Cairo, Philae temple, and Abu Simbel

Here comes my first post about my adventures in Egypt. So far I have been here three days but it feels like several weeks already. It is amazing all the things I have seen and done so far.

The first day was Cairo, which included the pyramids. They are absolutely beautiful! From a distance they look as if they are built out of lots of tiny lego pieces and it isn't really until you get all the way up to them that you realize how big each individual stone is. They are all about as tall as I am, and although some might argue that it is not very tall, it is still a large chunk of sandstone.

Me chilling out on the Great Pyramid

I also got to go inside the Pyramid of Khafre and, although hot and really stuffy, it was wonderful to enter the kings chamber and see the sarcophagus he had once been buried in. Inside the chamber was also an Egyptian who gave a short lecture on what exactly it was we were looking at. Poor man! I thought the heat was bad enough for the relatively short minutes I was there, how he could stand it I have no idea.

After the looking at the pyramids up close we drove a little off into the desert to try a little camel riding and get the panoramic view of the pyramids.

Camel riding isn't nearly as horrible as everyone had told me. I was expecting a thrilling, somewhat scary and very uncomfortable experience from everything that I had heard, but it was far from it. I actually really enjoyed it, and would love to try it again. It is offered in Dahab so I know at least one thing that I will be doing there. True, the camel never really went too fast, except this one time when the boy leading my camel saw that I was really enjoying myself and asked if I wanted to go faster. I didn't have time to respond to his question before he started encouraging the camel to pick up the pace. I have to admit that I maybe didn't feel quite as safe right than... But I still loved it!

The next place we visited was the Sphinx. Here I am picking its nose:

I thought the Sphinx was magnificent! It just looks so incredibly royal, even without a nose. Unfortunately it is not possible to get right up close to the Sphinx, I guess that will have to wait until I am a famous archaeologist and they ask me to help excavate the mysterious tunnels underneath, but for now it was still wonderful seeing it from where I was allowed to stand and observe. It is supposed to be a guardian of the pyramids, although there is some disagreement as to the age of it and some with more extreme views have suggested that it predates the pyramids, but it definitively seems to be guarding something. Annoying tourists perhaps... if that is the case it is failing miserably...

At the end of the day we went to the Cairo Museum. It isn't allowed to take pictures inside the museum so I don't have any fun pictures to show you, but just imagine me jumping up and down with excitement and then rushing through the museum to try to soak in as much of it as possible!

The next day we went to Philae temple. It was built by the Ptolemies when they invaded Egypt, and is built in a beautiful greaco-roman style. The temple was later used as a Christian church so almost all of the engravings of the Egyptian gods have been carved away. It was especially interesting to go into the room known as the Holy of Holies, the most sacred part of the temple according to the Egyptians, and see every single face, without exception, disfigured. In one case the whole face had been chiseled out. The archaeologist leading the tour said that the face had been thrown into the Nile in disgust but I don't exactly see how they can know that, although it does give a good picture of how the Christians felt about these gods, and the Ptolemy elite that had caused them so much damage.

This was my favorite engraving. It looks like he is dancing! Actually he is about to decapitate all the prisoners that he has caught... But I think it is fun to think of him as dancing...

Philae temple. None of the columns seemed to have any particular order. There would be two that matched, than an odd one, and another different one and than maybe the same one as the one before and well... it was kind of weird...

The Nile!

In the evening we took a boat to a beach along the Nile. I hadn't brought my swimsuit with me but jumped in anyway. It was one of the best decisions I have taken so far. The cool water was wonderfully refreshing after the heat. It is the warmest part of summer right now and during the middle of the day it gets between 40 and 50 degrees Celsius, or about 100 to 125 degrees Fahrenheit. Nice and warm.

For dinner we went to a Nubian village and ate in a traditional Nubian home. Their homes are beautiful, yet very simple. They paint most of their walls blue to keep them cooler during the warm summer days and paint one wall yellow and red to help reflect the sun in the cooler winter times. For a roof they mostly use dry palm leaves except for a small part that is more solid. During the summer they sleep on the roof that is more solid. It must be so wonderful sleeping underneath the stars and feeling the breezed from the desert, I would love to experience that some time. The brightly coloured houses reminded me of Kardemommeby, a town from a Norwegian children's story.

In traditional Nubian houses it is considered good luck to have a crocodile in their house. Personally I would think I had terribly bad luck if I found a crocodile in my house. They let them grow to be a couple meters long and then eat them. The ones in this house where still kind of small so I got to hold one! And almost give it a kiss.

Actually, it looks like I am strangling the poor thing... but you try hold a crocodile! It is scary, even if it is a small one.

Today I was up at 2:30 in the morning to go to Abu Simbel. The early hour was to prevent us being stuck in the middle of the desert too late in the day when the heat is unbearable. We also had to time are leaving so that we could catch the police convoy that would take us there. Any tourists to Abu Simbel are police escorted to make sure that nothing bad happens on the way. Don't think I will go into more detail on that... Abu Simbel itself is absolutely amazing and one of the best things I have seen so far. Both inside and out is a so beautifully decorated and detailed. The statues of Ramses II are enormous. He definitively wasn't unsure of himself.

Believe me when I say that these pictures really can't give you the real impression of how wonderful all these things are, but I hope this first blog has given you some idea of the amazing things I am seeing and doing here! So far I haven't been offered any camels but I have been told that I have magical eyes and look like an Egyptian...