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7000 Years of History ~
May 16 through May 27, 2000
$1 U.S. = 3.4 Egyptian pounds
(Remember
to click on the thumbnails for enlargements of the photos)
Cairo, Egypt
May 16 through May 17, 2000
(ccl) Somehow, we had managed
to be in Cairo for a week and had yet to lay eyes on the main attraction in the
city, the pyramids of Giza. Well, we had actually seen them, but it was
from the minaret of an old mosque (a little baksheesh got us up there) in the
city. Oh yeah, and we could view them at will from the swimming pool of
the incredibly expensive and less-than-friendly Hotel Mena House Oberoi (I'm
still fuming at their 5 pound per local phone call charge).
By the time we got ourselves out to
the pyramids, Cairo was starting to wear on our nerves. The city has a
dirty brown cloud that seems to hang over it from the middle of the afternoon
through sunset. It's hard to say exactly what the makeup of this stuff is,
but I feel sure it's made up of equal parts carbon monoxide and sand. The temperature
had been rising steadily all week, plus the wind was getting up, so that the act
of walking down the street alone got you dirty. Giza is an island in the
Nile, and it serves as a bedroom community to Cairo. The landscape is one
of grimy, half-finished low-rise apartment buildings, streets that are either
grid-locked with horn-happy drivers or speedways for pedestrian-loathing taxis,
and sidewalks packed with people hurrying to get out of the fray. Not the
most pleasant place in the world to visit, but we went there in search of the
truth for you, our readers.
By this time we were learning to get
the price for the taxi ride up front in order to avoid unpleasantness
at the end. Cairo is packed with taxis, and at some point, surely,
the free market will take over and force some of these guys into other
lines of work. Typically, it's pretty easy to get a ride for the
price you want to pay, but you want to get that price worked out up front.
We agreed to pay our driver 6 pounds to take us from our hotel to the
pyramids. On the way, at a traffic light, another man got in the
cab, after being greeted warmly in Arabic by our driver. They chatted
briefly, then the new guy turned to us, and in perfect English, asked
us where we were from. We chatted with him for a while, and in the
meantime our driver was passing the gates to the pyramids. I asked
why we weren't stopping there, and the new passenger in the cab told us
he was taking us to another entrance where the entrance fee was less (yeah,
right) and where he had camels and horses we could rent. We said
we didn't want a camel OR a horse, that we just wanted to go to the pyramids.
The guy who spoke English acted like we were crazy, or that perhaps some
tragedy would befall us if we did not rent an animal from him. Finally
I said to stop the cab, we wanted out. The horse/camel guy began
laughing at me, telling me that he wasn't in the Egyptian Mafia, and I
said, "Look, dude, I don't know who you are. You got in our
cab, and we just want to go to the pyramids.". As we walked
away, I termed this phenomena "hijacking", where someone takes
you to some place you don't want to go while they are in the process of
taking you somewhere you asked to go, all in the name of making a little
money for themselves. This is usually a place where they sell perfume,
alabaster, carpets, papyrus, and other things you don't want, or maybe
it's some dusty corner of a temple where there's a little-seen carving.
Apparently, this is nothing new. Tourists have been coming to Egypt
for centuries and even Mark Twain remarked in his book Following the
Equator, the true story of his trip around the world in 1866, that
he "suffered torture that no pen can describe from the hungry appeals
for baksheesh that gleamed from Arab eyes". Well, maybe it's
not torture, but it does get old.
It's hard to describe the feeling you get standing in front of the Sphinx and
looking up at it. I mean, here is something of which you have seen
countless photographs, and somehow, standing there beside it, it still doesn't
seem real. In fact, all over Egypt, you get this weird Universal Studios
feeling, like all of this has been built in the last year for the purposes of
filming a movie. The Sphinx is smaller than you would expect, and it has been diminished
over the centuries by acid rain, wind, and the guns of the Ottoman Turks, but
here is something that has occupied this space forover 4500 years!!!
The ancient Greeks named the Sphinx after a mythical winged monster with a
woman's head and a lion's body who proposed a riddle and killed those unable to
answer. No one knows the origin or purpose of the Sphinx. Some say
the pharaoh Chephren, whose pyramid stands behind the Sphinx, thought of shaping
the leftover rock from his pyramid into the creature. Others say that the
likeness on the face of the Sphinx is of Chephren himself. Whatever, this
eerily placid sentinel has been staring out at the desert plateau on which it
sits for centuries, and isn't likely to give up its secrets soon. As with
many of the great monuments of ancient Egypt, restoration attempts have been
made on the Sphinx, but it is being eroded from the inside, perhaps by pollution
or rising ground water, and it's not known how to combat this
scourge.
On to the pyramids. There are three pyramids on the Giza plateau, that of
a father, Cheops, his son, Chephren, and his grandson, Mycerinus.
Originally all three were covered with white marble on the outside (what a sight
that must have been!), but now only Chephren's pyramid maintains some of that
covering at the very top. All of the pyramids were constructed with
limestone blocks, and the largest, the pyramid of Cheops (also the largest in
Egypt), contains over 2 1/2 million blocks which weigh a total of 6 million
tons. Napoleon apparently calculated that that would be enough to build a
three meter-high wall around all of France!
Lest you think these pharaohs were
obsessed with death, let me clear something up for you: they were obsessed not
with death, but with life after death. These guys usually
spent the majority of their reign constructing and filling these tombs, so that
they would have everything they needed in the afterlife. Most of the
pharaohs believed, and in turn convinced their subjects, that they were the
offspring of the gods, so to them, eternal life was eminent. These
pyramids, and also the other pharaonic tombs throughout Egypt, were merely to
ensure that the beloved ruler had all the comforts of home once settled in the
hereafter.
It wasn't the greatest of days to be
at the Giza Plateau. The wind was ferocious, and sometimes the pyramids
all but disappeared in the swirl of sand kicked up by it. We ducked into
the Solar Barque Museum, which is a large glass enclosure they built around one
of the boats discovered in 1954 in Cheops' pyramid. Possibly the oldest
boat in existence, it was probably used to ferry the body of the dead pharaoh
across the Nile to the causeway where it was brought to the tomb. Once
Cheops himself was entombed, the boat was buried right along with him, so that
he might have transport in the next world. We got there too
late to get into any of the tombs, which apparently aren't all that spectacular
anyways. We figured we'd see plenty of that in Luxor, where we were headed
the next day, home of many very well preserved tombs in the two sites known as
the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens.
That night we went to the Giza
Pyramid Sound and Light. They light up the pyramids with different colored
lights, and use some lasers for effect. The Sphinx serves as the narrator
for the program, and you learn about the history of the pyramids and the rulers
who built them. It was pretty interesting, and at 33 pounds a head, with
three shows per night every day of the week, the Egyptian government is raking
in some cash.
Luxor, Egypt
May 17 through May 24, 2000
(ccl) Luxor is ten hours from
Cairo by train, and we were happy to see the slums of the big city replaced by
the lush farms of the Nile valley from the windows of the train. There are so
many museums, temples, and tombs in Luxor you'd go broke trying to see them all,
so we had to chose wisely. We consulted the guidebook on the way and tried
to make a plan as to what to see and where to stay.
The full-court press from the hotel
touts started before we had even gotten off the train. A guy struck up a
conversation with Wiley (they almost always talk to him; it's considered very
bold for a Muslim man to strike up a conversation with a Western woman), hello,
where are you from, etc. Soon he was telling us about his hotel, and
wanting to take us there. Wiley gave him a vague put-off, but didn't
really discourage him. Once we stepped off the train, men with brochures
descended on us like vultures. The noise was deafening, one guy saying he
had Nile views and that another guy didn't have a pool, etc. I finally
walked away and went to browse at the newsstand, because every time I tried to
talk to Wiley, they began shouting over me. Finally we got in a cab with a
guy who said he had Nile views and a pool, which is what we had said we
wanted. On the way to the hotel, he admitted that the pool was actually
under construction. I told him that he had lied to us, and that we didn't
do business with people who lied to us. We got out of the cab, walked to
another hotel recommended by the book, and bargained with the manager until we
got our price. Nile view and pool included.
Luxor is divided into two areas, the East Bank and the West Bank. Most of
the monuments are on the West Bank, but the town is on the East Bank, including
most of the hotels. That's where we stayed, so that's where we started our
sightseeing. Luxor Temple is right in the middle of town, and it's quite a
spectacular sight. Built by the pharaoh Amenophis III, who ruled Egypt
from 1391 - 1353 B.C., it at one point was joined to Luxor's other spectacular
East Bank site, Karnak Temple, by an avenue lined with sphinxes its entire
length - three kilometers! While most of the sphinxes are now buried under
the modern-day town of Luxor, you can still get an idea of how amazing it must
have looked when it was intact.
One of the really interesting aspects of Egyptian history for me is the fact
that pharaohs were continually "renovating" the work of their forebears. Despite the fact that Amenophis built the temple as a place to
worship the god Amun, one of the gods of creation, it was added to through the
years by Tutankhamun, Ramses II (who left many carvings of himself slaying his
enemies, leaving the visitor to wonder just who was supposed to be worshipped),
Alexander the Great, and other Romans. Even the Arabs got in the act by
building a mosque within the temple, which is still in use today.
This principle of reuse sort of went astray when a particular pharaoh was
displeased with one or more of his predecessors. All over Luxor we saw
examples of how rulers had tried to literally rub-out the documentation of the
exploits of previous rulers by having their likenesses erased from stone
carvings, using a hammer and chisel to essentially mar their images.
For example, Hatshepsut and her nephew Tuthmosis III vied for the throne when
Hatshepsut's father, Tuthmosis I, died. Hatshepsut won out, and after her
death, Tuthosis III still held a large grudge, so that when he became pharaoh,
he systematically had her image hammered out of many of the monuments around
Egypt, including her own mortuary temple.
After our visit to Luxor Temple we headed across town to the awe-inspiring
Karnak Temple. The site itself is huge, and was built and enlarged over a
period of 1500 years. This place is so vast that you could probably spend
a good week wandering around in there, poking around the various temples, columns,
pylons (Greek word meaning "large wall with opening in the middle",
according to our guide), obelisks, and statues. By far the most amazing
structure in the place is the Great Hypostyle Hall. Built by Seti I and
finished by Ramses II (who, again, left his name and exploits all over
everything, to the point of replacing the names of other pharaohs with his:
"I did this!"), the hall contains 134 huge stone pillars, shaped like
the papyrus plant at the top, and covering some 6000 square meters. Some
of the paintings on the underside of the columns are remarkably well-preserved,
looking like they were painted 20 years ago instead of 4000. Pretty much
all you can do is stand in the middle of it, look up with your mouth dangling
open, and say, "Wow.". 
Afternoons in Luxor are hot.
One day the thermometer Wiley keeps on his shoe read 105 in the shade.
Pretty much all you want to do after 2:00 is sit by or in the pool with a book
and something cool to drink. Luxor drove home the value of an
air-conditioned hotel room to us for the first time on the trip. After
months of cool days and even colder nights in Mexico, Peru, and yes, even
Morocco, we are finally getting the hot weather we've been wishing for.
The West Bank area of Luxor isn't
quite as easy to explore as the East Bank. While you can easily walk
between the monuments and museums of the East Bank, you have to first get to the
West Bank, which means a pretty long taxi ride or a ferry. We worked a
deal with a taxi driver to take us over and drive us around for half a day,
which is pretty much all our pocketbooks could handle. If you went to all
of the monuments on the West Bank, you'd pay over $65 each to get in, and that
doesn't include the photo permit, which costs 10 pounds at each site. So
we chose four of the biggest and most popular: the Valley of the Kings, the
Valley of the Queens, Hatshepsut's Temple, and Medinat Habu.
The Valleys of the Kings and Queens would probably be more aptly called,
jointly, "Death Valley", due to the fact that not only have there been
many mummies found there, but the area also closely resembles that desolate
stretch of desert in southern California. At the Valley of the Kings more
than 60 tombs have been discovered, many of which are off-limits to the
public. The tombs were designed to resemble the underworld, with long
corridors leading down into a series of chambers, decorated with scenes of the
ruler and various gods and goddesses, and also writings from the Book of the
Dead in hieroglyphics. Two groups of workers and artisans lived in the
valley while the tomb was being constructed, a task which sometimes went on for
many years. The more time a pharaoh reigned, the more time he had to have
his tomb built, and, usually, the more spectacular it ended up
being.
The ancient Egyptians believed that the king of the gods, Amun, cruised the
valley at night in his boat, and took on as passengers those rulers who had
intimate knowledge of the ancient texts - that's why they decorated the tombs
with passages from these texts. Once on the boat, they were brought before
Osiris, god of the dead, who judged them. If you passed, you had overcome
death, and became immortal.
The Valley of the Queens was used for
the same purpose at the Valley of the Kings, except that the wives and children
of the pharaohs were entombed here, including Nefertari, one of the five wives
of Ramses II and reportedly an extremely beautiful woman. It costs an
extra 100 pounds to get into her tomb, and entrance is granted to only the first
150 visitors who make it there on a given day. The reason? The
paintings in Nefertari's tomb are exceptionally colorful and well-preserved, and
obviously, the Egyptian government and the world's archeological community want
to keep it that way. We decided to forego that tomb, since the rest of the
admission charges were already stretching our budget. We visited three
other tombs in the valley, which were quite beautiful, but not as large and
ornate as any of those we visited in the Valley of the Kings.
I had been looking forward to
visiting Hatshepsut's Temple, not only because I had read that it was one of the
finest monuments in Egypt, but also because I was curious to visit the place
where 58 tourists were gunned down by Islamic extremists in 1997. We never
considered not coming to Egypt when planning this trip. For me, it's been
somewhere I've always wanted to go, ever since I was a child. I guess you
can take a couple of different approaches. You can stay at home when these
things happen, and hope that the governments of these countries win the wars
they are waging against terrorism. Or you can look at them as isolated
events, and realize that you're certainly not any safer walking the streets of
any major city in the U.S. (the Olympic Park and Oklahoma City bombings proved
that), and you can go on your visit and exercise as much
caution as possible. We chose the later, and I haven't had a moment's
concern since we arrived in Egypt. In fact, the amount of security seems
to me like overkill. In Luxor, there are armed guards at nearly every
street corner, and some streets have towers where armed guards sit and watch the
goings-on below. Every hotel has a metal detector and an armed security
guard at the entrance. Every monument also has a metal detector, and bags
are searched before you are allowed to enter. Where the Egyptian
government cannot guarantee the safety of tourists in some areas, they have made
those areas off-limits to them.
Hatshepsut ruled from 1473 - 1458,
and was the only female pharaoh to rule all of Egypt (they don't count
Cleopatra, because the Romans put her in power). According to what we've
read, Egypt had a period of peace and prosperity during her reign. Like
the other pharaohs, she claimed divine birth, and even went to far as to dress
like a man in order to complete the pharaoh personae. Her mortuary temple
is an amazing site, a three-tiered structure emerging out of the sheer cliffs of
the Theban Mountain. The top-level of the temple is still being restored,
so it's off-limits to tourists, but the bottom levels are covered with paintings
and carvings in great conditions.
Hatshepsut claimed divine birth, just like the other pharaohs, and there are
some really interesting carvings of her being born and then suckled by Hathor,
who is often depicted as a cow. Hathor was goddess of joy and love, and
also protector of women and travelers. The columns at Hatshepsut's temple
were topped with the image of Hathor as a woman, and were quite unusual and very
beautiful. 
Our final stop on the West Bank was at the temple of Medinat Habu. Second
in size only to Karnak Temple, it's not as heavily visited as some of the other
sites. Ramses II put his name all over this place, just as he did in many
of the other temples around the area. Several of the carvings on the wall
showed him vanquishing his enemies. One carving in particular shows him
getting ferocious with the Libyans, which we were told you could recognize by
their long sideburns and robes (none of them looked like Khadafi). Several
other carvings showed his scribes, tallying the prisoners of war by counting
various body parts which had been cut off the enemies, including tongues, hands,
and other pieces (take a guess). 
There are a couple of good museums in
Luxor, and one of them bears noting here, just to give you a little more insight
into the burial practices of the ancient Egyptians. At the Mummification
Museum you can learn pretty much everything you need to know about mummifying
your best friend, your loved one, or a favorite pet. The Egyptians
developed a complete process for mummification, and it worked, because mummies
have been discovered that are 4000 years old or older. First all bodily
fluids were drained. Then the brains were extracted from the cranial
cavity through the nose using a specially-designed hook (ouch!). An
incision was made in the left side, and all of the internal organs were
extracted and placed in vessels made of alabaster called "canoptic"
jars. That incision was then sutured and covered with wax. Then, the
body was filled with all kinds of things, including spices, embalming fluids,
and onions. Often the body was decorated with beautiful jewelry made of
gold, carnelian, turquoise, and lapis lazuli, then it was wrapped with strips of
linen cloth. As the strips were wound around the body, scarabs, small
representations of beetles, were placed in the cloth. The Egyptians
observed the beetle rolling mud or dung and likened it to the sun god, whom they
believed pushed the sun into the sky every morning, thus giving birth to a new
day. They believed that the scarabs would assist in the re-birth process
for the deceased. One the body was wrapped, it was often covered with more
ornamentation, then placed in one or more sarcophagi, depending on the social
stratification of the mummy. King Tut's mummy was discovered inside a
succession of six wood and gold boxes and three sarcophagi!
One of my best memories of Egypt will
be of our last day in Luxor, when we rented bikes and rode around the town and
surrounding areas. Observing the traffic from the back of a careening taxi
cab, or as a frightened pedestrian attempting to cross a four-lane street filled
with cars, horse-drawn carriages, tractors, and mule wagons, I never would have
believed that biking in Egypt could be enjoyable. We rented a couple of
old one-speeds that were pretty beat up, but our merchant assured us that they
were good Chinese bikes, not Egyptian. Certainly the first time "Made
in China" has been purported to be synonymous with quality. Anyways,
Luxor is completely flat, and despite the fact that the temperature regularly
reaches well over 100 degrees in the afternoon, zipping along on the bike
generated a pretty nice breeze. We had already walked all over most of the
town, so after stopping at the train station to buy tickets for the next day's
ride to Aswan, we headed out to the countryside. The Nile Valley is home
to some of the most fertile farmland in the world. The locals call it
"the black land", because of the rich, deep color of the soil.
Small farms are all around Luxor, so it didn't take us long to get out in the
country. Here, were tourists are few and far between, we were greeted in a
style similar to that which celebrities enjoy as they are walking up the red
carpet to the Academy Award ceremonies. Every where we went, people
stopped what they were doing to raise their hands and shout, "Hello!"
and "Welcome to Aswan!". Children ran down the roads beside our
bikes, yelling "Hello! How are you?". I tried but was
unsuccessful at getting a picture of Wiley biking along, surrounded by seven or
eight kids running at top speed after him, so you'll just have to use your
imagination. It was a lot of fun.
I should mention something about our
previously published itinerary at this point.
We had planned to take a Nile cruise at some point during our stay in
Egypt. Due to past incidents of terrorism in Egypt, the government has
severely restricted the areas of the Nile that can be traveled by tourists by
boat. Pretty much all you can do is go between Luxor and Aswan, either in
a large cruise ship or a small sailboat called a felucca. There were quite
a few of the big ships docked in Luxor, and some of them looked very nice, but
it just didn't seem like our kind of crowd. Most of the people were much
older and were traveling in groups together, and we just didn't know if we
wanted to be on a boat for four days with 150 German pensioners. The
feluccas look like fun, and are very cheap, but due to the schistosomiasis
epidemic (see discussion of schistosomiasis in Aswan section below), we couldn't
see spending three days on a sailboat in 105 degree heat with no way to cool
off, either. So we did our traveling by land and enjoyed the Nile from
afar.
We enjoyed sunset one final time from our balcony, and then went to bed early,
in order to make our 7:35 train to Aswan in the morning.
Aswan, Egypt
May 24 through May 27, 2000
(ccl) One of the most important
things to remember when traveling anywhere outside the first world is that
things don't always go as you plan, and that you should build a little time into
your schedule in expectation of that. Those of you who know Wiley and me
are chuckling to yourselves right now, because you know that we are not very
good at this. Well, we're trying to get better, but we're not there
yet. We got up and out of our hotel room, and were in the lobby ready to check
out at 6:45, plenty of time for a five minute ride to the train station, maybe
even a little breakfast somewhere. That's when we discovered that we could
not pay our hotel bill with anything other than cash. I had about 350
pounds, but the bill was 570. No, he couldn't take a traveler's
check. No, he couldn't take credit cards until 10:00 when the office was
open. The cash machine next door was out of order. The bank next
door didn't open until 8:30. A mad dash around town in a cab led us to
discover that NONE of the cash machines in town worked, and that nobody would
cash a traveler's check (American Express, are you listening?). So I went
to the train station and attempted to change our tickets to a later train.
I was told that this was nearly impossible, but that our train was more than an
hour and a half late. Wow, luck was on our side. When the
bank opened, we got cash, paid the bill, dashed to the train station, and still
waited for over an hour for the train. Not all that unusual in Egypt, we
were told.
Aswan is the southern-most city in
Egypt, and it is powerfully hot here. Most businesses close from 3:00
until 6:00, because the heat is just too oppressive. You definitely want
to be out of the sun during that time. Even at night, a dry, hot wind
blows, reminding you of the scorching heat of the day. Life goes by slowly
in Aswan, and it's an enjoyable place to spend a few days, taking in the sites
in the early morning and taking it easy in the afternoon.
Egypt is divided into two areas known as Upper and Lower Egypt. Remember,
the Nile flows from south to north, making the area from Cairo to the Mediterranean
Lower Egypt, and the area from south of Cairo to the border with Sudan Upper
Egypt. The southernmost part of Upper Egypt encompasses the former kingdom
of Nubia, which Egypt gained control of around 2000 B.C. The Nubians are a
little different from the Egyptians of the north. Their skin is a little
darker, and they dress a little differently, the men with their brightly colored
skull caps and the women in beautiful black lace dresses.
In 1902 it was determined that Egypt
desperately needed additional farmland in order to support the demands of a
rapidly growing population. The first Aswan dam was built, displacing many
Nubians from their homelands. In 1971 a new, larger dam was opened,
creating the world's largest man-made lake, Lake Nasser, and again displacing
many Nubians. The Nubian Museum in Aswan is a tribute to these proud,
friendly people and the sacrifices they have made.
As you might imagine, the building of these dams has radically changed the
environment in the Nile Valley. While increasing arable land by 30%, the
new dam has drastically reduced the flow of silt into the valley, which is
crucial to the fertility of the land. This has resulted in heavy use of
artificial fertilizers, which are depleting the soil of nutrients, and are also
believed to be the cause of the disappearance of the shrimp and fishing grounds
at the mouth of the Nile in the Mediterranean. In addition, the dam has
caused the irrigation canals to remain full at all times, which has resulted in
the infestation of a water-borne parasite known as bilharzia. The
resulting disease, known as schistosomiasis, is a huge public health problem in
Egypt. Anyone who swims in or drinks the water of the Nile is susceptible
to this debilitating disease, which can cause severe damage to internal
organs. I think about the controversial proposal to build a dam on the
Colorado River, in order to provide more water for the golf courses and more
electricity for the neon lights of Las Vegas, and I am reminded of the need to
understand the impact of the actions we take today on future generations.
One day in Aswan we visited two islands in the Nile, Elephantine Island and
Kitchener Island. Elephantine Island probably got its name from the large
gray rocks that protrude from the waters of the Nile here. Today is is
home to three Nubian villages. We walked through them, and were invited in
for a Coke and some conversation at the home of a Nubian named Abdullah.
We sat on the floor of the spic-and-span house and chatted with Abdullah, who
spoke a little English, and his sister and some other family members. When
we got ready to go, I made the picture you see above, then showed it to them on
the LCD screen of our digital camera. They were delighted to see their
images, and passed the camera around the room, laughing at themselves and each
other. In the picture, on the right side, you can see a handmade
ladder. This went up to the second floor, from which a group of curious
chickens looked down on us as we talked.
There's a museum on Elephantine
Island, and the most interesting thing there is an ancient Nilometer.
Nilometers are all over Egypt. They were used by the ancient Egyptians to
measure the level of the Nile in the spring, when the flood waters came.
Once the government officials knew the flood level of the great river, they were
able to determine how much the farmers would be taxed, because a high flood
level meant lots of water and a great harvest, therefore the farmers would have
more money to pay more taxes. Simplistic, but it beats the 1040 form.
When the first Aswan dam was built in 1902, many ancient temples and monuments
were partially submerged under the waters of the Nile. Some of these
continued to be tourist attractions, with tourists renting boat ride from locals
who would take them out to the sites, where they could float between the old
column and look down on the monuments in the water. Submersion in the Nile
played havoc with the ancient stones and carvings, and with the proposed
building of the High Aswan dam in 1960, it was determined that a major rescue
effort was needed. Egypt appealed to UNESCO for help. UNESCO is a
multi-national organization made up of most of the world's largest and most
affluent countries, that attempts to preserve aspects of the world's history and
culture so that they might be studied and enjoyed by future generations.
During the 1960's and early 1970's, UNESCO's member countries, including the
United States, worked to move many important archeological sites to higher
ground. One of the most fascinating of these is Philae Temple.
Philae was moved from Philae Island to nearby Agilika Island were it rests
today, 20 meters higher and safely out of the water. UNESCO even
transplanted native plants from Philae Island and landscaped the area to closely
resemble the old location. It is a majestic site as you motor up on it
from the nearly boat landing. 
We're trying to buy quality goods in
each of the countries we visit. In Peru we got lots of beautiful, hand
woven blankets, some of them old, a 200 year old carved bone used to hold caulk,
which the Indians chew with their coca leaves, and some beautiful masks used in
religious festivals. In Morocco, we bought metal lamps, goat skin lamps
painted with henna designs, a carpet, some gorgeous copper pots, and more
colorful hand woven blankets. In Egypt, there just hasn't been too much
that we want. I don't know what has happened to the local art scene here,
but there is a definite lack of quality Egyptian items for purchase.
There's papyrus painted with slightly cheesy Egyptian scenes. There's
vases and ashtrays made of alabaster. You can get someone to mix up some
perfume that smells exactly like White Shoulders, if you want. All of this
stuff is sold in
places named "Nefertiti's Papyrus Institute", "Pharaoh's Perfume
Palace", and "Valley of the
Kings Alabaster Factory". They all resemble those fireworks stands
that line I-75 at the Tennessee border with Georgia and Alabama.
So we've been scratching our heads,
trying to figure out what we're going to bring home to remind us of our visit to
Egypt. A lucite pyramid with glitter inside? I don't think so.
One day we were wandering the streets of Aswan when we saw a sign advertising an
artist's exhibition. We followed the signs and found ourselves at the
artist's gallery, where we met Abdel Badry. He told us that he had
exhibited his work all over the United States, and pointed us to the location of
the exhibit. We went by there, and fell in love with a little painting of
three Egyptian men, playing cards and smoking from sheesas. He had a steep
price tag on it, and we didn't quite know what to do. We couldn't afford
it at the price he was asking. On one hand, everything in Egypt seems to
be negotiable, but on the other hand, we could potentially insult an artist by
offering him less for his work than he feels it is worth. We gave it a
shot, and ended up getting a good deal, we think. He told us that when
Princess Di visited Egypt, he met here and she bought one of his
paintings. Don't know if that's true, but we loved his work, and if you
ever get a chance to go to an exhibition of his paintings, don't miss out.
Our last night in Aswan we decided to
relax with a drink at the Old Cataract Hotel. This hotel has been around
since 1902, and scenes from "Death on the Nile" were filmed
there. Its Terrace Bar is a great location for viewing sunset. In
1999 the LondonTimes apparently declared it one of the greatest
views in the world. The entrance to the hotel was heavily guarded.
Part of that is probably due to the terrorism threat, and part of it is because
it's an exclusive hotel and they don't want tour groups piling in there just to
have a look. After some moments of confusion with the guard, we realized
he was telling us that we could go to the bar, but that we couldn't go through
the lobby, we would have to go around to the side of the hotel.
OK.... When we got to the bar we picked a table and sat down where we
would have a great view of the sun setting over the hills. The waiter
prompty came over and asked us what our room number was, and when we told him we
weren't staying there, he told us we couldn't sit there, and walked off in a
huff. When he came back I stopped him and said, "So we can't just
have a beer?", and he said, OK, but if the manager came by, we were to tell
him that we were in room 211. He was really nice after that, and the
sunset was quite lovely, but I was still stinging from being treated like a
second class citizen. It's a different feeling, traveling on a budget like
this. I've stayed in some of the best hotels in the world, thanks to
generous company awards and expense accounts. Traveling on a shoestring
makes you realize how having money, or giving the appearance of having money,
can cause people to give you respect. Carrying a backpack seems to cause a
lot of people to judge you by sight when traveling. Granted, we're trying
to spend no more than $100 per day, but that doesn't mean we don't splurge from
time to time. When we walked into the Oberoi in Cairo, I was convinced
that they were ready to throw us out. We told the girl at the reception
desk that we'd like a room, and she asked if we'd like to see the price list
first. I took that to mean that she figured we couldn't really afford it,
but Wiley doesn't read as much into these things as I do. Anyways, it made
me think about the judgments I make on people simply by sight. It's
something I'd really like to get better at, and something I struggle with every
day on this trip. Anyways, the beer was cold and we did get a nice
picture. 
Click
here to continue in Egypt with "Under the Deep Red Sea"
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