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Well we sure got what we asked for when we woke up on our first day in Cairo....sun! Southern Morocco was nice and warm but Fes and Casa were around 15 when we were there so we really weren’t prepared for the 40 degree heat that awaited us in Egypt.
We booked a 9 day tour of Egypt, deciding that of all the countries we were visiting on this trip, Egypt was the one that we’d most likely be thankful for a guided tour. We were right and our tour and guide were fantastic. We had a ball.
Our first stop of the whole tour was the big one....the pyramids of Giza. We expected the hassle to be unbelievable but surprisingly it was quite tame. We’d heard mixed reviews from those that had visited the Pyramids. We weren’t disappointed; after all they are the only surviving Ancient Wonder of the World. A fitting title we’d say. It was an introduction into the wonderful world of Ancient Egypt, made even better by our Go Bus guide, Ahmed who was an Egyptologist with a passion (obviously) for Ancient Egypt. We also visited the Sphinx and marvelled at the well preserved treasures
Us at the Pyramids of Giza
The one directly behind us is the lesser pyramid and you can just see the corner of the Great Pyramid to the left of us.in the Cairo Museum. The museum was unlike any we’ve seen before. Firstly it wasn’t air conditioned (boo hiss) and secondly, apart from a few show rooms, it resembled a very large storage shed for ancient artefacts. Some things weren’t even named! It is amazing to see how much of Ancient Egypt still survives today especially considering there is artefacts scattered all over the world, not just here in Egypt.
We had to catch an overnight train to Aswan that night (damn these back to basics backpacker tours). We travelled first class but still, it was certainly ahem, an experience. Surprisingly the whole group did get some sleep although it was a very long trip (about 14 hours) and we were all buggered by the time we got to Aswan. We had an optional tour that afternoon but we opted to not go on it and went for a dip in the pool instead. Our hotel was right across the road from the Nile and we had great views (sadly no photos during the day though). After what seemed like barely a few minutes sleep we all had to be up and out the door by 3am the next
day for a 3 hour bus ride to Abu Simbel temple, about 290 kms southwest of Aswan. We had to go with what seemed like thousands of other tour buses in a police convoy the whole way there. When we asked (nervously) why we needed a police convoy, our guide said that it was the Egyptian government insuring one of their most important industries (tourism). We weren’t sure if 2500 tourists all lined up on a road in the middle of the desert was a good thing or not.....but all went well.
Abu Simbel is massive and the most interesting thing about it (in our opinion) is that in 1964 the whole thing was moved to its current spot from about 200 metres away (now the Aswan Dam). Many countries rallied together to save the Temple as it was going to be ruined by rising waters of the Nile (hence the need for the dam). Its relocation cost about US$40 billion and took 4 years. They literally cut the whole rock face into small blocks and moved them one by one. No mean feat when you look at the size of it we can tell you.
After driving (with
Pyramid of Khufu (Great Pyramid)
Up close. It is amazing to think how the Ancient Egyptians built this with limited technology and that it is still standing today! the other 2500 thousand tourists) back to Aswan we boarded the much awaited felucca. We were all set with our sunscreen, sleeping bags and deck of cards to sail the Nile for two days on this little wooden sailboat. It was bliss, although the lack of facilities on board did grow tedious after a day and a half. We got sunburnt, bitten by mozzies, swam in the Nile, ate Egyptian food and made friends with our two crewman. It was absolutely the highlight of our trip. But we were very pleased to have a shower at the end of it!
We visited a few more temples (pictures all below) which did start to blend in altogether after a while unfortunately even though our guide was great at keeping the interest up. We were just so used to independent travel that we felt we needed to get some info ourselves, not just be told everything. Unfortunately we hadn’t bought a guide book for Egypt though (thinking that the guided tour would suffice). Still, even without remembering what each story on the wall of every temple meant the sheer scale of some of these places was awe inspiring. Some of the
massive columns used to support these temples were built from one whole piece of granite! Also the detail that still remains of the hieroglyphics is also unbelievable, not to mention some of the colours that still remain. In their day these temples must have looked so vibrant and incredible.
Our second last day in Egypt, we caught a ferry from our hotel to the other side of the Nile where there were 20 or so donkeys waiting for us to climb on and take off. We rode the donkeys along the road for an hour or so to the edge of the Valley of the Kings. It was so much fun (even though Trish was VERY hesitant at first) and while no one really got the grasp of how to say slow down in Arabic, everyone understood Yallah Yallah! (let’s go let’s go!) And there were a few tearaway donkeys along the highway (they can actually go pretty damn fast).
We visited Hatshepsut’s Temple (see pictures below) and the Valley of the Kings. Daniel felt a bit queasy after the donkey ride and progressively got worse. Unfortunately he didn’t make it into the Valley of the Kings and
we spent the rest of the day trying to get some good Arabic antibiotics into him so he could be well enough to make the overnight train back to Cairo. Thankfully, after a horrible 7 hours he was fine. Trish did have the insurance company on speed dial ready to organise a flight back to the UK ASAP for a while there though. He is still alive so we guess it was just one of “those” bugs. Thank goodness.
Our last day we spent in Cairo with a trip to Khan el-Khalili (the famous Cairo markets) and an Egyptian perfumery - to get rid of our yet unspent Egyptian pounds. Unfortunately Khan el-Khalili was a bit slow and many shops were closed as it was a Sunday but even so after 8 days of the constant hassle hassle (like nowhere else we’ve been) we weren’t in the mood to play the market game.
Some of our group commented on how friendly the Egyptians were, we found that they just hassled wayyyyy to much and sometimes got quite aggressive. Not to mention the constant hassling western women get just because. Even when you’re dressed conservatively (long pants, t-shirt) you
still get hassled and it got verrryyyy creepy by the end of it. The funniest comments we got were directed at Daniel. When he went to the markets being the only male with five females he got, “Wow! So many wives. What’s your name? It must be Ramses” (Ramses II had 52 wives). He was stopped by a shop owner on this same trip and asked “Why are Australian women so beautiful?” He shrugged his shoulders and the guy said, “It is just not natural.” We all had a chuckle over that one. Pretty much all of the girls in the group had marriage proposals during the tour, some creepier than others. Daniel also got called a racist when he refused to lower his price at the markets. The guy got really really aggressive. It was kind of scary for a bit there.
In saying all of that though we did come across some very nice Egyptians (our guide being one of them). We spent a lot of time in a shop looking, only to realise that there really was nothing we wanted to buy. Normally this would result in a very angry shop owner but instead the guy
Whirler guy at the Nubian Dinner Dance
This guy was AMAZING. Firstly he spun around non stop for about 15 minutes and then slowly took off his skirt (yes skirt) and then twirled that around his head. Sounds kind of lame but wait till you see the video we took of it....AMAZING! thanked us for looking and told us to come back should we change our mind. We also met another young shop owner who was delighted when we told him we weren’t American and was more interested in chatting with us than selling us anything. So they’re not all bad, just worse than we’ve ever encountered. We got VERY good at saying la shokran (no thank you) in such a way that they knew to back off although sometimes you would find yourself shaking your head and hand and saying La La La La La (La is no). And still now a few weeks later if someone is trying to get your attention we slip out a la shokran.
We had always planned on visiting Egypt but after we booked the tour had increasing doubts as to whether we would enjoy it. We are so incredibly glad we did it and even happier that we went with the tour company we did. Even though it was a complete back to basics tour it really was fantastic and we couldn’t have wanted for anything more (except maybe toilets on the felucca!). Not sure if Egypt will be a place we’ll go
back to, even though we’re sure there is more to see but we’re most definitely glad we’ve been.
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