Egypt Part 1

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Cairo


Alice and I arrived into Cairo late at night and were met by our friend Kim who was in the year above us at Swansea uni. We all studied Egyptology, me a degree, Alice just finished her masters, and Kim is doing her PHD. She stayed in Cairo for 3 months to study, luckily when we were there so we could crash with her! Her cousin Kate had also come to visit from America. In the morning we headed out for a fun day- getting a visa extension for me and Alice yay! Of course as it turned out the office was shut because it was 6th October. Makes sense to me.

So we headed for Cairo museum- insanely busy, jam-packed full of ancient stuff in no particular order, graffiti all over the statues- great place! Kate went in to see Tutankhamun stuff but we had seen it before so decided to skip all the shoving and squashing to get into the room. Kate said she could just about se his gold mask through the crowd! We went to a nice little cafe near Kim's place for lunch and had some omlette, chilled out a bit and then headed for Karn el-Kalayley. That is the district of Cairo with all the market stalls. We went to the 'tent market' (sells bedouin tents in every size you could imagine - tiny model ones to life size ones you can sleep in) and Alice and I brought some kaftans for Luxor. We wandered through the streets of stalls and open shops selling everything you could want. It wasn't half as hassley as last time I was there, but I think my frame of mind has somewhat changed in the last 4 years, somehow I just don't care any more! We had dinner on a boat on the river called 'Nile City', that has loads of different restaurants in it. We ate in the Mexican one, expensive for Egypt but good.

Kim had booked a taxi for us through her friend Hussain for the next morning so he picked us up and we went to sort out our passports. Thank god Kim was there and she knew what she was doing,would have taken us forever to work it out otherwise! Hussain then took us to see the Giza pyramids. First we stopped at the panorama to see them all in a line with Cairo city as the backdrop. Then we walked all around them, saw some mastaba tombs as well and had a proper explore. And we saw the sphinx of course! Of course the pyramids are impressive but the atmosphere loses something for me when there are so many people and to be honest after already travelling for 5 months I was absolutely knackered when I got to Egypt! Luckily I had seen the pyramids before, or maybe if I hadn't I would have been more enthusiastic! but then Hussain took us to Saqqara, we stopped off at the compulsory papyrus place and had a demo of how to make papyrus, a funny but pointless experience as we couldn't really buy anything. Saqqara though was awesome, it is the first pyramid, a step pyramid so it looks very different to the Giza ones. Its a huge area and we didn't have long to explore unfortunately. Alice and I promised to go back when we go back to Saqqara at the end of our trip.

We went back to Kim's for some lunch and then her and Kate had to leave for their flight to Luxor. Alice and I had decided to go more authentic (and cheap) and get the night train to Luxor. We went on the internet for a while, had some food at pizza hut, and headed for the train station. We were there really early and a man started talking to us and helping us. He said he goes to the train station all the time to help tourists find where they have to go on the night train. Of course we were convinced he just wanted backsheesh and didn't trust him at all, so felt bad when he did help us and asked for no money. but believe me that is very rare in Egypt! We made friends with some Dutch tourists who were going on the train as well, but we had a compartment to ourselves with three seats in for the night. We paid for first class and thank god we did because god knows what second class would be like- first class was dirty, old and full of cockroaches! But we got some sleep and actually it was quite fun!


Luxor week 1


Arrived in Luxor in the morning along with a load of other tourists, fought our way through the hoards of men shouting ''taxi! taxi!'' and went for a walk to find our hostel. The place we had booked is owned by a couchsurfer, Paola from Columbia, and her Egyptian husband Karim. It was a good hostel, lovely people and we stayed there for about a week. After dumping our stuff we went to find some food at our favourite restaurant, remembered from our last visit to luxor four years ago, Sindbads! It's a lovely outdoor restaurant, very chilled and good cheap food. Alice's friend Luke came to meet us there, he is travelling all around the world as we speak! After eating we went to find a swimming pool to chill out for the afternoon. We got completely ripped off in a hotel charging us £7 to use the pool, but it was so hot we were desperate to get in the pool! It had a nice little pontoon going into the Nile with the swimming pool and loungers on it. In the evening we met up with Kim and Kate and had some food and tried out a sheesha!

Next morning we were supposed to get up and go to the Valley of the Kings with Kim and Kate but we were so tired we ended up sleeping in, thinking ''well we are here for a whole month...'' At 2pm we did meet them and we got on the bus to Sunshine children's home, where Alice and I were going to work for the next four weeks. We travelled by public bus most of the time because it was so much fun! Little mini-buses packed with locals, it costs the egyptian equivilent of 5 pence to ride, and everyone passes their money forward so it goes through 5 different hands to get to the driver, then the driver passes the change back. So much fun!

The new Sunshine building is fantastic- the old one on Television Street was so small and dingy compared to the brand new housing blocks and grassy courtyard for the children to play in,. it was amazing! We had a tour around and then got taken upstairs to play with the babies, the one and two year olds! So sweet! At first they just stared at us with their big brown eyes but then they plucked up the courage to come and give us a hug. I saw a boy who I saw four years ago, now 18 he was just starting a new job as a waiter in a hotel- so pleased for him! We met the director of Sunshine and Salma, an Australian organiser of the charity. As we were sat in the staff room all these kids kept coming in and we had to give them all snacks! I sponsor one of the little boys who lives at Sunshine, he is 8 now and I saw him briefly. Of course he didn't know who I was but I was happy to see him looking so happy! That was the only time I saw him because the older children go off to school in the day, and Alice and I worked 9-12 every day with the 3-4 year olds, teaching them arts and english.

So the next day was our first day of teaching and we didn't really know what to expect, we didn't even know if we would have a teacher with us the whole time! Luckily we did, a lovely lady called Nagia, because the children soon got to know that we didn't speak any Arabic so as soon as the teacher left the room they would run riot! That day we made a banner out of paper triangles to put up in the classroom, the kids then have a half hour break to watch TV and then we did some colouring in. We had 5 in our group, 3 boys and 2 girls, all very lovely! After our first day we ate lunch in Sindbads and I spent the whole afternoon being ill so didn't get to do anything that night! Alice met up with Luke again and he left for Sri Lanka that night!

I felt much better in the morning and Sunshine was much more fun because we planned it properly, we had more of an idea about what they wanted. The next few days we made a display for the classroom 'under the sea', we made fish and painted and glittered them, octopus out of coloured paper, buttons and gems to stick on, and jellyfish out of confetti and ribbons. We also made other things like animal masks, and sang Old MacDonald and we tried to do printing vegetables with paints but that didn't go so well! Unfortunately the teacher had to go to hospital with one of the babies that day so left us on our own with the kids- it was a disaster there was paint everywhere!!! All over themselves, the classroom, and us of course! It was chaos! But we cleaned up and someone came to help us and it was fine! But they never left us alone again, always made sure someone else was there!

One evening we went to Luxor temple after the sun had gone down, nice and cool and quiet! Luxor looks very different to what it used to, they are now digging up the causeway that ran between Luxor and Karnak temple, to make it look like it used to. Sounds like a great plan but they have had to knock down so many buildings that were in the way, including people's homes. And the people don't get compensation for that. It is unfortunate that in Egypt the Egyptian people feel so far removed from the archaeology, like it is something for the tourists and not for the local people, even though it is their heritage, and its things like this that make the idea solid, they are being excluded from it.

That night we found our new favourite restaurant- Aladin's! The food is unbelievably good and cheap, very fresh! We had a chat to Aladin who owns the place and he said he would give us a huge discount if we stayed in his hotel, so the next week we moved in there!

We spent afternoons eating lunch and then relaxing by the pool or chilling out in the hotel room, too hot to do anything else! And on the Wednesday evening we went out with Paola and a group of Colombian army men who were staying at the hotel as well. Paola has these groups over for their holiday from their army work and has to entertain them, so that night we went to a hotel in Luxor where they were doing an Egyptian dance show. There were many different acts put on, but all the same dancers. Of course we ended up getting dragged on stage- once to try out some Egyptian belly dancing and once to try on a huge skirt that the men wear when they do the amazing spinning dance- can't describe it but it HAS to be seen, they just spin around for about half an hour and do things with this massive skirt they have on- crazy! And we went on stage for the finale as well and ended up like a conga line going all around the room! We met an English man called Chris who is very good friends with Paola and Karim and is moving to Luxor soon. He really helped us out a lot and we went to Aswan with him on the weekend!

The next night we went out as well, to a bar Genesis which had a fountain, a heron and a camel inside it- very cool bar! The Colombians are pretty crazy party animals and of course I ended up dancing salsa with some of them! Including the general haha! Only one of them really spoke English, Jonathan who had lived in America, and another guy who wasn't in the army but was hanging out with them. So we had a chat with them and with Chris, and drank our non-alcholic cocktails because we decided not to drink for the whole time we were in Luxor, which didn't go down too well with the Colombians!


Aswan


Up at 5pm and in the car to Aswan, with Alce, Chris and Karim's brother who was driving us there. I fell instantly asleep and when I woke up we were at our first stop- Edfu! I have wanted to se Edfu for so long and I wasn't disappointed- so impressive! With all the statues of Horus as a falcon, the huge pylons and the funerary boat inside the inner sanctuary, amazing! It was really early so we had the place to ourselves- perfect! In the car going along I was taking pictures of all the people out the window, one of my favourite things to do, because you just think- one of these could be my famous National Geographic shot. Or, of course, you just get a picture of a blurry wall.

Next stop was Kom Ombo, a much smaller and very cute temple to the crocodile god Sobek. We had a wander around and stopped for a drink as I was feeling a bit overheated. By the time we got to Philae I was feeling really ill so went and sat in the restaurant. So many people were coming to help me and giving me all these suggestions- lemon juice on the forehead, water on the back of the neck, ice wrapped in tissue on the face. I tried them all, and had some food, and felt much better so something obviously worked! And Chris really looked after me bless him! As we were sat there a lovely French man came and sat near by and I had a chat with him and tild him about Sunshine, all in French! Very pleased with myself! So eventually we got on the boat to Philae, which is a temple on an island that was moved brick by brick when they built the High Dam, otherwise it would have been flooded completely. I love Philae it's one of my favourites, so many different parts to it, I love the Hathor chapel as well, and such beautiful surroundings, just sat there in the middle of the lake.

We went back into Aswan and stayed at Hathor hotel, of course we booked it because of the name (Hathor is our favourite goddess- we're not geeks I swear!) And it had a pool on the roof so guess where we went first... Later on Chris took us out to show us koshary, a tradtional Egyptian dish with rice, macaroni and lentils all in together, good but they gave us a kind of takeaway one in a plastic pot, we had a much better one when we got back to Luxor! We had a wander around the town and the market, where we got much less hassle than walking through the souq in Luxor. We had a good look around, got a few marriage offers and had a few things thrown at us, then sat down at a cafe to have some juice and watch the world go by, before heading back for an early night.

Up early again next morning to visit some islands of Aswan. So it was on the motorboat to the Botanical island first of all. It is an island full of tropical plants brought from all over the world by General Kitchener (WW1). On the far side of the island are glorious views of mountains of sand with endless desert stretching behind. There is a little museum on the island with a collection of Kitcheners notes and dried leaves. It's impressive but we were disappointed no trees came from England or Korea! Chris had aquired a Korean guy called Chay by this point and was helping him out, he came to the island with us and somehow managed to get a following of hungry mangy cats. I think he fed one and suddenly all the cats on the island were there at his feet! We made our escape by boat and waved the cats goodbye, and headed to Elephantine island. It was very hot and no shade but the ancient ruins were amazing! There is everything on this island- chapel, temple, houses, a nilometer for measuring the height of the river. I could have stayed a lot longer but it was so hot! We then headed back to the mainland and the Nubian museum, where Alice, Chay and I had a drink in a cafe with the most confused waiters ever, and then we went to see the museum. It was cool, dark, lovely displays, very impressive museum! SO different to Cairo museum! Alice and I took a walk around the gardens outside the museum, there was a view of a huge cemetery opposite. When we came back to the entrance Chris was waiting for us with an 'Egyptian breakfast' of Egyptian flat bread with an aubergine mixture in it - very good lunch!

Chay was going to get a boat cruise to Luxor from Aswan, Chris and our driver had sorted it out for him the night before. So we went to see him off on the ship, only it wasn't there anymore! He had paid for a particular ship and the ship they saw last night had disappeared! The guy they had spoken to the night before insisted it was the same boat but it clearly wasn't so all were very annoyed! So Chay ended up getting his money back and coming on the train to Luxor with us. The train was much nicer than on the way from Cairo to Luxor, clean and quiet and we had a good 3 hour journey, although the times we were told were wrong so we had to wait an hour and a half, but we found a restaurant to have a drink in. There were great views out the window of the train, especially when the sun was setting and a mist descended all over the countryside. Back in Luxor Chris took us to his favourite koshary restaurant, no plastic takeaways this time, it was so good!

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