harassed everywhere to look at people’s goods.
• Do NOT tell anyone you are Jewish as the Muslim people are taught that all Jews are from Israel and they don’t understand that we aren’t all Israeli. Either way, they are raised to hate us and that we are a burden in this world (I got a lovely education from my tour guide who is actually Christian – an open and very honest conversation).
• Expect to get tummy aches. Out of 14 travelers from all over the world, each one of us managed to get sick at some point during the week.
• Expect to start seeing double – the hieroglyphics start to look similar after a while.
• Expect a lot of cigarette smokers everywhere! Many of the locals smoke everywhere and smoke all the time.
If they aren’t smoking cigarettes, they will be smoking sheesha and playing backgammon.
• Expect western bathrooms; but you must bring your own toilet paper and Egyptian pounds to use them.
Overall, Gap Adventures (Tour Company) did a great job! I was impressed with our hotels for a ‘budget’ tour. Mix this with the 1 yucky hotel in Cairo, our scary overnight train and our night on a boat with no electricity – it all evened out. I was lucky to have Brie with me. She is definitely a ‘traveler’ vs. a vacationer. Vacationers are people who belong in one place and have all the free time in the world. People on vacation need to know they will have a hot shower, proper toilet, air conditioning transportation, etc… Travelers can wing it; deal with the multiple modes of transportation – for ex. In Egypt there were: planes, overnight train, private van, back of pick up trucks, camels, donkeys, motor boats, feluccas, station wagon taxi’s from the 70’s that are so dirty all you can do is laugh, laugh and laugh some more!!!! I know I am forgetting some as my group counted 15 different modes of transportation. Hilarious!
The last morning of the tour was a flight from Luxor back to Cairo. Then we flew Cairo to Istanbul. Brie and I spent one last night in Istanbul. As she has never been, we did a power walk around town (as we didn’t arrive until 6pm). We ultimately saw some sights, ate some little snacks here and there and of course tried a hammam (different from the one I used last time I was in Istanbul). For some reason, the lady who gave me a massage had magic hands. I am not sure if I was just in really great need for a good massage or what… but it was so good that I fell asleep for a few minutes!
Chapter 6. Over and out. It is now time for my next culture shock and humidity and beaches and completely different food and different sorts of people, religion and culture. SO EXCITED to move on out of the Middle East as its been about a month (it is still questionable if Turkey is Europe of Middle East – to be honest I am undecided; however I am going to classify it as Middle East primarily because the
majority of the population is Muslim).
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