I last wrote about the amazing adventure on the felucca and I now have a couple of pictures to add to the description.
This is me standing infront of two donkeys. Why not? Actually, I just thought the little baby donkey was really cute and had to stop to take a picture. This is also right next to the toilet, can you see it? It is the green shrubbery in the background. Welcome to Egypt!
Here is the felucca that we sailed on. We would zigzag across the Nile all day and than stop once in a while to enjoy a traditional meal made by the felucca boys.
As I last mentioned, the felucca took us to Luxor. This is a town I have really been looking forward to see because a lot of the archaeological goodies of Egypt are here. Despite being absolutely disgusting (no more details needed) after the two day adventure on the Nile, we made a short stop at Edfu temple, before going to the hotel.
Edfu looked a lot like Philae although it was in a slight worse condition. It is also possibly one of the earliest Christian churches in Egypt.
This early Christian painting covers the older ancient carvings of the original decoration of the temple, but because there is no writing it is not possible to accurately date the paintings. However, the theme and the style suggest a very early period in the Christian history. Isn't that cool? A lot of the temples here have been altered and often disfigured by the Christians, it was there way of getting back at the tyranny and oppression that they experienced. Although it is sad to see the remains of an angry mob, it is interesting to see the feelings of a people as marks on a wall. I guess that is a lot of what history is all about.
I know I have already given one history lesson, but here comes a short other. This small boat is called a Sun Ship. Usually they are a lot bigger, this is only a model. They were used in ceremonies in ancient Egypt to carry the gods across or down or up the Nile. This one was inside Edfu temple, in the room known as the sanctuary or the Holy of Holies, which was, as the name implies, the most sacred room in the temple.
After a beautiful shower and using a real toilet I felt like a new person. The rest of the day was spent just relaxing and enjoying the pool on the top of the roof with a beautiful view over Luxor.
Once rested we headed off to Luxor temple.
Ramses and I
Our guide was great at explaining the history of the temple. He really wanted us to understand the history of a certain pharaoh named Haptshepsut (don't quote me on the spelling), the only female pharaoh to rule Egypt. To make sure that we understood the somewhat complicated history and family relations of this remarkable woman he had us act it out and since everyone knows what a wonderful actor I am (please understand the sarcasm) I got to play the leading role as Hatshepsut. Fun fun!
Afterwards we went to an Egyptian pizza place where they stuff you pizza with meat, the only way to make pizza! Afterwards we went to the zouk where I was offered two million camels. After considering it a while I thought "nah" and kept on walking.
Later on I was walking down the zouk with a few of the others from the tour group. Two other girls and one guy to be exact. This number didn't go unnoticed by the locals who would keep repeating as we walked by "Three wives, three problems!" After a while I found out that it was extra fun to finish the sentence for them...
The next day we went to Valley of the Kings. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before! I loved it so much! Despite the heat it was an incredible experience. The tombs are so beautifully decorated and so impressive, it must have been amazing to have seen them when they were new and fresh and full of all sorts of treasures. I got to go to Tutankhamun's tomb as well and stayed there so long that the guard inside had to kick me out in the end so that other people could come inside too.
It is not allowed to take your camera inside the Valley of the Kings so the best picture I have is the following that I took from the parking lot:
You can recognize the Valley from the pyramid shaped mountain.
I could go on and on with descriptions about the amazing colours in the tomb and the interesting scenes of the pharaoh and the scale of justice and Isis and Osiris taken from the book of the dead, but in the end all I can say is that if you ever have the chance to go, DO! It is an amazing experience. These colours have survived in amazing condition through thousands of years. How often does a house need to be repainted in our days?
Until the evening there was nothing planned for the rest of this day but a few of us from the group decided that we hadn't seen enough temples yet, so we set off to see two more: the temples of Habu and Hatshepsut.
Habu's temple was impressive becuase a lot of the colour had been preserved, but I was mostly excited to see Hatshepsut's temple. I studied this temple in an art history class I took and I think the story of Hatshepsut is fascinating. Hollywood should really consider making a story of her life, or maybe not actually... Anywho, the temple really was beautiful, although extremely hot. The placement of the temple makes it one of the warmest places on earth, according to the travel book the Italians in our group had with them.
Hatshepsut's temple
In the evening we went to an orphanage that the tour group sponsors. It seemed like a really decent place and a good place for kids to grow up. They had about a hundred kids or more ranging from the age of seventeen years to one week. After a tour of the place we were allowed to play with the kids if we wanted to. I rushed off to do so as soon as I had the chance. I ended up spending the whole time playing with a cute little kid who had a bandaged arm, although that didn't seem to slow him down at all. We had a blast throwing things to each other and counting together in English and Arabic. He also taught me some new words, all of which I have forgotten already except I think a stuffed animal is called a babu or something like that. I would have loved to stay longer and played but I really enjoyed the time that I had.
There was still one more temple to see so Thursday morning we headed off to Karnak temple, the biggest one so far. It is actually a temple complex made out of six temples. To get there and back we took rode a horse and carriage. I got to sit in the front both ways since I shared the carriage with one girl who didn't like horses and another girl who disliked animals in general...
Karnak Temple
Karnak Temple was the last thing we saw in Luxor before heading off to Dahab. Usually, the tour group takes a ferry across the Red Sea, but the ferry was sent away for repair and now the company is having the hardest time getting permission to put it back on the water becuase the Egyptian government want their own company so they are trying to ruin the current company to eliminate all competition. So instead of the ferry we took a buss through the night. I hardly slept at all, but who need sleep when you are on an adventure! The next night there was also very little sleep, because this night we all hiked Mount Sinai. We left the hotel at eleven in the evening, got to the foot of the mountain around one, and reached the top of the mountain around three or four in the morning. The sunrise was beautiful! It was a little cloudy so I didn't actually see the sun until it had risen a little bit but it was fascinating to see how the sky changed colours from black to blue to orange to pink and then blue again.
We hiked back down and reached the bottom a little past seven. Then a few of us waited outside St. Catherine's monastery until it opened at nine. The monastery was built to protect the legendary burning bush. Because we where tired and hot and hungry we didn't stay long, just long enough to see the monastery and the beautiful icons that they have, and then snap a picture of ourselves and the bush.
St. Catherine's Monastery
I will be posting a separate post soon about my wonderful experience scuba diving. Below is a picture of a supermarket in Dahab, the town where I got my certification.
The four days in Dahab where wonderful! I spent most of the time scuba diving, and the rest of the time relaxing by the pool or walking down the markets talking to the locals and practicing my Arabic. I think they enjoyed my attempts at speaking Arabic and one guy went around his entire store telling me the name of different things in Arabic. In the end all I can remember from my lesson is one sentence: "mia mia walla firax gamayia", which literary translated means "one hundred percent better than the market chicken", and is used when you want to emphasize that you are doing really well.
We arrived back in Cairo on Saturday. Only four of us returned to Cairo, the rest of the twelve were travelling on to other destinations and adventures. Although the trip was officially over we spent the day together exploring a little more of Cairo. We went to the Muhammad Ali Mosque, which is a beautiful citadel built on higher ground so that it overlooks the city of Cairo. I asked the tour guide what was so great about Muhammad Ali and the only thing he could think of was that he was the one who brought tobacco to Egypt. In addition to bringing the tobacco he is also considered the founder of modern Egypt. My tour guide also wanted to make sure we all understood that the Muhammad Ali of the mosque was not the the well known boxer of the same name. Apparently this had confused some people in earlier tour groups...
The first half of my adventure is sadly over. It has been amazing and I have seen, heard, done, and tasted some wonderful things. But the next adventure is just as exciting. I have to learn to live in Cairo, a wonderful but crazy city. I am very excited for this new semester :)
My new hometown for the next four months...
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