The rest of Egypt - really this time

My guide looked like a spy from old cartoons or a flasher our parents warned us about, but he was a really nice guy who was just cold in 60 F weather.

This statue of Ramses II was found in a field, when a donkey fell in a hole.  Discovery by donkey seemed to be a running theme in my trip.  It was absolutely huge and they believe there were two of them, but no one knows where the other one is.

This is the first pyramid in a place called Saqqara.  It was made out of the burial terraces when some smart guy asked himself, what if I build another one on top and then kept going.  It used to be open to go inside, but no longer. 

This was part of the processional route that the mummy would take on the way to the tomb.  It had a niche for a flag/statue from each of the 14 cities in Egypt.  Across from them would be a statue of the pharoh who was burried here. 

We went to a 'rug school' but the students were on break, so someone else had to deomonstrate how the rugs are tied and then the threads trimed to make them look more presentable.

This woman made fresh pita for our lunch.  She would put the piece of dough in the corn meal and then on her paddle.  By tossing it into the air and catching it a couple of times on the paddle she could flatten it out without squishing it before putting in the ofen to bake and puff up.

That is an amazing amount of cauliflower so artfully arranged as to stay purched on that truck.  We saw similar feats with carrtos, beets, and cabbages. 

This traffic was at least moving, but as you can see we are riding on the line.  If the road is wide enough for four cars, there really is no need to stick to the three lanes that are drawn on it.

This was part of the 1 year anniversary of the revolution as celebrated in Alexandria.  It is interesting to me that it is in English. 

This was my guide, Randa, for Alexandria.  She seemed resentful of having to come with me overnight at first, but then seemed to warm to the idea.  Since the overnight wasn't my idea, I didn't like being the subject of her resentment, but since she seemed to get over it, it wasn't too bad. 

This is Pompey's pillar, pretty much the only thing (besides the sphynix) left standing in this big complex of a ruin in the middle of Alexandria.  Apparently they found these ruins when they were getting ready to build an apartment building.  This made me think about the trade offs between preserving the heritage of the ancient ruins and getting on with our daily lives.  I wonder what the average modern Egyptian thinks about this...

We were stuck in traffic, so I took pictures of random street scenes.  This one was particularly colorful and they guy in red is interesting for another reason.  You can see the dark spot on his forehead.  Apparently this is a symbol of devoutness.  The more ardent your prayer, the bigger your bruise and the more everyone knows you are cool. 

I felt bad for the horses that were stuck in traffic along with the cars.  Not only did they have to breathe the exhaust directy, but the concrete was slippery for their horse shoes.  Several times I saw horses slip a little bit while trying to walk on even a slight incline. 

This is the only intact ampetheater outside of Greece or Rome but from that period.  Apparently the accustics are amazing, such that you can stand on stage and talk but be heard by everyone in the audience. 

This is the Library of Alexandria.  The ancient one was destroyed 2000 years ago, and this one is less than 10 years old, but it was the only piece of modern Egyptian architecture that I thought was at all interesting or good.  It was very well done both inside and out in a timeless sort of way that I think they will still think it is a good building in 50 years. 

This is the inside of the library's great reading room.  The roof is designed to give indirect natural light all day making it a very pleasent place to sit and read or work.  There were also a number of museums in the building including one on Nasser which was intersting for a bit of modern history and one on science which was right up my alley (and right under a giant ball of a planetarium.)

These cats were guarding the mediteranean.

This was the view of the Nile from my hotel windo in Aswan.  Much nicer than the Nile in Cairo or Alexandria.

Sunset over the Nile in Aswan.  The powerlines you can see are from the Aswan dam.

Abu Simbel was moved in preparation for the building of the high dam, when its original location would be flooded.  These are Ramses II (I am pretty sure) and I couldn't take pictures inside.  It was impressive and big and if you just happened upon it, it would be quite a shock, but I was more intersted in the story of how the moved it than the rocks themselves.  I think I was a bit rocked out at that point. 

The figure to the left and just more than half as tall as Ramses' knee is his wife.  She wasn't actually that small, that is just what he thought of her with respect to his greatness.  I believe it is one of his kids between his legs and just a little bit shorter. 

I think this is the Temple of Philae, which is on an island near Aswan.  I was disturbed by the fact that it wasn't symmetric.  Everything else I saw was symmetric at least in the large scale and often in the detail as well.  My guide didn't seem to understand my question when I asked and then dismissed it.

During the 2000 or so years since the decline of the pharonic era, Egypt has had many differnt things going on, including a Christian phase.  This cross is Christian graffiti carved into the temple when it was used as a monastary.  There were also lots of ruined (pockmarked) Egyptian gods.  Carving in stone does make it hard to erase.

I had to look this one up since I didn't remember where it was...It is the Kiosk of Trajan on the island of Philae near Aswan (thank you Eyewitness Guide Book).  It has scenes of the Roman emperor burning incense in front of Osiris and Isis. 

There were many places where the cruise ships were parked 4-5 across.  You just walk straight through until you get to one that looks good and try the doors until you find one that is unlocked.  The are limited in size by some locks and are all pretty much (but not exactly) the same inside.

An interesting mix of traditional and modern.

My cabin on the boat.  Every day I was greeted with towel 'art' this was the most tasteful of the three.  The next night I had a towel man lounging on my bed and the third night he was hanging from the air vent in the hall.  I am sure it was meant to be cute, but it ended up kinda creapy.

This picture is just to prove that I saw actual hyrogliphics and didn't just make it up.

An idyllic scene along the Nile.  It could really have been 1000 years ago.

I am a sucker for a balloon ride, even if it means getting up at 4am.

We got a whole new perspective on the city of Luxor.

Sunrise from the balloon.

The Nile is redirected into irrigation canals.  Since it only rains 2-3 times a year and never very much, all the agriculture is from irrigation. 

Some of these buildings are not finished, but others are purposely open on top.  Since it doesnt rain there is no real reason to finish or seal your apartment.  There was much less dust in the air here, but everything gets dusty anyway.

This is Hatshepsut's temple.  I didn't think it was all that hard to say, but all the guides kept saying, you can just call it "Hot Chicken Soup."  I am a fan of Hashepsut since when her husband the pharoh died, she took over, tried to rewrite her history says she was really a man, but the son of a god, while her son was away at military school.  He eventually came back mad and took over.

It looks like they are rooms, but they dont have roofs.  Sometimes there were chickens and even livestock in them. 

Do these kids follow the balloons every morning?

Just a sample of the ferry docks.

The Nile, farms, Luxor and in the background, the valley of the kings and Queen Hatshepsut's Temple.

Our balloon from below. 

One of the colossi of Memnon.  Apparently they used to guard a temple which was recycled for its building materials. 

All these caves are tombs of lesser nobles in the valley next to the valley of the Kings.  I couldn't take my camera into the valley of the kings, let alone into any of the tombs.  My ticket was good for three tombs of the 15 or so that are open at any one time.  Heba chose for me and they were interesting, but all the good stuff was gone.  It would have been extra to go into King Tuts, and since all of his stuff was in the Egyptian museum, I passed on the opporutnity. 

This guy was a real smooth talker.  I bought some alabaster vases from him, but neither of them made it home.  I was devastated (out of proportion really, it had been a bad day) but I am still sad that they didn't make it. 

This is Hatshepsut's temple from the ground level, later in the day when it was full of tourists.  There were a surprising number of tourists in the south in comparison to what I saw in the north, but not really a surprising number in comparison to other touristy places I have visited.  Many of the tourists were Egyptians, which I thought was cool.

This was painted on the ceiling to symbolize the night sky.  I think it must be amazing to have seen the night sky before smog and light polution from cities. 

We went to Luxor temple at night against my wishes, because I knew that my pictures wouldn't really come out at night.  This put me in a foul mood, but it was actually pretty nice to do this at night, and it spread out the day.  I suppose it would have been too much to ask to go twice. 

This is a marble statue of King Tut and his wife.  Notice they are the same size, unlike Ramses and his wife who didn't even come up to his knee.  King Tut gets a lot of attention not because he was any great pharoh, but because his tomb was the only discovered in modern times that was intact (so far).  He was very young, died early, and wasn't all that rich (I cant imagine if his stuff is 'not all that rich' what the other pharohs had, but my favorite thing about him is that he is the same size as his wife in this statue.

This is Tutmosis III's head.  It is remarkably well preserved.  On the right is another copy that is more complete, but the head was too far away to get a good picture. 

Avenue of the sphinxes which lined the road from Karnak to Luxor temples along which the procession would travel.  They hvae lost some of the path under modern life, but they are working to get the whole area back. 

Heba treated me to a glass of sugar cane juice.  It tasted sweet and reedy but not bad.  I wont need to run out and buy one of the giant metal machines you see in the background however.  This place was the Egyptian jamba juice, you could have guava, orange, banana, hibiscus or sugar cane juice freshly prepared. 

This is at the Karnak temple, a whole complex of temples and courtyards.  I dont remember who this dude was, but having your picture taken with your arms crossed was THE thing to do here and who am I to buck the trend?

These are ram's head sphinxes.  They go both to the Luxor temple and to the Nile. 

The guy on the left has the white crown of upper Egypt and the guy on the right has feathers for his hat, so one of them is a pharoh and the other is a god.  It looks like they are about to kiss.

I cant remember if this is a calendar or an accounting book, but it shows the numbers and they clearly used a straight edge when they made their table.  I only wish my students were so careful. 

This was the giant scarab of Karnak.  The story is if you go around it 7 times you will get your wish, 15 times if your wish is to get married.  I didn't go around it more than the once needed to get this picture and I didn't see anybody else obviously circling it either.

This was a giant pilar forest.  Maybe they didn't really know how to make roofs, but it doesnt seem like just a great hall if it is so full of pillars.  I liked it, because it felt like a forest to me. 

These are more ram's head sphinixes that they have found around.  They shouldn't be so close together but they are waiting to line the road all the way back to Luxor temple .  The restoration work they have done is very interesting to me.  How do they know where things go and where to dig?  How can they even get covered in sand? 

The Egyptian flag.  I asked my guide if the design had meaning.  She wasn't sure but guessed at something not memorable enough to have stuck with me. 

The woman on the right was being dumb.  I think she was giving out something to the kids and more kids kept running out to her.  The big kid in grey came to her rescue and send the younger kids scattering.  What I didn't understand is why she then gave out more things to other kids and had to be rescued again.  Her smarter friend (on the left) eventually walked away. 

I found the historical pictures in the visitors center fascinating.  They have clearly done a lot of work in the last 70 years to uncover and restore the temple.  There were parts that were totally unrecognizable.  It would take a lot of vision to go from this to what I saw now.  It also made me think how the Egyptians let it get to that, but who has the money and time to keep things up? 

Dinner on the run?

Now I am in Hurgada on the Red Sea coast, but I really could have been anywhere since in general it is just a big resort area full of German and Russian tourists hoping for a little sun.  I went on a "Bedoin Safari" which was not at all what I thought it would be.  Since I was again the only English speaking tourist for miles, I was on my own....(continued in the next caption)

...and I dont know if they just didn't know what to do with me, or if everyone who comes gets to try out every possible type of desert transportation known to man.  The four-wheeler was fun, but I didn't go fast enough for my guide.  They called this one a spider and it was just like driving a car. 

I didn't really need to go around in a football field sized area in this horse drawn buggy as I had already ridden in one on this trip.  At least in the motorized vehicles we went way out into the desert which was kind of neat. 

In case I needed to feel closer to the horse, our next trip around the football field was on the beast directly. 

After the horse I thought I was done, but no, this poor donkey was next in my tranportational odessey.  Even though my grandmother warned me not to give my camera to strangers, clearly I did.  He was quite insistant that I put my arms up and he was pretty quick to get this picture, because they didnt stay up for very long. 

This camel wasn't nearly as photogenic as Casanova at the pyramids, and not being as tall, he was much eaiser to ride, not that we went very far.

After dinner we took a jeep (I didn't drive) into the dessert again to find the Bedoin camp.  I took a lot of pictures from the bouncing jeep of the sun set because I really liked the way the light and dust made the mountains look.  By this time I had joined up with an Egyptian group of two families.  They were very hospitable and I had an offer of marriage an hour later. 

This is the Bedoin Mosque.  I really thought the Bedoin were a nomadic people but our guide insisted that they were not.  My guidebook says they are, but that they are being supported by tourists and have settled down. 

These girls made us two big flat pieces of bread out of only flour and water.  It was pretty good when hot, but as soon as it cooled it was really cardboard.  The most interesting thing was how she rolled it out on the board, she would pick it up with the rolling pin and slap it down making it stretch and stretch. 

We fed the second flat bread to this 18month old camel.  Then to wash it down, the guide filled this water bottle from some guys bottle and gave it to the camel to drink.  It was really pretty pathetic to see it tied up, pulling at the rope around its leg and almost tripping itself to get to us and the food. 

After smoking narglie and having a very interesting coversation with the two fathers in the Egyptian group.  Helped (probably more than helped) along by the guide, one of them proposed marriage to me in front of his wife, which started a discussion of how expensive it was to have more than one wife and was it really worth it.  When I told them I wasn't married and wasn't really intersted in getting married, they said that was very typical American, we like our freedom. They asked how old I was and I was surprised that they were guessing in the right ball park and some even a bit high.  People usually assume I am younger than I am.  I guess I am finally catching up to my age.  Anyway this picture is of the Egyptian version of a whirling dervish, spinning with the cake pans and skirts.  It was the second (of three) times I saw them and I was impressed each time.

My final transportational adventure was desert tortise.  I didn't actually climb on, but one of the kids did. 

The guide called "California" to get my attention before he reached into a seemingly empty terrarium to pick up this snake.  He handed it to me while the kid (who had ridden on the tortise) was interested buy wary.  The snake went right back under the sand when he was put back into the terrarium.

I was looking forward to a 'snorkling day' but as you can tell my my clothing the first thing that was disappointing about the day was the weather.  The second thing that was disapointing was that while we were gone from the shore for 6 hours only an hour and 20 minutes was spent snorkeling.  More time was spent on a beach doing nothing than in the water.  In order to liven up the party, one worker was making towel sculptures for each of the guests.  I guess they have a thing for towel scuptures in Egypt.  He was also making a video that I knew he would try to sell us at the end.  I dont usually go for those things since they are expensive, but when he got in the water with us I wasn intersted since I am always sad that I cant take pictures of the fantastic things I see while snorkeling.  So I bought it and it was its own drama and in the end not worth it, but oh well. 

Back in Cairo and up the Cairo tower.  This picture came out much better than I expected.  It was cold and foggy and very windy at the top of the tower, but this is a pretty cool picture of the city, the river and soem pyramids in the background. 

I was surprised how close the pyramids were to the city.  Once upon a time the whole city was on the east side of the Nile as the west side (were the sun goes to die) is for the dead.  As the city has expanded it has spilled over into the east and the dividing line between the city and desert or the fertile area and desert is quite striking.  I wonder if eventually the city will completely envelope the pyramids.  I'll be able to say "I remember when..."

This is the Mohamad Ali Mosque, it is supposedly a copy of the blue mosque, but I thought it looked more like the Sulieman mosque.  The bottom is made of alibaster, so it is often called the alibaster mosque.  Mr. Mohamad (about half of Egyptian males are called Mohamad) was my reluctant guide this day but he was very informative about the mosque and we went in and had some meditation time. 

This is the view from the Alibaster Moque's terrace.  You could almost throw a stone from one mosque to the next in Cairo.  Mr. Mohamad called Cairo the city of a thousand minerets.  He also said that someone he knew or some big politian went to Germany and upon his return he said that he saw no muslims, but Islam, whereas in Egypt he sees plent of muslims but no Islam.  His point was that the people in Germany were hard working, curteous and disciplined, all things required by Islam but lacking in Egyptians.  Very interesting...

I hope these boxes didn't have TVs or other breakables in them.

My last day in Egypt was spent at Mr. Zack's house with his family.  I had asked him about a cooking school and he said there wasn't really such a thing yet, but the next day he said he had arranged something.  I didn't know what it was until we got there, but his wife was going to teach me how to make a few things and then we ate together.  His oldest daughter (not pictured) was sort of helpful, but his wife's younger sister (maybe 18) had pretty good English and was very helpful.  We made falalfel (from a mix) and kosery as well as chicken.  It wasn't quite what I was hoping for in terms of a cooking lesson (ie not all that transferable to my own kitchen) but it was a very nice day.  The two younger kids entertained me and we ate a lot of good food. 

Looking back at these pictures I am remembering more good stuff than bad and while I know that I didn't always have a good time while I was there, I am glad that I went, I dont really have anything lasting to complain about and I saw what I needed to see to be pretty confident that I dont need to go back until I have seen the rest of the world.