2010 Egypt

The Joy is in the Journey
This is always the case, and it should be the opening chapter to any travel story. It’s even more so when traveling overseas, and more so still when traveling to a third world country like Egypt. This time, as almost always, the Lady Adventurer and I endured flight delays, abysmal airline service, and anxiety over possible missed connections and potentially lost luggage. We were also forced to ask ourselves, how much to pay for a nap? The itinerary called for overnight from Detroit to Amsterdam, followed by nine hours in Amsterdam, followed by a 9pm to 2am flight to Cairo. We would be sleep-challenged for two nights in a row; a nap in Amsterdam would be most beneficial.

How much would those Z’s cost? I figured $200 for a hotel, including taxi fare. That’s $5 per wink, assuming we got 40. The solution? We found a “Yotel Hotel” in the airport where we rented an 8 x 10 foot room for four hours for 49 Euros. This is still pretty steep, and the room was comically teensy, but it worked for us.

Our 2am arrival into Cairo was tough. We stood in immigration/customs queues - sometimes the wrong ones - for well over an hour.

Cairo
The arrival at the Movenpick Cairo-Pyramids hotel was at 4am, which turned out to be not an alert time for us. We were stunned to look outside later in the morning daylight to see the Pyramids right there – almost directly across the road! They weren’t kidding with the hotel name. It turns out that crowded, polluted Cairo has sprawled out to the steps of the once remote Pyramids. We were told that modern Cairo now has 18 million inhabitants, placing it as one of the most populace cities on the planet.

Even though Lady Adventurer and I would be seeing them again the next day, we decided to walk the mile or so over to them while we had the extra time. Along the way we were accosted by several (possibly well-meaning) Egyptians, wanting to talk to us, wanting to help us cross the busy 14-lane highway, wanting to sell us camel and carriage rides, wanting to personally show us around the Pyramids. They all wanted a tip. I did tip the guy who helped us to not get killed crossing the highway, as well as a guy who wouldn’t quit following us around at the Pyramid itself because it seemed to be the only way to could get rid of him.

How were the Pyramids themselves? They are as imposing and impressive, not to mention downright BIG, as advertised. It was awesome to walk right up to them and then look up. Oh yes. At 4,500 years or so, they’re pretty darn old too. When we returned the following day we also got around to see the nearby sphinx.

It was interesting to learn the latest theories about their construction. It’s now generally believed that each of the big three were built in about 30 years by skilled workers – probably farmers during their off-seasons; not by slave labor over longer periods as previously thought. There is even some evidence for this as the remains of some of the buried workers are now being uncovered. These people were apparently well treated.

Of course everyone will want to know if I went inside. I did go down into one of the smaller “Queens” Pyramids. The passage was steep, small and dark. It led to a very small cubical nearly empty room that had held the mummified queen. I was told that the inside of the larger Pyramids were the same – nothing to see inside. The tombs in the Valley of the Kings would be far more interesting.

The Egyptian Museum ranks as one of the top two Archeological Museums in the world. The other is in Athens. Although the accompanying information was sparse, the treasures are magnificent. Among other highlights are the bust of Khafre and all of King Tutankhamun's stuff, including his golden death mask. Great stuff!

An important announcement about King Tut was made a few days later while we were still in Egypt: scientists confirmed his cause of death as malaria. They also announced that he had had several genetic disorders. His father was confirmed as Akhenaten (He was the Pharaoh who announced that he was not a deity, and who also stated that only one god exists. What was he thinking?), and his mother was Akhenaten's sister. By this point I'd finally learned more about the Boy King than I'd been aware of from Steve Martin's song.

Relatively speaking, Cairo isn’t so old. Really. It’s “only” been around for 2,000 years or so. Memphis and Saqqara to the south, and the Pyramids of Giza to the southwest, are much older. We did get to see parts of “Old Cairo” in the central part of the city. We got to see the Coptic Christian “Hanging” Church (About 15% of Egyptians are Christian), a church above the spot where the Holy Family hid from King Herod, Benezra Synagogue, and the Citadel, including the huge Mosque of Muhammed Ali. Ali, who neither floated like a butterfly, nor stung like a bee, is considered the founder of modern Egypt. He built this famous mosque in the early nineteenth century.

Alexandria
The trip from Cairo to Alexandria took about four hours. It was notable because of the police escort we were given. At times we had one police vehicle in front of and one behind the bus as well. We also had a guard who was armed with an assault rifle with us inside the bus. Lady Adventurer noted that she wasn’t sure whether to feel more secure (because the guards were present) or less so (because they may have been needed).

I had expected Alexandria to be cleaner and nicer than Cairo, and it was. I had expected it to be smaller and quieter than Cairo, and it was. But with 5 million people, and also plenty of sprawl and traffic, not by much. Here, at least, dust and pollution are mitigated by the prevailing winds blowing in from the north over the Mediterranean Sea.

Founded by Alexander the Great’s Generals, Alexandria has a rich and storied history. Alexander himself had conquered and ruled Egypt, but hadn’t actually set foot right here. One of the stories, of course, is that of Cleopatra VII, the famous one, who had encounters with Julius Caesar and Marc Antony. She was the last Egyptian to rule Egypt for nearly 2,000 years. We were able to live part of this history by visiting Fort Quaitbey, the site of the famous Pharos Lighthouse, one of the Wonders of the Ancient World, and also the site of famous battles of the Greco/Roman era. Another goose-bump historical moment came when we visited the new world-class library, Biblioteca Alexandrina. This is at the site of the earlier library, the planet’s original university and center of learning and knowledge.

Lady Adventurer and I walked, and I also ran along the Corniche, the famous miles-long promenade on the Mediterranean Sea. Some of the beaches looked nice, but it was a bit cool for swimming, so we stayed dry.

Also in Alexandria we visited some Christian Catacombs, and the Montaza Royal Palace Park and Gardens.

Marsa Matruh
Marsa Matruh is west of Alexandria, where the desert meets the sea, and the contrasts are extreme and stunning. Before arriving we stopped at El Alamein, site a decisive World War II battle. It was here that German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the Desert Fox, was beaten, and the tide of the war turned. The museum was fine, but the Commonwealth Cemetery was particularly moving. One of our British traveling companions told me the story of his father, who was in the battle and then lost in the desert for three weeks. Eventually hooking up with two New Zealanders and a German, they survived by taking water from a broken down truck’s radiator.

Our hotel, the Jaz, was brand new; we were the first to use it. It was a huge resort with hundreds of rooms, and the 37 of us only took up a few of them. What’s more, there were other brand new resort hotels next door, and they were empty as well. We had the whole place, and the beach, to ourselves. We arrived in the midst of an Honest-to-Allah sandstorm of Biblical proportions. As we settled in, the storm abated, but we discovered that the place still had some bugs to work out: most notably the Lady Adventurer was trying to switch on a floor lamp at the same time that I was turning it on from the wall switch, and this resulted in a small explosion and severing of the cord in Debbie’s hand. Her hand turned black, but she was ok.

Although we had some free time here, we did get to do some sightseeing. We saw Rommel’s cave/headquarters, the town of Matruh, and the beautiful beaches nearby. These included Cleopatra’s Beach (she really did swim here), and stunning Agiba Beach.

We were informed that millions of land mines had been planted in the general area in World War II, and that some are still being found. This turned out to be a consideration for my morning run on the beach. For more about that, see my running blog.

Cairo II: the Return
The bus took a different route through the desert back to Cairo. Before arriving we stopped at Wadi Natrun, an oasis village where we saw the Monastery of St. Bishoi. There was some interesting architecture (the place dates back to 340 AD), but the stop was fairly comical because the Monk who showed us around spoke very fast in some strange dialect of English such that I only understood only about ten of his 10,000 or so words to us.

Once back in central Cairo we stopped at the famous Khan Al-Khalili Bazaar. It’s hard to describe. For one thing, it’s huge, taking up dozens of city blocks. Traffic all around the place was bad; it took us something like an hour to park the bus. And then there was the shopping experience itself. We ran the gauntlet of venders attacking us from every side, but we managed to survive with our money intact.

Aswan
Lady Adventurer and I, along with the rest of our group, took a very early morning flight from Cairo to Aswan in “Upper Egypt” to the south. Aswan is the site of the famous “High Dam”, which was built in the 1960s, and has dramatically changed Egypt in several ways: there’s now a lot of electricity, and no more flooding of the Nile, but this is causing farmers to use chemical fertilizers due to the lack of silt, and it’s also causing the shoreline of the Mediterranean to erode. Yin and Yang, good and bad. Another problem was that several ancient temples were to be flooded when Lake Nasser was created by the dam. Some were relocated, and we saw two of them: Philae and Abu Simbal.

Philae temple stands on an island, and was dedicated to the god, Isis. We saw great frescoes, but some had been defaced by early Christians, who didn’t like the depiction of virgin birth by the ancient Egyptians; it seemed they wanted the idea to themselves.

Abu Simbal was particularly stunning. It’s actually two adjacent temples built by Rameses II, also known as Rameses the Great. He ruled for 67 or 76 years, and built one temple for himself and the other for his beloved wife, the beautiful Nefertari. They had been relocated 60 meters up, and 180 meters over and above the lake by Unesco. This was quite an engineering project, as the temples are huge, and are built into hillsides. We had driven three hours through the completely barren desert to reach them. But the trip sure was worthwhile. The temples, as well as their location on the lake are stunning.

Did I mention the heat? Upper Egypt was suddenly extremely hot: something like 35 Celsius, which equates to 95 Fahrenheit.

Cruising the Nile
The Movenpick Radamis II would be our moving hotel for a three night cruise north on the Nile. It was small compared to the Ocean Cruise ships we’ve been on. Unfortunately, all our meals were in the form of buffets, so our bellies didn’t go along with the small theme.

Before moving north we took a side trip to a Nubian Village that I still don’t know the name of. Nubians are the dark-skinned people here in the south of Egypt. They “like to keep crocodiles in their homes”, according to our guide. Of course we thought he was joking, until we entered a Nubian house and saw the pet crocs for ourselves.


The joy was once again in the journey. We went by boat and witnessed plenty of bird wildlife along the way. The herons and egrets were familiar, but some birds, including some colorful ones, were unique. And then there was the camel ride into the village itself. This was extremely uncomfortable for us males; because of the hump, I was continuously pushed forward and down into the protrusion at the front of the saddle, and came off with a somewhat high voice.

The house crocs were friendly, but we decided not to touch the really big one. We did hold a cute little one though. The house was used by four families, had a dirt floor, but interesting décor, and a decent amount of living space.

Along the way north to Luxor we stopped by a couple Greco-Roman era temples: Kom Ombo and Edfu. Edfu was particularly stunning in the early evening.

Luxor
The Valley of the Kings was everything it was to be. We passed on the Tomb of Tutankahmun after hearing that its treasures were all now in the Museum. We regretted this when we heard that the Tut’s mummy itself is still there. Oh well. We did enter three tombs: those of Rameses I, Rameses III and Rameses VII. The paintings, hieroglyphics and other designs in Rameses III’s tomb were particularly fantastic. The colors were amazing.

We also saw the temple of Hatshepsut, which is built into the side of a cliff for a spectacular setting. There wasn’t much to see once we climbed the many stairs however. Hatshepsut (say that name three times as fast as you can) was a rare and very powerful female pharaoh.

Lady Adventurer and I went off on our own and hired a horse-carriage ride through the town of Luxor. It was larger, and more interesting than I thought. The ride through the Egyptian (not for tourists) Bazaar was particularly interesting. Someone rode by on a bike, saw us inside and yelled back, “English Number one!” Atta, our driver knew we were American, and said quietly, “America is best.” We did, unfortunately, encounter some kids begging us for money.

And then we saw magnificent Karnak. What a place. It is Egypt’s greatest attraction after the Pyramids with good reason: the place is awesome. It’s a collection of temples built over a period of 1,300 years, and takes up over 100 acres. There are temples, obelisks, high pylons and hundreds of HUGE columns. The evening sound and light show was a little hokey, but still quite spectacular. We toured the place again the next morning, and still couldn’t spend enough time there.

Luxor Temple is nearby. It’s smaller, but still impressive. The two locations are connected by a partially restored three kilometer long Avenue of Sphinxes. That’s a lot of sphinxes.

Our day, and our entire tour, ended with lunch at an authentic African restaurant followed by a slow felucca ride back across the Nile.

Cairo III – This Time it’s Final
Lady Adventurer and I had an extra day to spend in Cairo, and we made the most of it. We hired a driver from the hotel to take us to Saqqara, an archeological site about 30 miles south of Cairo.

Home to monuments spanning 3,000 years, Saqqara is the location of Egypt's oldest pyramids and tombs. The famous Step Pyramid of Djoser was large and impressive. There was a small but very interesting museum. We also walked to several of the tombs. Discoveries at Saqqara continue. A Dutch and Egyptian team is at work there now. We saw the excavation in progress.

Eventually we had to head back; the heat and air pollution were getting to be too much for us.



Egypt in Retrospect
I find it difficult to reconcile the glory of ancient Egypt with the modern one. A couple undeniable connections include the Aswan High Dam and the Biblioteca Alexandrina. I come away more impressed than ever with the rich history and culture, not to mention the longevity of this great civilization. I also come away somewhat depressed about modern Egypt. The people we met personally were really wonderful. It’s the pollution, litter, crumbling infrastructure, extreme poverty and population explosion that are so disheartening. These are the descendents of the pharos and farmers of those glory years gone by, and this is hard to think about – it just hurts my brain.

As always with these sorts of trips, our guide, Ihab was great – he had a great knowledge and enthusiasm for the heritage of his people’s history. And as always, we had great memories and made many friends amongst our fellow travelers.

Also check out my running blog entry for the Egypt running.