EGYPT Part II

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October 3rd
After my first train ride ever, Natania and I met one of Atef’s agents who took us to our cruise ship. After a brief lunch and some exploring of the ship, we took real showers for the first time since Karim’s hotel. At 1:30 pm we met our guide for the remainder of our cruise, Hatim, who took us on a tour of Aswan.
Aswan is Egypt’s sunniest southern city that considers itself to have somewhat of an African atmosphere. Along the Nile near Aswan there are deserts, granite rocks, and beautiful islands with palm groves and tropical plants. We toured The Unfinished Obelisk, High Dam, Temple of Philae, and the Botanical Gardens. The Unfinished Obelisk is 41 meters high and weighs over 1150 tons. The Obelisk is found among ancient granite quarries. Next we drove to the High Dam that provides irrigation and electricity for the entire country of Egypt along with the Aswan Dam. This world-famous dam was built in 1960 and overlooks the Nasser Lake. Our next stop was the The Temple of Philae , located 8 km south of Aswan on Agilika Island. This was dedicated to the goddess Isis and includes a temple to Hathor, a Birth House, and two pylons. Our guide Hatim, proceeded to tell us the ancient legend of Isis and Osiris that the temples represented. Lastly, we went by motorboat to The Botanical Island (Ketchener) to walk around the botanical gardens. The exotic plants were beautiful and I definitely appreciated the relaxing atmosphere as we watched the sun set over the Nile on the side of the island. We returned to our ship around 5 pm to relax and read on the upper deck. Natania and I had our dinner around 8 pm where we met a delightful young married couple from Kenya and a group of 3 friends from Cyprus. Our ship set sail at 10 pm and we spent the remainder of the afternoon watching The Boondocks on my i-pod before bed.


October 4th
On the morning of the 4th, I woke up at 6 am in order to prepare to visit Kom Ombo before breakfast at 7 am. Here we explored the temple of Haroeris (the medicine god) and Sobek (the crocodile god) surrounded by sugarcane fields. There are twin entrance halls and sanctuaries to these temples. The most fascinating part was the pictorial representations (reliefs) of ancient surgical tools of the medicine god. We returned to the ship for breakfast around 8 am and set sail for Edfu. Natania and I spent the down time reading and napping while discussing senior thesis ideas.
We left the ship after lunch with Hatim around 1 pm to visit Edfu , which is about 105 km north of Aswan, the home of the cult Edfu Temple dedicated to Horus, the falcon-headed god. Within the temple site we were shown a Nilometer, a Court of Offerings, a pylon, and a ceiling relief of the goddess Nut. The story behind this particular temple was that of the “Beautiful Meeting”- a reunion between the god Horus and his wife Hathor. After our visit to the temple, Hatim took us to local bazaars (shops) and helped Natania bargain the prices. We returned to the ship to set sail at 3 pm and spent the remainder of the afternoon on deck reading and taking pictures of the scenery. While Natania spent time in the pool I engaged in a very intriguing conversation with an older, white, Christian male from South Africa. He conveyed to me that he, along with his wife and adult daughter, had just completed a “pilgrimage” to the Holy Land. It was interesting for us to discuss our thoughts, beliefs, and observations about Israel and the environment for religious Jews, Christians, and Muslims that live there. Furthermore, we discussed women in politics and the role of religion in the political arena. Lastly, we engaged in a discussion about the Human Rights atrocities in the Middle East as compared to the history of South Africa. After a two-hour conversation over coffee with this gentleman, I went to sit at a table on deck with Alexander, one of our friends from Cyprus. (I should mention that the cruise ship was mostly European and mostly French at that. Natania and I were by far the youngest on the trip. The lady from Kenya was the only other person we encountered that was under the age of 30). Alexander and I discussed the blessings of being raised in a community setting in rural areas and he began to give me gardening advice and tips for increase the aesthetics of property in the country. (Mom and Daddy you would have held a greater appreciation for his advice than I did). We discussed his sentiments about what some call “The Turkish Republic of Cyprus.” As it was dark and almost time for dinner, I said goodbye to Alexander and went to meet Natania in the room. We wrote postcards for a bit and watched more of The Boondocks. Natania and I were under the impression that we needed to dress in Egyptian traditional wear for the last dinner on the ship as there was to be a party for the older tourist. Therefore we left our rooms completely dressed in traditional clothing that we had purchased only to find that we were the only people wearing such garments. We immediately changed and arrived a little late for dinner. There was suppose to be a party on the ship that night which, to our disappointment, consisted of no more than 3 people at a time in the upper room with a dance floor and disco lights. Instead of deciding to create a party of our own, we retired to our room for more reading and Boondocks. Finally, we took care of the bill and began to pack for the next morning, as it was our last night on the ship.


October 5th
We arrived in Luxor early on October 5th and received our wake up call bright and early at 6 am. Natania and I ate breakfast with our friends briefly at 6:30 and headed out with Hatim to the West Bank of Luxor. Luxor , located about 670 km south of Cairo, is considered the world’s greatest outdoor museum. During the New Kingdom, 1567- 1085 BC, Luxor was the capital of Egypt and many of its temples of sandstone and granite still stand today.
The West side of Luxor includes the Valley of the Kings, Valley of the Queens, and Queen Hatshepsut’s Temple. We first visited the Valley of the Kings where the tombs of the kings of the New Kingdom are located. (King Tut’s tomb is located here.) The colored wall paintings inside the tombs were absolutely gorgeous but unfortunately I was not allowed to take any pictures for you all to see; hence, each of you must make a personal trip to Luxor in Egypt. The Valley of the Queens was very much like that of the Kings except the tombs were smaller and not as extravagant. (Nefertari’s tomb is located here). Lastly on the West Bank, we visited Queen Hatshepsut’s Temple . She was the only woman to rule Egypt in the Pharaonic Era.
Hatim and our driver dropped us off at a nearby buffet restaurant while they went to pray as it was a Friday, the Muslim holy day. They arrive about an hour later to pick us up and take us to the ship to retrieve our luggage and to write our evaluation of Hatim as a tour guide. Unfortunately, the writing of the “confidential” evaluation was not a positive experience. Hatim consistently told Natania to stop writing and that it was “quite enough.” Furthermore, he attempted to watch over her shoulder as she wrote her evaluation. To make matters worse he was very forward and asked to read the evaluation as a “person favor” and was angered at our opposition to such an idea, as it was suppose to be confidential. We finally granted him permission to read the letter after we departed at the end of the day, granted that he delivers the letter to his superiors. However, when the time came for us to part he proceeded to read the letter in front of us with the car parked and then asked us about our word usage and that he disagreed with what we wrote and asked for an explanation. It was really just an uncomfortable situation and I highly doubt that he actually delivered the letter to his boss.
Prior to the incident of Hatim reading the letter, he took us to the East Bank of Luxor after lunch before our parting. Our visit to the Luxor Temple was amazing. This temple is located downtown for the god Amon Ra who was married to Mut. The construction of this temple was during the time as both Amenhotep III and Ramses II. There is an obelisk still erect that precedes the temple. The reliefs here tell the story of the battle between Ramses II and Hetties. Our last tourist adventure was a visit to the Karnak Temples . This complex of temples covers 100 acres and the history of the construction spans 13 centuries. We explored the Avenue of Rams which represents Amon (god of fertility and growth) and the statues of Ramses II. The main temples are dedicated to the god Amon, the god Thebes, and the goddess Mut.
After our awkward departure from Hatim we were dropped off at a nearby hotel to awake our next guide/driver/agent. We were tired and extremely dirty from traveling around the historical tomb and temple sites all day and were placed in a nice hotel lobby with all of our luggage at 3:45 pm. Around 4:20 pm we received a call at the reception desk from the man who was suppose to meet us saying that he would not be back in Luxor until 7:30 pm. So…what were we to do? We asked permission to store our bags at the hotel and Natania and I went looking and shopping around the city of Luxor while staying as close to the hotel as possible so as to not get lost. We found a Bazaar Savoy (little mall) where we looked for last minute gifts and souvenirs. Once we survived the solicitations and borderline verbal harassment for a few hours we found an Internet café. We returned to the hotel around 7 pm and had dinner in the hotel (Queen’s Valley) restaurant. I had an interesting but delicious dish with chicken dipped in egg and covered with cheese and fried with butter placed on top of spaghetti. We meet Mimo, our next guide, around 7:30 pm and rushed to catch up 8 pm bus to Hurghada.
We arrive to Hurghada around midnight and meet our guide, Farag, who check us into the Cinderella hostel. We were too tired to care about the cleanliness of the place as we had been up and traveling since 7 am that morning. However we did switch rooms because we were originally assigned a room with no lights that was already occupied. Natania and I fell fast asleep around 1 am.


October 6th
On the 6th we woke up at 7 am to have breakfast and then left at 8 to catch our ferry leaving Hurghada for Sharm el-Sheikh on the southern tip of Sinai near the Gulf of Aqaba. Our ferry ride lasted 90 minutes and it was a wonderful way to witness the beauty of the Red Sea. We arrived in Sharm and waited around for about an hour or so to collect our luggage and then we began to look for our next guide who Farag told us would be waiting with a sign. However, after many attempts to ward off abrasive and harassive male taxi drivers for 30 min we called Atef to find out that his services had ended as soon as we left the mainland of Egypt although our last guide had informed us otherwise by mistake. Therefore we have Atef speak to one of the taxi drivers and ask him to take us to the border crossing at Taba, about a three hour drive. The lowest price Atef negotiated for us was 250 pounds. Therefore, Natania and I asked the man to take us to the nearest bus station as we were in a rush to get away from the other men who were begin to invade personal space and touch our arms and invite us to their houses with inappropriate solicitations. While in the taxi we asked the man to find us a driver who would accept 200 pounds for the ride to Taba as by this point I refused to be cheated out of money simply because we were young, American, female tourist. Our taxi driver was very nice and eventually found us someone to accept this lower price after about 20 minutes of driving and stopping at random places on the side of the road to speak with other drivers. (The worst part of this 20 minutes was that the man who had been bothering me previously, when Natania and I were waiting for our driver after arriving from the ferry, continued to following us in his taxi. At one point when our car was stopped he came to my side of the cab and opened the door because he wanted to drive us to Taba. I asked the driver to tell him that we did not want him to be our driver and I quickly grabbed and closed my car door.) Long story short, we finally found a driver and a corner store for snacks before making the trip back to Taba. Natania and I spent most of the trip sleeping as we were exhausted and our driver did not speak English. We finally arrived at the border and crossed back into Israel with few complications. The 6th was a Saturday and hence it was Sabbath in Israel; therefore, there were no buses back to Beer Sheva until much later. We arrive around 5 and decided to eat sandwiches by the beach and call our families to say that we had arrived back in the country safely and that our cell phones had service. We caught a late 3.5 hours bus back to Beer Sheva and arrive to the dorms with all our luggage late that night. I managed to unpack and talk with my roommate, Mer, about our traveling over Sukkot before we feel asleep only to awake the next morning and attend class.

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Photos

Our Friends from the Cruise
The couple from Kenya and the 3 friends from Cyprus

Comments

[Aunt Kim]

thanks
Hi Sweetie, I hope you are well. Thanks for sharing your wonderful experiences with us. Love you!