My sister Coral did a studyabroad semester in Hatfield, England this year and for her Easter break, we decided to do a mini grand tour. Our first stop was Egypt (Luxor set / Cairo set).
It was pretty interesting to be so far out of our element. We went to a country where we don't speak the language and weren't familiar with the culture. We did do this on purpose, so it wasn't as big a shock as it might have been. Instead, it was a pretty fascinating learning experience.
Our first stop was Luxor in the south (Upper Egypt). We stayed at the Nefertiti Hotel where we took advantage of their sister company Aladin Tours to take a couple of half-day tours. Coral and I both really liked the Nefertiti. Both the night and day staff were very helpful with any questions we had or tour arrangements we wanted. At no point did it seems like they were more interested in selling us something than simply being helpful and wanting us to have a good time which wasn't the case at our Cairo hotel.
First up was the West Bank, or the land of the dead, where we got to tour Hatshepsut Temple, the Valley of the Kings, and the Valley of the Queens. We hadn't had time the night before to get any Egyptian pounds and our tour was leaving early enough that there wasn't an open ATM around, but the day manager at the hotel amazingly lent us the money needed to get into the sites for the West Bank tour. The temple was pretty amazing and our guide, Alladin, provided a wealth of information about the site as well as pointing out the bullet holes from when 60 tourists were gunned-down by terrorists in the early 2000's. Alladin was great at giving us not just the shiny side of things and talked about how devastated the local economy was by these attacks. Over 80% of the people in the Luxor area are employed either directly or indirectly by the tourist industry. When the attacks occurred, tourism went from over 6000 people a day to below 800. Even today, things haven't fully recovered and they are only seeing around 3000 people a day.
We weren't able to get any pictures of the two Valley's because cameras are not allowed in the tombs. Unfortunately, we were there on the hottest day they'd had to that point in the year and instead of the 80F temps of the previous weeks, it was about 106F. Not particularly comfortable for traipsing about in narrow passageways where the breathing from all the tourists substantially raises the humidity making it ridiculously hot. When we went in a couple of tombs that the other groups weren't going in, it was much more bearable.
After the sites, we got introduced to haggling at the alabaster "factory". Unless you specify otherwise, tours in Egypt will inevitably stop at a local factory of some sort. Alabaster, rugs, papyrus, etc. While the products were interesting, it was our first day in Egypt and we weren't quite prepared for the experience. We came away with a handmade alabaster vase, a scarab, and a pyramid for probably about one and a half times what we could have gotten them for, but that was ok.
After lunch, we did a half-day tour of the east bank sites which included the Karnak temple complex and Luxor temple. Our guide for this part of the tour was Mohamed Ali who also provided great information about the sites. The Karnak temple complex is amazingly huge and what struck us the most was how the ancient Egyptians managed such feats of engineering.
The next day we headed for Cairo for a couple of days and stayed at the Windsor Hotel which was a bit of a disappointment. My next trip to Cairo, I'll probably stay somewhere over on Zamalek. The front desk seemed more interested in making a buck rather than being useful.
Our first day in Cairo was a holiday (Spring Day), so not much was open. This ended being a good thing as it allowed us to more casually wander around in what we learned the next day is normally a VERY crowded and bustling city. We walked down towards the middle of the downtown on Talit Harb road and had a great fatteh and kebab lunch at Felfela. After a brief stop back at the hotel, it was a walk through Islamic Cairo over to the Khan el Khalili bazaar. Weird but interesting to be the only "white people" we saw during the entire trip over and back. We did encounter some westerns at the bazaar, but the best parts were Coral getting a chance to talk to some local girls about their studies and then her haggling with the scarf vendor.
The next day was radically different. Cars and people EVERYWHERE. We booked a van and driver and went to see Saqqara where we got to see the experimentation with mastabas and other early structure which were the precursors to the "true" pyramids.
After a stop at the papyrus "factory" in Giza and a misunderstanding between our Canadian van mates and the driver about whether they wanted to rent camels or not, it was off to see the Great Sphinx and the Great Pyramid. They were great. Pretty pushy touts (vendors) at the Giza plateau, but other than that, amazing stuff. Again, the feats of engineering are just stunning. They're having some trouble preserving the sphinx due to the water table and encroaching city, so it was good to see it before it disappears in another few thousand years.
After our grueling tour it was time to head back to Cairo for a quick nap and then some lunch at Gad which was quite the experience. The young guy working the cash register knew enough English for us to order a kebab sandwich and a chicken sandwich. If not for that, we'd have been pretty screwed. The menu was entirely in Arabic and the place was completely packed with people. While waiting for our order, we met Sammi, a super nice, half-Egyptian, half-Canadian petroleum engineering student who was in town to visit family. He stopped in off the street after seeing how badly we stuck out in the crowd and wanted to see if we needed any help. The most amusing part was when the three of us got to look disdainfully at the stupid American who stopped in and asked us if the place took US dollars.
The end of our stay in Egypt was characterized by a couple of unfortunate events. My stomach decided to go dodgy which kept us at the hotel for the last night in Cairo and then the next day, the taxi driver our hotel hailed for us took us to the wrong terminal at the airport. However, the ride to the airport was totally fun. Our driver was a master at weaving in and out of the "lanes" which is to say, there aren't any lanes and it's just a river of vehicles heading in the same direction which our driver took advantage of every little bit of space to squeeze his way between other vehicles to keep us moving forward.
My next trip to Egypt, I will probably want to either stay with locals or at least meet up with some local folks to explore with to make it a bit easier and to also get to see more of the local culture. Coral and I made a pretty good go of it, but it was definitely a little tough not speaking the language and not quite having enough time to really grok the local culture.
4 comments:
wow. i haven't read it because it is really long, but from the pictures, did u go to Egypt? would u suggest that people visit there?
My sister and I wanted to go someplace where we would be out of our comfort zone (ie different culture and not able to speak the local language). We got along pretty well in Egypt and enjoyed our time there and would recommend it to anyone interested in ancient history and engineering. To have an even better time than we did, I suggest either staying with a local (eg via CouchSurfing.org) or having someone that speaks your language and the local language to hang out with while you are there, so that you can really explore the local culture more easily.
If you go back to Cairo, please read my blog posts about where we ate. We had two locals telling us where to eat, and often accompanying us, and we had some of the best meals I've ever had on a vacation.
Also, I found the touts at Giza incredibly frustrating. Otherwise, we enjoyed our time there.
I tried to get us hooked up with the Casual tours folks, but they were all booked up during the time that we were there. It would have definitely been handy to have some local expertise.
Giza looks so interesting and laid back when you see it on tv shows, but couldn't be further from that in reality. :)
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