The Overdue Egypt Post: Part One

Yes, folks, I’m finally getting around to it! Please note that Part Two is already posted BELOW this, so you can read right through, and pics are three posts back.

This is a few of the highlights, followed by a breakdown by days. Let me know if you want me to expand on anything.

My Three Favorite Experiences in Egypt

1. Hot Air Balloon Ride—Mom and I went on a hot air balloon ride over the West Bank of Luxor for Christmas, which was fabulous. We got to fly over all of the cool monuments that we didn’t have the time or inclination to visit, and despite the smog, the views were great. Also, no people screaming at you to ride their camel at 2000 feet.
2. Desert/Oases—We went out into the Western Desert twice—to Siwa Oasis near the Libyan border, which was cold but delightfully laid back and surrounded by beautiful sites, and to Bahariyya Oasis and the White Desert, which was… cold but delightfully laid back and surrounded by beautiful sites.
3. Food—Oh. My. God. This might be partially because I was coming from Madagascar, where the cuisine has the creativity and variety of, ahem, plain white rice, but the food in Egypt was fabulous. We had kusherie practically every day—a delightful comfort food mix of pasta, rice, lentils, garbanzo beans, dried onions, tomato sauce, and garlic sauce IN ONE BOWL. There were stands of fresh fruit juice on every block, mint tea at every turn, yummy desserts (including om aly, which is pastry shell, milk, and almonds under a crème brulee-ish crust). Even the random side dishes, like fried cauliflower in thyme sauce and beet salad, were delicious. Oh, and did I mention that this is all street food, and costs less than a dollar? Sigh…

Safety and Hassle

Despite the political climate of the past month, and despite the religious bombing in Alexandria while we were there, I felt safe in Egypt—honestly, I felt safer walking around the streets of downtown Cairo at night than I do walking around the streets of my little Malagasy village at night. There were basically no drunks, which cuts out 90% of the annoying or aggressive people right there. With the notable exception of Luxor, people were exceptionally polite and helpful, and on the two or three occasions we were approached by unsavory characters, people were quick to intervene on our behalf. When a crazy guy on the streets started following us, a nearby gentleman immediately put himself in between us and him and escorted us out of harm’s way, then walked off without waiting for thanks.

Now, I guess, for the hassle. I didn’t find Egyptian men nearly as unpleasant and aggressive as people told me they would be, though I’m sure this was helped by the fact that I was traveling with another woman (either my mother or another female traveler) most of the time. Plus, my tolerance of harassment has been skewed by living in Madagascar, where I’m stared at and followed constantly, so only being stared at 10% of the time was a pleasant change. That said, baksheesh is annoying and people in Luxor were outright hostile. The baksheesh thing goes back along ways, culturally. Give him a pound to unhelpfully guide you around or a pound to leave you alone, either way, the dude’s getting a pound (one Egyptian pound = about 15 or 20 cents, btw). Luxor is a step above annoying—a constant stream of people yelling at you to ride their carriage or camel, getting vocally hostile when you don’t, and trying to rip you off—not kind of rip you off, majorly so. It’s understandable given Luxor’s constant stream of tourists and recent monument issues (the government has moved people out of their houses and torn up historic buildings in order to uncover ancient monuments). Understandable, but not excusable.

In Egypt

Day One: I got into Cairo the day before my mother at the bracing hour of 5 am, so after staring tiredly off into space for awhile and then checking my email (practically every hostel we stayed in had free WiFi! It was AMAZING!!), I decided to brave the city streets. I suppose a lot of people find people find Cairo insufferably dirty and somewhat undeveloped, but again, I was coming from Madagascar and found Cairo amazing. Tall buildings—not much trash in the (downtown) streets—nicely paved multilane streets and overpasses everywhere—I felt like such a yokel. Even most of the Gasy capital is two-lanes, two-stories.

I eventually found my way to the Egyptian museum, that overcrowded and poorly labeled treasure-trove that contains with all things, provided they are old, carved, stone, and Egyptian. I reluctantly braved the absurd security measures and entrance price (the security measures seemed especially absurd a few weeks ago, when I read that rioters broke in and damaged some mummies). Then I took a deep breath and plunged into the crowds of (sorry) fat, rude, uncaring, and one udder short of a moo tourists. My god, however do people think they can enjoy a trip when their being whisked around by an uptight tour guide, who charges them five times what they should pay and makes everyone else’s lives miserable by attempting poke their little FOLLOW ME flags in the eye of every independent and thoughtful tourist?

Anyway. The Egyptian Museum was quite delightful, once I adjusted myself to the crowds and (evil) guides. My Lonely Planet proved useful in tracking down the “big” pieces, and the rest of the time I just wandered from room to room (there were about 50 rooms, plus hall exhibits).There were alligator mummies and King Tut’s headdress, and stone statues of gods, pharaohs, and ancient VIPs in every size you can imagine. You can Google Images this if you’re interested, there were no cameras allowed inside.

In the afternoon I had my first bowl of kusherie (instantly hooked), braved the insane traffic (no pedestrian crossings for the most part, you just run out in front of cars and hope for the best), and met up with a lovely Vietnamese-French woman who treated me to dinner after I tried to help her locate her lost baggage by translating in my shoddy French.

Day Two: I met another female traveler over hostel breakfast and since my Mom wasn’t supposed to come in until later that night, we decided to take the (fantastic, clean, and efficient) Cairo Metro to Coptic Cairo. We hit up the museum first, which has everything (really, EVERYTHING) you could ever want to know about Coptic religious art. Very nicely presented but paled in contrast to the Egyptian Museum and by that point I REALLY wanted to get outside. The building it’s in was fantastic though—intricately carved wooden reliefs on every surface and, worth a special mention, a fully enclosed litter the size of a small car used to carry upper-class female pilgrims to the Holy Land without them having to walk or be seen. I can’t decided what would be worse—to have to carry the thing or to be stuck in the sweltering little box for weeks on end.

Several of the churches in the area were unfortunately under construction, but I did enjoy seeing the Hanging Church, which has beautiful mosaics and, in several places, cutouts in the floor where you can look down a 40 foot drop. The church was built straddling an old Roman water tower—that’s how it got its name.

On the way back to the hotel to meet up with my Mom, we stopped at Egypt’s oldest mosque and a Thai restaurant. Coptic, Muslim, Thai, gotta love the cultural mix.

Day Three: With The Mother Unit finally accounted for despite the best efforts of the London snowstorms, we headed to Muslim Quarter for a day of bartering at the market (Ted, you taught me well) and eating (Egyptian pancakes—not always as good as they sound). Some of the market guys were annoying (Hey lady, looking is free), but wandering around the alleys filled with leather and spices and silver and fabrics was…delightful. I feel like I’ve used that word before, but there you go.

Day Four: This is the day you’ve been waiting for, THE PYRAMIDS, dum dum DUM. (That was dramatic music, by the way). We split a cab for the day with two other tourists and headed to The Big Boys Who Were Definitely Overcompensating, only to see—well, not much actually. The Pyramids, as happens oh so rarely, were fogged in. Seriously!?! We could just make out the sphinx through the mist, since we were kept farther away than usual because of construction. And we could see maybe a quarter of the way up the pyramids. The one thing we could see very clearly were the camel drivers, who popped up every ten feet HEYLADYYOUWANTCAMELGUESSHOWMUCHHISNAMEMICHAELJACKSONHELOVEYOU.…so we headed out to out next destination, Saqqara.

OK, quick and incomplete pyramids history here. Basically this dude Zoser decided about 5000 years ago to make a monument and tomb everyone would remember him for, so he piled layer of rocks on top of one another to make a 6-layer step Pyramid, also known as Saqqara. Think of the Mayan Pyramids, it’s kind of that shape. Then the next guy had the brilliant idea of smoothing out the sides to make it a “real pyramid”, only he got too ambitious and halfway up, they realized it would collapse if they kept going at the original angle, so they had to reduce the rise over run and that resulted in the aptly-named Bent Pyramid. Then the next dude actually got it right and was able to make the world’s first “real pyramid”, the Red Pyramid. After that, things got kind of crazy for awhile with every pharaoh wanting to outdo his predecessor in the Pyramid Arms Race, which resulted in what we know as The Pyramids, aka Wonder of the World near the Sphinx (whose head’s really too small for the rest of his body, btw). And then eventually someone realized that hey, that’s a really stupid way to spend money, maybe we should work a little harder at vanquishing our enemies.

If anyone reading this is an Egyptologist or just really well read, I apologize for the preceding paragraph, I don’t have my guidebook or Google so it’s just what I remember off the top of my head. But it does give you a little context to the next few sites, since we went to Saqqara, which was, wait for it, under construction. Couldn’t see half of the site and the rest was covered in scaffolding. So we sighed and went to the Red Pyramid and HEY! This one’s actually pretty cool! Third time’s the charm, right? The Bent Pyramid was visible in its militarized and forbidden zone off in the distance, and the Red Pyramid was just chilling out in the sunshine, bold as day and clear as brass (wait…), and NOT SURROUNDED BY CAMELS AND TOUR GROUPS! Sweeeeeet. We even got to go inside, via an intense and steep ramp that lead us into the hot, sweaty, and incredibly smelly bowels of the pyramid. We glanced around appreciatively at the empty tomb and sloped ceilings, and then got out as fast as we could, sweating profusely and tearing up at the intense ammonia smell of what we hope was bat pee. Yes, friends, the Red Pyramid was awesome, and made up for the fact that our next stop at Memphis was pretty boring.

But wait! Day’s not over yet! We suddenly realized that we still hadn’t really seen the Pyramids, we had a multi-entry day ticket, and that the site was still open for an hour. So after some arguing with our driver, we went back to the Pyramids for sunset and managed to actually see them and photograph them. Very cool, despite the crowds and camel dudes. And then, having lost our taxi because of the “late” hour, we took the metro back into the city (probably got back faster that way, anyway). That night, we took the train down to Luxor—“first class” seats, which were completely uncomfortable and also hard to book. We took the more expensive sleeper train back north, and it was worth every touristy penny (though we did meet a very cool Dutch couple on the way down to Luxor).