Monday, April 13, 2009

Jordan Day 3 Floating in the dead sea

Shobak CastleOn our third day in Jordan our trusty cab picked us up at 9:30 and we started off on the drive to the Jordan Valley and the dead sea. The ride takes you up the gorgeous kings Highway, which early on in the trip runs you by Shobak Castle, an old crusader castle that underwent a famously long siege by our friend Salah Al Din, you'll remember he's the guy responsible for the citadel in Cairo too. There The view from Shobakwere a ton of stone cannonballs left inside and a good portion of it is restored, and then left to crumble again, but for 5 Dinar we got an interesting tour, and it only took us about 2 miles off the main road. We wanted to keep it moving so we passed on one other little crusader castle and made our way up and over the mountains. The road has a lot of switchbacks, and would probably be a lot oThe road down to the Jordan Valleyf fun to drive in a souped up convertible with a stick shift. When you reach the top there's a great place to take pictures and a place that sells coffee tea and sodas and provides a much needed bathroom break. On the way down you can see across to Israel, and finally the dead see comes into view. There are a few picture opportunities along the way, and eventually the driver just learned not to bother asking me, of course I wanted to stop to take a picture. We even bumped into the guy who originally picked us up in Amman when we were near the salt crystals, and he set us up to pick us up at the hotel the next day for our ride to the airport. It was perfect. We then pulled into the hotel, where they actually take their security seriously. You should have seen the size of the tire spikes at the front gate, if you got the crazy idea to run through the gate. We weren't quite prepared for the temperatuDead Sea Salt Crystalsre difference between Petra and Sweimeh. When we got to the hotel, the Jordan Valley Marriott Resort, our room wasn't ready, and we let the hold our bags so we could wander about the grounds. We went down to the dead sea to check it out, and then found ourselves some lunch at the sports bar. The hotel is absolutely amazing, and we once again regretted not booking more time at a place. The pool is gorgeous, and the access to the dead sea is right on the hotel property. Our swim in the dad sea was amazing, and the feeling of buoyancy is stranger than you can possibly imagine. Anything you do makes you bob right up out of the water. The taste seemed saltier than just taking a mouthfHow low can you go?ul of table salt, and trying to swim face down is a futile effort. The buoyancy of the rest of your body pushes your face straight in, and that is not water you want in your eyes. We spent the rest of the afternoon down by the sea shore and at the pool, even taking a few runs down the water slide. We settled on Italian food one more time, avoiding a final buffet, and tried a different Jordanian wine that we didn't enjoy quite as much as the one we'd had in Petra. The desserts however, were absolutely amazing. I ordered a makeup serving of tiramisu that definitely lived up to my expectations, and W ordered a panna cotta that was amazing. We stopped by the really nice lobby bar, and had a couple of drinks to settle in, they pour one heck of a mojito in Jordan it turns out. Saed, our driver, met us in the lobby at seven the last morning, and dropped us off safely at the airport. I managed to get through customs without incident, and we really liked the personal entertainment system and our favorite Jordanian wine on the flight to Frankfurt. Once in Frankfurt we stoppeThe view from our room at nightd and had a nice, but expensive German meal, with a delicious German beer to go with it. There were some tense moments in the airport since they waited until 15 minutes before departure to give us boarding passes, but they did manage to find us a couple of first class seats for the trip home. That brings us to the end of this adventure, I've been to the library already for the next set of travel books, so it's only a matter of time until the travel itch needs to be scratched again. Here are the full Albums for your enjoyment.

Egypt Part One
egypt and jordan

Jordan Day 2, Rewarding our Hard Work

We actually volunteered to get up early on our second day in Jordan, and it totally paid off. Our driver met us at the hotel at 7, and down the hill we went again into the Wadi Musa valley. Wadi Musa loosely translates to the Valley of Moses, making this our 2nd Moses encounter of the trip. It is said that in this valley Moses drove a stick into a rock to find water, and also here is Mount Hor, where Moses' brother Aaron is said to be buried. When we arrived at the visitor center we marched right in and signed up for a tour. It turns out that 6 grad students from Stanford were waiting there for a tour to start and we made their group big enough to leave. We bought two day passes, thinking that we might go back in the morning the next day, since the second day is only about $7 more than a one day ticket. There's only one way in, so it starts by covering the same ground that we had the night before on the Petra by Night tour. You could tell as you were walking there were probably things to see on the way to the treasury, but the luminaries only lit the path nearby, so it was all dark and mysterious. On the way through in the morning, you see all the vibrant colors, and all the carvings along the way. Walking through the Siq and first laying eyes on the Treasury is truly a powerful experience, and our guide had us go through one by one to make it more personal. Our tour was informative, learning about who lived in Petra, and how they built it and survived sieges and takeover attempts for long periods of time. The Romans finally managed to take over by poisoning the water supply. My two tips for the would-be traveler to Petra are: 1 the gates open at 6, get there as early as you can before the tour groups arrive and the vendors set up, it makes it a completely different experience. 2 Make the effort to go all the way up to the monastery. The views are incredible, and there is a little place to rest with a drink stand built right into a cave. It's really interesting to listen to the Bedouin vendors switch seamlessly between English Italian french and Arabic to make a sale. I felt painfully under educated knowing only how to speak English, Spanish, some German and hello and thank you in a few other random languages. After the official part our our tour got done, we were free to walk around and explore. You have the choice of climbing up to the Monastery, or the high place of sacrifice, or to just turn around and go back. We spent some time at the museum and gift shop, and then began the trek up to the monastery. As the crow flies it's not that far, and you could pay for a donkey to get you there, but it's a lot of stairs, over some narrow areas that didn't make it look like it would be a very comfortable donkey ride. We walked, and took lots of breaks in the shadows where a cool breeze would frequently blow, and were rewarded with a beautiful monastery structure, some goats, and incredible views down over the valley. We sat down in the cave and had a coke to recharge and then went on our way. Our original plan was to go back and walk up to the high place of sacrifice, but we'll just have to save that one for a return trip, because after getting back from the monastery, we were pretty beat. There's a couple of restaurants down in the valley and we settled on the buffet (ugh) at the basin restaurant. The food was acceptable, and helped refresh us after our hike. After lunch, we wandered back out to the front gate, where our cab driver said to go to one shop and the owner would call him to come pick us up. Of course he wanted to look around while we waited, and when he and W couldn't agree on the price of a camel wool and silk blend scarf, she said, "I'm sorry I'm cheap", and he said "not cheap, just... difficult" a good line, but $25 for a scarf that we could load up on in china for under $5 per didn't make a lot of since. Our driver arrived, and back to the hotel we went. Back at the hotel after a shower we sat at the bar and enjoyed a beverage and a chance to get off of our feet. W went to the spa to get a foot massage, while I read some more about Petra and our next destination. We met some other Americans at the bar, told them a little about what to expect on their Petra tour tomorrow, and recommended the Jordanian wine to them. We compared Egypt war stories with them since that's where they'd just come from too, and had some good laughs about our experiences. There was another beautiful sunset right outside the windows, and we eventually went right back to dinner at the Italian place just because we'd enjoyed it so much the night before. Our wine was right there where we'd left off, and was just as delicious with my rack of lamb as it was with my steak the night before. My one complaint about the whole experience was the tiramisou, it was just not right. But that's minor in the grander scheme of how amazing our Petra experience was. We stopped by for one more drink at the bar and then went back to the room before we fell asleep in their chairs. We decided to let our 2nd day at Petra go, neither of us having the energy left to get up early and go for a hike in the morning.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Egypt Day 12 and Jordan Day 1

Wadi Musa Lookout Point On the 12th day of Egypt, my true love gave to me, a relaxing day by the pool. That's right, on our last day in town, we did practically nothing. We spent far too much time getting things straightened out for moving on to Jordan. For some reason contacting Marriott reservations in Cairo turned into a huge fiasco, and we finally broke down and sprung for a call to the US, to have our savior Francie call the US Marriott number. That fixed everything. We spent a good portion of the afternoon reading and napping around the pool, where a very nice gentleman refused to let us go thirsty. It turns out they pour one heck of a long island iced tea. We grabbed some dinner at the cafe, and got ourselves packed up to leave in the morning. The rest of the girls were headed back to the states, so we had our favorite van guy come pick them up at 1:30 a.m. and we thought we'd communicated that we'd like for him to come back and pick us up at 7, but by 7:10 he still hadn't arrived. We had the hotel grab us a cab, and for the first time all trip, they worked out the rate for us before we got in. We had to work to communicate that W and I were going to one place and Dave was going someplace else, but we eventually got it figure out. Unfortunately once we got out of the cab at what we thought was our terminal it turned out to be wrong, and there's no efficient way to walk between the two. So we had to wait for the bus. Meanwhile a cab driver wanted to take us over there, and the longer we waited the lower his fare got, but we eventually held out for the bus. When you're nervous about whether your doing the right thing those waits seem like an eternity especially when the more nervous you look the more often the cab driver comes over. The bus eventually came, and off to our terminal we went. We checked ourselves in and got some seats right away wFrom the Marriott Patiohich is always nice, and were ready to head off to passport control. By this point in the trip I am by far the brownest I've been in years, and with my features and hair, it's hard to tell exactly what you're looking at when you see me. So when the border agent hands me back my passport I tried to be polite, and said the Arabic word for thank you: shokrun, and started walking. The agent quickly stands up, whips around and says with an angry look in his eye "Are you an Arab"? I stand there frozen, and whimper out a "no...". He says "But you speak Arabic"? With my wits back about me, I manage to get out "Just hello, and thank you". He looks less stressed by that point, and lets me through. I check my underwear, and am ready to go get on the plane. InSunset over Wadi Musa Egypt they don't even have gates like we're used to here. You always get on a bus, even if it only goes one hundred feet out to where your plane is. Royal Jordanian's seats are nice, comparable to the premium economy of domestic carriers. The service was solid, and the food was good too. In no time we'd landed in Amman. We'd had the Marriott in Petra arrange a car for us, and sure enough a nice gentleman was waiting for us as soon as we got out of the terminal. Having your name on a sign does make you feel like a rock star. He took us out to a cab that was waiting, and off we went to Wadi Musa. It's about a 3 hour trip from Amman, and there are a few military looking checkpoints along the way but they were more interested in taxi licenses and such than W and I in the back seat. The driver already knew that we were in petra for 2 days and then heading to the Jordan valley, and signed himself up to drive us from petra there, and from there to the airport. and as many trips from the hotel down to Petra as we needed. Having our needs anticipated for a change was a nice touch. I wanted desperately to stay awake for the whole t.rip, but eventually the early morning caught up with me. I woke up just as we were getting to Wadi Musa, which means I was awake just in time for a photo op. We arrived shortly after at the Petra Marriott, where it was calm and peaceful compared to the lobby in Cairo. We got a room with a great view, and the front desk strongly recommended we check out Petra by night. We'd read good things about it, so we got tickets and they would arrange our driver to get us there. That gave us time to grab some snacks and a Jordanian beer. There's an amazing outdoor patio overlooking the canyon, with drink specials during sunset hours. We got ourselves ready for Petra by night, layering up for the significant drop in temperature we were experiencing there. Up high at the hotel there was quite a cold Petra By Nightwind, so we were prepared for the worst. Our cab showed up right on time and took us down the winding roads to the Petra visitor center. We gathered there, and when the time comes you start the walk down to Petra there are over 1500 luminaries there to light your path, and they ask everyone to be quiet so the experience is really wonderful. You don't realize that most of the way is down hill, and since you're down in a canyon, the weather is not so bad. Eventually you get to the treasury where there are hundreds of luminaries and a woven mat for everyone to sit on. They bring you a nice warm cup of mint tea, and then the performance begins. One man plays an ancient stringed instrument and sings, and the acoustics from the canyon walls make the sound so pure. After the singing someone begins to play a flute from inside the treasury, eventually walking out and moving around the crowd. I have never heard a sound like the flute that night, it was as if sound completely wrapped around you. It's not all fun and games, you're on the ground and there are rocks underneath you in the sand, but I'd go back every night given the opportunity. After taking the time for pictures we made the treck back up to the visitors center, which made us realize how downhill the trip in was. Our cab was waiting for us, and then back to the hotel for some dinner. We decided to try the italian restaurant and were pleasantly suprised on all counts. I had a filet that only cost $16, try finding a filet for that price in the states, and we sampled a really wonderful Jordanian wine. We didn't finish the bottle, but they were nice enough to hold it until the next day for us. After a long traveling day we crashed pretty early, aiming to be out the door at 7 the next day.

Egypt Day 11 Religious Cairo

Mosque of Mohammad Ali On our Eleventh day in Egypt, it was time to see some of the major religious sights in Cairo. The bakery at the Marriott got us off to a good start with a pastry and a cappuccino, and we piled into the van once again. Our first stop of the morning was the Citadel of Salah ad-Din. We started by walking inside to see the Mosque of Muhammad Ali. You've got to take your shoes off to enter, or buy some plastic booties to go over your shoes. You can set your shoes down, but with the soles turned so they're not touching the floor. The first thing you notice when you get inside, is what's missing, there are almost no chairs. WeView from the Citadel took a seat on the floor in a circle and Yusef gave us all the information about the mosque and gave us an overview of key points of islam. The girls got to ask some questions about life as a muslim woman, and even how our guides felt about the way that women and men our treated differently in our society and theirs. We talked for a while about polygamy, and how much a man is responsible for taking care of his wife. From outside the mosque, you can see all the way across cairo to the pyramids. On our way oOutside the Mosque of Mohammad Aliut of the citadel complex we saw a group of catholic schoolchildren visiting the mosque. When someone in our group started to take their picture they were very excited and yelled in perfect english, welcome to Egypt. it was very cute. We stopped by another mosque that somehow I managed to forget the name of, but i'll be seeing if i can match up pictures and find the name of it for you. The girls had to put on robes with hoods and enter through The Hanging Churcha seperate door, and there was a funeral going on while we were there, so in all the excitement the name of the place completely eluded me. Being a tourist during someones funeral feels more than a little weird. Next was a trip to Coptic Cairo, and a visit to the hanging church. We wandered through churches at a pretty rapid fire pace here, but probably the most important note is from the church of St. Sergio (Abu Serga). There is a cave below the church where it is said the Holy Family stayed on their journey through Egypt. We also visited the church of St George, and the Ben Ezra Synagogue, where legend has it baby Moses washed up.From there it was on to lunch, which was on a boat docked on the nile, the food wasn't that great but there was a cute little kitty outside that lived on the dock, we snuck him out a little fish in a napkin on the way out that he chomped down in a hurry. Then it was time for a trip to the Cairo museum. The items on display here are truly, truly amazing, even when you consider hoThe Girls all dressed upw man of the really great works are spread out in museums across the globe. Having a tour guide was helpful, since there is so much stuff that there's no way of knowing what is important and what isn't. We had some time to wander after our tour, and W and I just tried to make sure we at least eyeballed all the exhibits, and we'd consider a trip back the next day if we thought we were really missing out. You can rest assured, if I thought I could get away with it, I would have worn out my camera in there, but there was strict adherence to the no camera policy. After the museum we sat outside and asked questions about the exhibits and then it was time for power shopping. We needed to stop fiinside the mosquerst for a pick-me-up at a coffee shop, and as you're sitting there merchants stroll through frequently selling tourist goods. It's charming at first to shop over coffee, but after a while you tire of shooing away the fourth straight person hawking beaded head wear.That brings us to the final must see of any trip to Cairo, a visit to the Khan, or Khan El Khalili. We walked around for a few minutes looking for a spoon for a friend, and before we left Rosita recomended we stop by Gouzlan where she shopped frequently when she flew the Cairo route for TWA. We absolutely just happened to walk right up to it by accident without even trying. They restarant securityhave nice things and sold in a much lower pressure situation than many of the other places. We met back at the coffee shop when we were done, and enjoyed a tasty falafel selection before heading back to the hotel. We made our usual stop in the lobby, and after such a busy day and late snack we couldn't round anyone up for dinner, so we ended up having a little room service and crashing hard.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Egypt Day 10 getting down to business in Cairo

colossus of Ramses II If you're counting at home, I've been in Egypt 9 days and have yet to lay eyes on a pyramid. Day 10 brought about time to change that. We talked our favorite tour guide into hooking us up with a friend in Cairo, and our trip sounded like so much fun that he took the train up to join us. So now we have the six of us and two tour guides on a whirlwind mission through Cairo. We started down in Memphis with the open air museum there, which has a lot of cool old stuff some more ruined than others, and a giant colossus of Ramses II that won't stand up anymore. The drive to Memphis takes you over a lot of little bumpy rides past the most disgusting looking Nile canals. At some places the canals are filled with floating floating garbage at one end of a section and at the other end there would be people fishing. I'll order the lamb thanks. From the museum at Memphis, we next rolled to Sakkara where you find the oldest pyramid, the step pyramid built by Djoser (Zoser). We had seen dogs at a lot of the sites, and got the impression tA Holy Puppy says Take me Homehat there might be puppies around someplace, but finally found one at the step pyramid. I think if W thought we could have gotten him in our carry on, we'd have a new puppy at our house. You start by walking through the temple complex through some stone columns, and suddenly find yourself craning your neck at this giant structure. There is still much to be unearthed there, but the structure itself is really quite impressive. There's a small museum there too, with cool artifacts from the early dynasties there would be pictures, but you know how this story goes. After hanging around the step pyramid for a while, we In front of the Step Pyramidwere back on the bus, for a quick trip to the carpet factory. How they make the carpets was cool, what they charge and how they pressure you to buy, not cool. After carpet shopping it was time for a little lunch. We ended up in a pretty touristy spot that I really regret not getting the name of because the view of the pyramids from there was incredible. We sat at a window table that looked right over the Giza plain. The Egyptian food served there was quite good, despite the fact that it was on a buffet. We gorged ourselves on all the deliciousness and enjoyed a sakkara beer with a whole new perspective on it. After lunch the guy in charge took us up a few flights of stairs to an outdoor deck where we actually got some of the best pictures from the trip. After our picture time, it was time to go get up close and personal with the pyramids. You have the option to pay extra to go inside the great pyramid of Cheops (Khufu) but no one really wanted to follow the big crowd into a hot, dark cave and pay extra for it. You can go down in one of the smaller pyramids without extra charge, and essentially get the same experience. We had also been warned by many people not to take the camel ride at the pyrThe whole crewamids, so we were glad to have already fit the camel ride in. There's no doubt about it, the pyramids are big, and impressive. Tourists don't get to climb up the sides of the pyramids anymore, and there was a little guy blowing a whistle and yelling at select groups of people climbing and letting others go with no real rhyme or reason toThe Panorama at Giza his methods. After getting close to the great pyramid and going down into a small one we got on the bus to go over to the panorama where you can take pictures of the big three in one shot. After snapping there for a while it was time to go pay a visit to the sphinx. You can't terribly close to it, but the fact that you're there at all is plenty of consolation. You're also there with a lot of other people. I never realized how short a distance it is from Cairo to major EuropeOld and new skyscrapersan hubs. 5 hours from London or 3 hours from Frankfurt makes a sunny destination like Cairo easily in reach of a lot of tourists. So you don't get a lot of pictures without other people in them, but for us here in the states it's a big deal to go that far, so you just learn to deal with the crowds. While you're there, you have to take the touristy pics of pointing at the pyramids, and kissing the sphinx, and assume that people have done these things as long as theyve had cameras to do it with. The best realization is that some of the monuments you're standing in front of have been there since before 2000 BCE, or more than 4000 years ago. That's an insanely long time. We were a tired wind and sand beaten bunch wShould I be jealous?hen we got back to the hotel, and after a little rest and a round of showers for all, briefly checked out the casino, and it seemed nice, but there were far more casino employees than gamblers.We grabbed a bite to eat at Roy's Country Kitchen in the hotel, which has unfortunate Egyptian waiters forced to wear overalls and flannel shirts, oddly paired with dress shoes. Then it was sleepy time, with another full day ahead of us for the next day.The sphinx watches over

Egypt Day 9 a long way for a long day

Abu Simbel by AirOur Ninth day started with an early wake up call for our trip to Abu Simbel. A ticket on egypt air from aswan to Abu Simbel get's you a bus ride over to the temple, and we'd arranged with Sayed to meet a friend of his for a tour. On final approach to the airport, people sitting at the window on the left side of the plane get an eyeful. As you can see, I was one of those lucky people. Growing up the grandchild of a librarian meant that my house was filled with hundreds of cast off National Geographics. One of which I distinctly remember was May 1969 (I remember the cover picture, not the date). If I had my time machine I'd go back and tell myself to save those, but alas they're long gone. If you've been following along this far, then I know you're already a fan of Hatshepsut, who just happens to be on the cover of the April 09 National Geographic. Our guide Eba met us at the airport jumped on the bAbu Simbelus with us and began our tour of the temple. Having known about Abu Simbel for all this time, means that as I stood at the feet of the colossi, I was having one of those I can't believe I'm actually standing here moments. There are some tourist sites that are so over hyped as a must see, that when you get there you think to yourself, Meh. Abu simbel is not one of those places. It is every bit worth the hype. As you walk around the temple you know just how ammazing the setting, with the huge statues overlooking sweeping views of lake Nasser. An earthquake shattered the 2nd statue during Ramses II lifetime, and he assumed it was because the gods were angry, so the statue was never rebuilt. The inside of the temple is actually really nice too, but of course, you don't get to take any pictures inside. You don't hear too much about the second temple that's here, the temple built for Nefertari, who I introduced you to in the valley of the queens. After our tour we went back to the airport to wait a while for the cairo flight, and then off to cairo we went. On Egypt Air flights there is a Qur'an behind glass prominently displayed as you come in the main door, and I did not have the stones to ask if in an emergency you should break the glass. We attempted to arrange the guy who took us to the cairo airport to come back and get us and be waiting, and after collecting our bags, there he was holding up a sign with Herron in big letterNefertari's Temples on it. Yes we overpaid, but it was nice to have it already taken care of. Back at the cairo marriott, we made a beeline to the lobby bar, where they serve absolutely the coldest sakkaras in all of Egypt, and have really comfy chairs. We spent way too much time and money there. Ever since we'd left Cairo the first time we'd been dreaming about eating at egyptian nigts again, so there was no keeping us away from the bread and the cold Mezze platter that night. Then it was off to bed, for an early start Nile Nights from the Mariottthe next day seeing Cairo's most important sites. There are two towers at the Marriott, and the one we were in for our second stay had a much nicer view from it's balcony, but also overlooked a very busy road. If you were out on the balcony with the sliding door open you couldn't hear what was going on in the room at all. You could see bustling cairo and a long way down the nile from our room, and listen to the busy honking of all the cars below. In Egypt, you use your horn as a turn signal, warning, pedestrian motivator, and possibly a radio. Sometimes I think drivers on empty roads honk their horns just out of habit. There was one place in Luxor where there was a no honking sign, that we stood around and watched for a few minutes just to see if drivers obeyed. Of course not.

Friday, April 10, 2009

Egypt Day 8 Returning to Land

We got them to give us a 9:00 check out on the boat, and slowly packed up all our junk and prepared for our departure. We'd been told what a cab ride should cost to the hotel and actually managed pretty easily to find 2 cabs and negotiate the correct rate. We were moving to the Pyramisa Isis Island Hotel. You have to take a boat to get there, and we rode over with our huge pile of luggage, and an Egypt Air flight crew. As soon as we set foot on the island we realized we'd made a serious error in judgment by not booking for more days. The hotel is gorgeous, and the service was really awesome there. We were most excited by the pool and swim up bar, but the weather never cooperated enough to make swimming a viable long term option. We had arranged with our new best friend Sayed to take us out for lunch, so after we got settled and enjoyed a drink outside we met sayed back on the mainland. He put us on another boat and off we went to the Dokka Nubian restaurant. I was still hoping this would be a little less touristy, but when you go inside there are long tables already set up, and you can tell who's going there, the big groups. That's ok though, because the food is actually worth the effort here it's cooked in a metal bowl and you can choose among fish beef or chicken cooked in an amazing tomato sauce. Of course your meal starts with the standard breads and dips, and they serve these really wonderful fruit drinks. When you go there, spring for the Nubian coctail; a mix of gauva, mango and strawberry juice. We ate until we were absolutely stuffed, and then saw a coffee making demonstration, so we could see how the delicious Turkish coffees we'd been drinking were handcrafted by Nubians. After gorging ourselves we planned on spending a full day at the pool. There was sunning and nap time and not a whole lot else going on for the rest of the day. We had to rest up, because we had a full agenda planned for the next day. Nobody else was hungry for dinner, so W and I had dinner outside on the patio (the mezze platter and some fish and chips) and crashed early. there was a 4 am wakeup call waiting for us the next morning.

Egypt Day 7 Gone with the wind


Jason and W at the Aswan Dam An interesting thing happened at the end of day 6, we were headed out to the upper deck at night, when the guy at the gift shop says, don't stay out there too long, it's going to get windy. We laughed, thinking how bad could it be? Just as we settled into some chairs, the winds began to gust, and of course the winds carry desert sand with them. We lasted about 2 minutes before the lounge seemed like a better location. So now, I've experienced a real Sahara Desert sandstorm. Overnight the boat pulled itself into Aswan, and after breakfast we were told it might still be too windy to take our outing for the day. We did eventually leave, and met up with Sayed for a trip out to the Aswan High Dam. The air was still really stirred up, and it was downright cold out there, but it's one of those been there done that sort of things. That's the story of mInside the Philae Templey travel life; whenever I have one morning someplace the weather there will be crappy. After our walk on the dam, it was off to see the unfinished obelisk. If you're interested in ancient construction methods, this is actually pretty interesting, but visually it's not all that exciting. The important thing to note here is that an obelisk has to come from a single piece of stone, and this one cracked while they were getting it our of the bedrock, so it just got left there. With a couple more hours there I could have gotten myself some nice granite counter tops, but alas I forgot to bring my measurements with me. The last part of our journey took us to Philae temple which is out on an island and requires a little boat riPhilae Columnsde to get to. You sit around the outside the boat, and running down the middle there was something suspicious covered by a cloth. Once we were underway, it gets uncovered, and you get to shop while you're riding out to the temple. There were lots of bead necklaces and bracelets and things made out of camel bone. The temple itself is really beautiful, and the setting of the isMy tatoo in papyrusland itself is gorgeous. We took a short hop back on the boat, and then we made a stop at a perfume factory. This is one of the difficult parts of Egypt tourism, frequently as part of your tour you'll stop at a factory where they make something tourists typically like to take home. You get a little demonstration of how the product gets made, you get the obligatory coffee or mint tea, and then the hard sale on whatever product is being made there. In all of our touring we visited a papyrus shop, a stone works, a rug factory, and this perfume shop, where they pin you into a little booth, or even try to separate you so you won't be influenced by the rest of the group and really press you to buy. The perfumes were wThe unfinished obeliskay expensive, and we ended up not buying, and ran as quickly as we could for the door. It's part of all the tours, as soon as you leave another bus pulls up. The tour guides must get a kickback, so you just learn to play along, drink your tea, and not to ever show too much interest. We went back to the boat for lunch after that, and were all excited about our planned felucca ride. Unfortunately the winds were still too high for feluccas to sail that day, so we got a motorboat instead to cruise around the islands and the cataract. Sayed had talked us into a little side trip to a Nubian village and camel ride, so we took a ride farther south in our motorboat, and it dropped us off for our camel ride. The ride was beautiful, right next to the river and through the village. Getting up and down on a camel is a wobbly experience, and there's no stirrups, and sometimes you're awfully close to the edge of the river. When the dam was built, Lake Nasser flooded the former nubian lands, so they were all moved to this area. We visited a Nubian home, ate some typical foods that included an interesting bread, some really delicious cheese and some thick dark honey that tasted like a honey/molasses mix and some sort of crystalline sweet thing that I still don't understand what it was, and of course a cup of mint tea. We got to hold a nile crocodile, and the little girl in the house would let you take her picture (she was adorable) but would insist onA real Nubian Princess reviewing your photographic work for quality, it was the cutest thing. Angie of course looks sort of Nubian so she was quite popular in the village, and people who wanted us to come shop at their place would immediately invoke the name of Obama to get our attention. We went to a school too and got a little Arabic lesson. I got points for knowing the correct response to the Arabic greeting, but lost points for not memorizing my numbers quickly. We did a little shopping buying up some spices including some saffron that I'm not entirely sure is real, and then finally made it back for our little motorboat ride. On the way to the villaige there were lots of rocks, and the current moves faster than anyplace else, so I was a little nervous navigating all those rocks on the way back. On the cruise theyJason riding high on the nile had a set menu for the night, and it was a welcome relief from 4 days worth of buffet. We had to make a run out to town to meet Sayed to get some cartouches made, and he got us a Turkish coffee at one of Aswans many outdoor coffee places. The coffee shops are mostly the realm of men, so with a mixed group you should make sure you know where you're sitting. We were due to leave the boat by nine the next morning, and after a full day we were back to the ship to crash.





Thursday, April 09, 2009

Egypt Day 6 How to lose a tour guide in 1 day

Statue of Horus at Edfu Day six had an exciting looking itinerary, because we were starting with a carriage ride from the boat to Edfu temple. We were also to meet up with a new guide, who seemed nice, so it looked like a promising day. We enjoyed our carriage ride, pulled by a horse named Rambo, with a driver who pointed out interesting sites and buildings along the way. Wendy and I were lucky enough to get a carriage just for the 2 of us, and ended up being the first to arrive at the temple. When everyone else arrived we started our tour. For reasons I can't explain edfu was much more crowded than the two places we'd visited the day before. Our new tour guide was also quite soft spoken, and had a much thicker accent than our previous guide. He also insisted on doing a lot of his talking in really really crowded areas. In some of the tightest places we even had a few members of the group drop out due to the stress induced by the crush of people. The temple had some nice well preserved places andA Holy Kitty at Edfu lots of stuff scratched out by the Coptic Christians who used it as a hiding place when fleeing Roman Persecution. As we were leaving the temple the guide walked us to the front gate, and offered no real help in finding our carriage (you were supposed to go back out and find the carraige that got you there). We found ours, but some others in the group were not so lucky, and had to find a new one and negotiate a price with the driver. Needless to say they were not pleased. I forgot to mention earlier, that there are lots of boats on the river, and they all do the same exact stops, so they are frequently tied up 3 or for deep at the docks. When we arrived back, the boat we knew that ours was on the other side of was pulling away leading us to think we'd actually missed our boat. Some people from our boat in the group from Hong Kong assWall relief at Kom Omboured us that no, our boat was still there, and then we started breathing again. When the rest of the group arrived they were noticeably perturbed about having to pay for their carriage ride, and immediately demanded a new tour guide when we got back on the boat. We had some lunch, and the boat began it's cruise again, and we wondered how much the guide would be apologizing on the afternoon tour, or whether we'd actually have a new guide. On this day the boat served it's one local only cuisine meal, and it was very very tasty, we honestly wished they'd served more. As we gathered up downstairs for our scheduled visit to Kom Ombo Temple, a new tour guide appeared. So began our jourWall relief at Kom Omboney with Sayed the Egyptologist/tour guide/travel agency. Kom Ombo was really beautiful, much less crowded, and had interesting wall reliefs of a calendar and of early medical equipment. It is also rare in that it's dedicated to 2 sets of gods one on the north side and one on the south side, with symmetrical images in many parts of the temple. we walked back to the boat as the sun set, and i tried to get myself left on the dock while trying to negotiate to buy something, but I eventually safely made it back on the boat only moments before it pulled away.
Kom Ombo at Dusk