Day 304 Slow Boat to Luxor

The dreamy slowness of my cruise ship up the Nile gave a me a tangible sense of the word "languid." It seemed as if it drifted more than navigated, with only a quiet vibration giving evidence of mechanized propulsion. Additionally, the ship, built for 150 passengers was only carrying nine, many fewer than the crew, lending a stillness of motion and sound to the decks. There was no hurry for anything. It would take a day and a half to make our way to Luxor.

As I stared out from my luxurious wood paneled cabin at the water lilies and Nile birds drifting by or as I sat on the upper deck in the shade of a canopy, marveling at the beauty of Nile cutting a verdant green swath through the desert, I felt the hassles of travel blur into hazy distant memory. I chatted with some other Americans over afternoon tea, enjoyed sumptuous meals, and soaked up the tranquility.

We stopped at a two places, the better being the town of Edfu. I haggled with a cigarette smoking 14-year-old for a carriage ride to the temple, eventually settling on the equivalent of $3 USD for the 20 minute round trip including an hour of waiting time. I had the upper hand because he was desperate for a fare but I ended up giving him $5 because I felt bad for him. The tourism business is slow in Egypt.

The Edfu temple was spectacular at night. It was my favorite by far of all the temples. It was deserted too. The most interesting part was when I was leaving, a plain clothes guard called me over to show me a hieroglyphic of a god giving birth. He pointed out the fine details with the barrel of his snub-nosed machine gun. And then he asked for a little something. In the dark. In a deserted temple. With his machine gun pointed at my crotch. I found that I felt suddenly generous, and gave a few more coins to this man than I would normally give.

I didn't really feel threatened. It was business as usual in Egypt. The fact of the time, place, and presence of an automatic weapon were not relevant to his providing a service and expecting compensation. Still, it was interesting.

Another couple had a more exciting time as they were returning in their carriage. A 3-year-old wandering the street was nick-of-time saved by a passer-by from being crushed under their horse, causing them to swerve and almost crash. They were shaken by both the near death and the ensuing shouting match that erupted on the street. The police ended up hurrying them out of the situation because they were worried that something might happen to the tourists.

Back on the ship, it was time for a fine dinner, a peaceful slumber, and then awaking to the glory of sunrise on the Nile. I was almost reluctant to leave the ship when we reached Luxor.

Day 303 Be Careful What You Joke About

I had intended to have more time to travel across North Africa before going to take Eric to Hawaii. With the shortened time frame I opted for a quick tour flying/Nile cruise tour to the south. It was much cheaper than I had expected. I started by flying to Abu Simbel which is very close to the Sudan border and the site of a major relocation project for a whole set of tombs and giant stone sculptures that had been carved out of a solid rock mountain. Because of the rising waters of the Aswan dam endangering the ancient site, countries from around the world pitched in to miraculously cut up the stone mountain and move it uphill a few hundred feet. The size and fragility of the tombs and sculptures made it a daunting project. I was impressed.

There is nothing to see in Abu Simbel other than the one site and the airline provides free direct transportation (5 minutes) to and from the site, allowing me to be back on the plane within two hours of arriving. I lucked out with the weather while I was there; it was only stifling hot—a few days before, it was depths-of-hell hot. As part of my package, I flew to Aswan to stay for a day before heading up the Nile to Luxor on a cruise ship.

The hotel I picked, with the roof top pool, internet, and river view turned out to be different than it was depicted in the pictures. When my airport transfer guy led me walking down a filth ridden dirt street toward my chosen hotel, I almost made a joke about my hotel being in the rundown building we were passing. I am glad I didn’t because it looked better than my hotel. I wasn't too surprised considering the $8 USD/night rate. Nor was the lack of internet surprising. The room was not overly clean, but better than I had expected with a great 5th floor Nile view. The roof top pool was tiny and chilly.

I was only at the hotel for an hour before heading out to see the very huge yet particularly unimpressive looking Aswan dam. The hydroelectric power from the dam provides electricity for all of Egypt and if it burst, it would drown about 90 % of the country’s population on the way to the Mediterranean. Accordingly, they are very protective of it and have a fair sized military presence there.

After the dam, I was taken for a boat ride to the Phila Temple on an island on the Nile. It was also moved to higher ground to save it from the dam’s higher waters. The temple was cool (not in temperature) and almost deserted. Wandering alone in the ancient silence and shadows of hieroglyph covered columns is an enchanting experience. The occasional vividness of some of the hieroglyphs stopped me in my tracks a few times. It is almost impossible to imagine the number of days that have passed since they were carved and painted.

The guide told the group of five in our boat to dip their hands in the Nile for good luck. I abstained since I had just read that morning about the bacteria in the river that would give tourists painful stomach cramping diarrhea for weeks. I work hard to stay healthy while traveling and if I have to pass up a little good luck, so be it. I was too slow to warn my eager boat mates who plunged their hands in the dark murky water and splashed their sunburned faces. Oops.

Back on my wretched little street I found a couple good places to eat: a shwarma place, of course, and a place that only sold a vegetarian dish that was made with rice, pasta, tomatoes, onions, and spicy sauce. Both were good and cheap. I wandered for a long while and found the average people to be quite friendly, calling out hello to me as I passed. The shop people on the other hand were desperate. Tourism has been down since 9/11, and unlike Greece, they see every tourist as valuable. I had to work to avoid being dragged into shops.

Day 301 Time Travel and the Blood Thirsty Dead

The Egyptian Museum is as good for its building and displays as it is for its collection; walking through the doors is like stepping back in time 100 years, because I do not think it has changed much at all in that time. Almost everything is unprotected, cluttered, up close, and personal. The museum itself is an antique. I liked the museum as much as the contents, because rather than feeling anachronistic it could not have been a better match to what I had imagined.

Even though I have studied some Egyptology, I was truly astounded at the sheer numbers of sarcophagi both wood and stone in the collection. Of course the best part was the collection of grave goods from King Tut. It is spectacular for the quantity, size of items, and quality. In general Egyptian antiquities out class most other civilizations as far as interesting items go (IMHO), but King Tut’s things are in a class by themselves. It is obvious that they actually believed he was a god. Wow. That was really something to see.

The most modern areas of the museum are the mummy rooms, and even so, the mummies merely rest in carefully lit, simple glass cases. All climate control equipment or other electronics are hidden. The mummies vary from peaceful and pleasant looking to pure twisted agony frozen in dehydrated time. Spooky! I have seen enough horror movies that I can easily imagine them coming alive and trying to eat my organs! AAAHHHHHHhhhhhhhhh………

FYI: The mummy in this picture was not from the Cairo museum.

Day 300 Meeting a Wonder of the World

The pyramids, center of Cairo’s tourism, were the place where I got the full experience of aggressive touts. In traffic a quarter mile away from the entrance, people would run into the busy street and along side my speeding taxi window senselessly yelling prices and waving merchandise as if I would tell the taxi to stop so I could buy stuff that is available everywhere. It did not bode well for when the taxi actually stopped. My taxi, arranged by my hostel, was mine for the whole day for $25. No bus hassles, no taxi bargaining, and I got valuable tips such as to ignore the guys asking for your ticket at the pyramids themselves; you only need to buy a ticket at the gate unless there is a special tour. These con men stand in the entrances to the tombs/temples and tell people that they have to buy another ticket to get in. They are very stern and demanding and completely convincing if you did not know better. I politely brushed them off only to have them “get upset” that I was going in without a ticket.

The taxi stopped at his choice of camel services, of course. What I did not expect was for him to tell me to take as much time as I wanted and not to listen to the pleas of my tour guide to hurry. They want to get it over as soon as possible to get another customer. I paid for the full tour of the Giza plateau and sure enough the guide tried to give me the short tour. I was insistent on seeing what I came to see.

There were some places that the camels could not go and the guide said I had five minutes to look and come back. Ha! Ha! One of those places was the Giza pyramid with the Royal Boat Museum beside it. When I got back to the camel and guide after an hour, he was annoyed, the guide that is, camels are always annoyed. I humorously insisted that I only took 10 minutes and did not know what he was talking about. He gave up on hurrying me further. By the time we got to the sphinx, I was getting tired of him telling me that I would have to tip him at the end of the ride so I told him that every time he asked, his tip was getting smaller. He stopped asking.

The Giza plateau is an amazing place that would have been really quite a sight before the pyramids were plundered for stone. The pictures do not do justice for the size of the pyramids. They are huge! To think of the work it was to drag those stones through the sand is unbelievable. I went into a couple of the tombs of the smaller queen’s pyramids, ignored the con men at the entrances, and was thankful that I am not claustrophobic because the tunnel to the tomb is about a meter square and about a 45 degree angle down. Those tombs are not spectacularly decorated and only have a few rooms with simple monochromatic hieroglyphics. The stone sarcophagi are huge and had to have been placed as the pyramid was built. The strange thing about Egyptian tombs is that they are hot even though they are far underground. The heat combined with the perspiration and breath of all the tourists makes for a stuffy tomb; not a place to hang out and relax out of the sun as I had hoped. In my three and a half hours there I easily drank three liters of water.

At the end of the day, the guide got a very small tip due to his irritating ways and lack of information about the site, and my taxi driver got a big tip for actually caring about saving me money and working hard to make sure I enjoyed myself. He even had an ice cold Coke for me (free) when I got back from the camel ride. It was a good day of seeing one of the wonders of the world, experiencing the good and bad of a culture, and sweating like a pig.

Day 299 Cairo, Egypt

I have always heard how Cairo is overrun with desperately poor people hounding tourists, living on highway medians, and making the city unbearable. What I found was a vibrant and fascinating downtown where I saw no poor and I wandered completely unmolested. I suspect that the government decided to clean out the center city to improve the tourist experience. Police with machine guns are posted in front of every bank, ATM, government building, and tourist site, and it would be easy to run out the poor with that kind of manpower. However sad it may be, it is a relief to be able to roam and explore with no hassles.

Taxis rule the downtown. Since so many people take them, the prices are dirt cheap. It only costs a dollar or two to go most places in the city. Egyptian drivers are daring and it can be quite a thrill for someone accustomed to the very foreign concept of road rules. Almost anything goes in Cairo. Stop lights and stop signs are not acknowledged in normal driving, only a policeman in the street or a car in the way gets the drivers to stop. Additionally, taxis frequently turn off their lights while driving at night, only turning them back on when there is substantial cross traffic. Maybe to save their light bulbs??

My hostel is a very cool, formerly grand building from 1941. The wood and glass elevator only goes up (figure that one out for yourself) and I have to walk down from the 7th floor, which is fine. I am just glad it goes up. I get fresh squeezed orange juice when I wake up and then a free breakfast of bread, eggs, and coffee. I can ask for free tea or coffee to be served to me at anytime. The guys running the place are great and it is wonderful to be in a place where they really understand the concept of hospitality.