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Published: March 1st 2007
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We landed in Cairo around 9pm amid a throng of package tourists and navigated through passport control with the ease of expert travelers. Upon exiting we were immediately approached by lots of supposed taxi drivers, but we already had arranged an airport pick up and were relieved to see our names on a sign. Our hostel was on the edge of a busy traffic circle where crossing the street is an exercise in suicidal walking. The hotel staff was eager to plan our time in Egypt and book us all over the country, but we said no thanks.
We booked a tour to the pyramids and surrounding areas of interest through a Lonely Planet recommended agency and had to use the random guy on the street, who has about 5 cell phones and a wad of cash, to make the call. Our impression of the Cairo museum was disappointing mainly because for some reason they have displayed all of their incredibly massive collection without proper lighting, cleaning, displays, or any bit of interesting information. I was so surprised that the friggin Cairo museum was that disorganized and lackluster! Get with the program guys! I would have displayed photos of
the mess, but they didn't allow cameras at all inside the museum. The best stuff was obviously from King Tut's tomb, which was great to see after seeing the small exhibit in LA last year. We also went into the hall of royal mummies and got to see the scary mummified pharaohs for an extra 100 Egyptian pounds. (The student price was always half, and we've never regretted more not getting the fake student card we saw for sale in Thailand.) Our tour out to Memphis, Saqqara, and Giza consisted of the two of us, our guide, and a driver in a nice, new van. Our guide was a great guy who didn't even make us go to any papyrus shops and gave us lots of interesting information and history. At Giza we even went into one of the pyramids to see the tomb inside, not recommended if you are even slightly claustrophobic, and of little interest as well being that there are no paintings or really anything inside other than an empty sarcophagus in a plain room along with about a hundred other sweating tourists. The sphinx was smaller than I'd remembered it from when I'd seen it 20
years ago, and its face was covered with pigeons, giving it a strange look. The pyramids are actually even bigger than you can imagine, and we were certainly awe struck by their massive size, but not enough to get me up on a camel for the authentic experience. Besides our tour we did spend some time trekking around the city, feeling welcomed in some areas, getting good directions in some, and for me, feeling objectified by the men in others. We even successfully mailed a package home from a local spot and it actually arrived despite the guy answering my concerns about the non-existence of a tracking number or a phone number to call if it didn't arrive with the reply of "If the address is correct, it will arrive." And it did!
From Cairo we took the overnight tourist class train down to Luxor. It was a real first class experience compaired with our other overnight train rides, but I still ended up with a migraine and little sleep. Our train pulled into the station only 2 hours late, but our hotel pick-up was waiting. We stayed in a real cute hotel overlooking the Nile, Aaron had a
drink on the roof while I napped a bit before we set out on the town. We spent our first day there doing a lot of walking. First for some great food in a place called Oasis (and it was one) then to the beautiful museum, and up to Karnak temple, then back down to the internet café and Luxor temple in the dark. We were exhausted by the time we got home, and really enjoyed a hot shower to clean off all the dust and sweat. The next day we rented bikes to go into the valley of the kings, we rode all around, up the massive hills and around to all the major sights. The Valley of the Kings was really impressive, we loved all the colors in the tombs and despite our aching legs we wanted to see more when they told us we'd seen our limit of 3 tombs! (We actually got to see 4 tombs by unknowingly walking into one that didn't have a guy standing at the front but he was at the bottom telling us we couldn't see any more, we argued until we realized our ticket said "3 Tombs" on it, duh!)
Valley of the Kings
We biked all around that place! The day ended with me falling off my bike right in front of a bunch of people, hurting my pride more than my body. I was so tired and now hurting, oof. Never been so glad to have a bath.
Now for a short rant, the main annoying aspect of sight seeing in Egypt aside from the exorbatant entrance fees, was all the guys standing around asking for baksheesh. Baksheesh means a tip and they just stand around all over the ruins pointing at a wall that you were already looking at or pointing into a room that you were about to go in, and then they ask for baksheesh, for what?!? One guy even followed us around an entire temple for like 20 minutes while we ignored his presence entirely. Aaron decided to tell them we were from a made up place called Petoria (from Family Guy) and after telling them that, they usually left us alone, haha.
The next day began our long trek out to Marsa Alam on the Red Sea. We'd booked a few nights at a scuba diving camp there and had to figure out our way there. We got a taxi to
the bus station at 9am, the next bus to a junction town called Qift left there at 11am, and we waited at the Qift "station" with the workers there smoking sheesha for about 4 more hours, the bus left Qift at 4:30 or so, and we arrived in Marsa Alam at Shagra Village at 9pm, just in time to get in on the amazing buffet dinner. Mind you, the direct road was only 200km or so, not really worthy of a 12 hour trek, but it was worth saving the 100 bucks. Shagra Village was an amazing vacation for 3 days. We slept in a canvas tent on the beach at the edge of the desert and started the morning off with a dive right off the shore to an amazing reef and went for another one in the afternoon all by ourselves. We surfaced right as the sun set and opposite it the moon rose, thank god for our underwater case, we captured it beautifully. The next day we did 2 more dives and saw lots of different things, several rays, sea turtles, cool fish and lots of great coral. I really didn't want to leave the little paradise,
the food was great, the atmosphere was great, and we just felt great relaxing there. Our trek back to Cairo was long and easy a few hours by car, another few by bus, and an easy taxi ride to the airport but just a few hours too early and we had to wait in the arrivals hall a little longer than our sanity could take it. We then started our real "African" experience in Kenya at 5am.
Update on where I am right now. We are currently still in Ghana (hence the lack of photos, sorry), but we leave for Germany on Monday April 30 and then we'll be in Europe for 2 months. We are actually ready to leave the bucket showers and the heat behind, but not the great friends we've made.
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amy jane
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wowsers
well, I always sit here buggy eyed reading your exciting adventures. ...well, I am going to say thank you now to my shower. I think I don't appreciate it enough! Miss you!