Kom Ombo and Edfu

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So we stopped at Kom Ombo….a pretty sweet temple built to honor Haroeris and Sobek…the latter of which represented in hieroglyphs as a dude with a crocodile head and holds crocodiles to be sacred…so there were mummified crocs on display as well. This place had a lot of images of gods and pharos which early Christians hacked out of existence. They literally chipped away the face, arms, legs, anything exposed of these images but not the clothes or any of the hieroglyphics…weird. I guess the peeps didn’t know how to read so they didn’t know the glyphs were words so they didn’t erase them from the temples…also….not all images were erased and I was told that no one knows why they decided to erase some over the others…Ha! Silly Christians….At this place I ran into two French girls who I met on the train from Cairo to Aswan…small world!!! They were on a two week holiday and doing it right. Every time the books and people said “you cant do it this way, “ they did. Lol. Its how I normally travel!!! So they gave me inspiration as well as letting me know I really fucked up not planning this place. They purchased a student card (even though they weren’t students) which gets them half off every temple, museum, and historical place….goddamnit…anyways…the boat stopped at a place called Edfu for the night and I decided to pay for the horse carriage ride to the temple early in the morning (apparently everyone else on the boat is part of a group tour of which all entrance fees are paid for and theres a guide for them aaaaand transportation. Yay…). The boat peeps said juice in the lobby at 06:00 and off to the temple and back by 08:00 to leave! Well I arrived at the temple at 06:30 to find out it doesn’t open til 7. Lol. Hashtagwinningatlife….but I did meet some ozzy named Dave and we lamented about the Egyptian way of dealing with foreign people. Very disgustingly in our opinion…really ruins the country…but there are some good ones speckled in between the shitty ones as I recalled my encounter with Mohammed and the sun table, dome, etc. Also, forgot to mention…at Kom Ombo (and all temples) all the people selling things like to yell Bob Marley as I pass and try to persuade me into buying some crap from them. Another tout is to simple hand over an item and say gift! And then after much discussion when I try to walk away they want a “gift” of money…lol. I don’t pay and they take their stuff back. Well one dude yelled at me and I said “baksheesh!” This is an Arabic word for the small tip everyone expects you to pay for things like showing you a way, opening a door, breathing…lol. So I turned it on em. HA! Everyone around thought it was really funny and they all kind of stood there dumbfounded. Hehehe. I went to the temple and on my way back the same dude pulled me into his stall and we had a conversation. He handed over a galabiyya (traditional full length robe half the country wears) and a scarf head wrap turban thingy. We had a pretty good conversation about how shitty the people of Egypt could be. He understood it was a problem for foreigners and he didn’t like it either. Long story short, and after a few pictures from his friends and a bunch of people on a cruise ship, he simply said have a good day. I told him to take back his stuff as I only had 6 Egyptian Pounds (under a dollar). He told me to keep my money and the clothes…idk what got into this guy but I like it! Another surprise in Egypt! I didn’t get burned by this guy! It wasn’t another case of being friendly expecting money in the end. Man! I really cant figure out this country…So now I got an outfit that makes me look like Osama bin Laden and its awesome. Hahahahaha. There is supposedly a traditional party on the boat sometime this trip where they actually rent out this garb because it is compulsory to wear during the event. Now I got it and fo free!!! Woa!!! Cooooool!!! Also…this guy’s name was Mohammed. Hahahahaha….

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