Home ·· News Room ·· Prints ·· Licensing ·· Gallery ·· About Us ·· Contact Us ·· Articles ·· Services Egypt stock photography trip report, May 28-June 10, 2006 Updated August 10, 2006 Page 1 of 5 Next page
	(Note: This trip is as I wrote it, with only spelling corrected; grammar is out when on a photo trip.) Click here to download the whole Egypt report in Acrobat PDF   North Africa Trip, Egypt Leg Cairo, Aswan, Esna, Edfu, Luxor, Hurghada, Sharm el-Sheikh May 28 - June 10, 2006 (Exchange rate: 5.74 Egyptian Pounds for $1US) © 2006 Aaron Linsdau Click here to see the Egypt Gallery Sunday, May 28, 2006 The flight from Morocco to Cairo was a boring 5 ½ hours out of rainy Casablanca. Didn't get nearly as much sleep as I needed but it wasn't bad for seats so tight that they crammed by knees on the Air Egypt flight. The path is pretty direct, over Tunisia, Algeria and the Gulf of Libya and into Egypt. Coming into Cairo in the morning, the incredible vastness of the desert can be seen before descending into smog-ridden Cairo. When arriving at the airport, I walked right past the taxi and hotel touts and got onto the Lonely Planet described big white bus. I didn't check to see if it was correct but I was supposed to take, just a bus. Walk past the car parking lot and you'll see it. After riding the bus for a good half hour through an unidentifiable Cairo slum for 50Pt (1/2 Egyptian pound), I had a feeling this was the wrong bus. That feeling was firmed up by a very nice Cairene (someone from Cairo) guy asking me if I knew where I was going. Quickly admitting no, another super nice guy with horribly disfigured hands gave me direction to get off the bus at the next stop and walk to the metro station to get to the Cairo Museum. Thanking him, I ejected myself from the wrong big white bus and walked into the world of the subway. I knew the Marriot was near the Cairo Museum, a major landmark. After getting that across to the ticket booth buy, I couldn't understand what, after asking twice, station to get off, so I just accepted entry and went along. Asked a couple guys and they kindly pointed me to the correct train direction and stop. Wow, I had ridden for so far that my subway entry point was 6 stops off the main Lonely Planet Cairo map (and it's big), so I was way south of old Cairo and way off course. That's okay because for another 1.5 LE (Egyptian Pounds), I was brought to where I needed to go. The front of the Cairo museum looks awfully small; hopefully this famous place with a big attempted robbery in 1996 is more impressive on the inside. Right now the goal is to forge on to the hotel, a mere ½ mile away. That walking seemed like a good choice at first was only for two reasons - I only had four hours of sleep so I wasn't ready to battle with taxi drivers and it allowed me a chance to stroll the mighty Nile River. It looks really quite big but perhaps not as big as my mind had decided it to be. The Ohio in Louisville, KY and the Salmon in Idaho look much bigger in my mind's eye. I have no way to compare the water flow. The engineer in me speaks. It was 10am and getting warm when I arrived at the hotel. Plopping down my seemingly lead filled backpack, all 2400 cubic inches of it, I checked into my room without trouble. Went up to shower off my disgusting sweaty self and cleaned up. This had been a long transit. After getting all gussied up, it was hot enough outside that my pants and socks ended up air drying from a complete washing in two hours. Seizing the opportunity, I washed my other filthy set of clothes (there are only two) and used the rapidly dried set to wander around wit ha bit. Grabbed a snack to keep the dogs of hunger at bay and set up a taxi driver for tomorrow to see Giza, Saqqara and Memphis for 250LE. I'm sure it's too expensive but I had to do nothing so perhaps it's worth it. Getting hotter, over 37 degrees C (99 degrees F). I took a dip in the pool to cool off, though the air and sun were hot enough that it was only comfortable in the water looking away from the sun. The view of the French girls in bikinis wasn't too bad, either. However, they all seemed to smoke, making them instantly unattractive. I thus occupied myself with roasting in the Jacuzzi, steam room and sauna. Feeling a bit woozy and completely tired (3pm), I grabbed a small snack in the hotel and hit the sack. I was honestly tired enough to sleep until 6pm and then grab my $3 bag of Bugles, scarf them and brush the teeth and go to be again until 5am the next morning. I was done. Monday, May 29, 2006 Woke up thrashing around from strange dreams so it was time to get the day started. I'd felt like a slug but getting another cold wasn't attractive so catching up on sleep was a good choice. Got the gear together, received my taxi call and went to meet Ahmed, my 250LE driver. He was a nice older guy, providing all sorts of advice on what to pay for things, negotiate, ignore or watch out for. The first stop was a papyrus museum. Here you're shown how papyrus is made, the process to get it from plant to paper. I didn't plan on buying anything but a Ramses II scene caught my eye from Justin. They wanted 150LE with hieroglyph names, I took it for 100LE. Should have been 75LE according to Ahmed's advice of ½ the price. Also, the quick agreement of the people in the papyrus museum reinforced that. I wasn't sure if the 5x squeeze on prices applies here. We stopped at ax stable Ahmed recommended and the stable manager of course didn't want to talk price, just get me going. That's okay, I'm not buying anything so I can argue price later. Even with a close stable, it's still a ridiculous distance to the Sphinx and Pyramids. It costs 40LE to get into the Pyramid area; I didn't pay for the guides to get in, apparently only tourists pay to get into the area. The Sphinx is not nearly as large as the photos make it out to be. It's still cool, though. I opted to go to the small pyramid behind the third largest to get a good perspective and climb the small pyramid. Naturally, there's a guide to take you up and then show you a paltry bit of hieroglyphics. I have him $2US and he got hot. He said tourists usually give him $20. Wow, for 12 minutes of showing me around, that's $100/hour. I'd like to make that! I gave him $1 and 20LE and left it at that. My young guides seemed a bit surprised but I paid too much already. Based on that, these people must rake in money. I was out on the Giza plateau at noon, the worst possible time to shoot, plus doing so while riding a horse is quite difficult. The smog didn't help, so I kicked in the polarizer and took what I could get. It was nothing like I'd hoped but on a 2 hour visit, you can't expect much. Before returning to the stable, the guides stop and ask you if you liked the ride. This is the baksheesh cue. These guys were nicer so I gave the main guy $10 and the walking kid $4. The walking kid's dialog in Arabic to my guide suggested "You're kidding. That's all he's going to pay?". Ah, ya guys. The guide also asked me to say I only paid $5 to each of them. It's a money grubbing world. Back at the stable, a perfume store was shown to me, but I wasn't interested. The guy wanted 200LE for the horse ride and I laughed in his face. I countered 150LE he accepted it too quickly. Ahmed was right, divide their prices by 2. I explained that in America, I can ride a horse for that long for half his price. That ploy seemed to work pretty well. Off to Saqqara to see the oldest large pyramid, Zozer's step pyramid. On the way in, Ahmed asked for 2LE so the Saqqara gate guard wouldn't find any trouble with our vehicle. They exchanged the money in a handshake pass and we went on. Funny. You buy the tickets to the plateau before getting there and then drive up. My SDSU student ID worked but with a little bit of arguing. By now I was rather hungry, so I swallowed my apple whole, hoping it would hold me over. Upon walking up to the disinterested guard, I showed my ticket and ran into eight guys standing around the stone entrance to "guide" and hit me up for money. Ignore them like the flies they are. It was an intimidating group but steel the nerves and move through. The Morocco experience helped train me. The sun beat down relentlessly, with shade only in the entrance complex. Ugh. A hat would be good here, glad I didn't have one or I might have been comfortable. The 0.6L water bottle lasted half way around the pyramid with the final walk facing into the sun. Although the entrance to the pyramid was closed, there was a pathetic piece of metal blocking the stairs down to the locked gate. Since no one was around, my ploy was to "drop" my water bottle down and I had to retrieve it. I quickly descended the stairs into the pleasantly cool darkness. A power cable ran down to a switch box and into the locked darkness. I couldn't resist tripping the switch. What's the worst that would happen? The pyramid blows up and falls on me? Lights came on and the dark hall into the pyramid was illuminated. Very cool. The tunnel was long enough that the end of it was indiscernible from the darkness. Took a few shots and then ran back up the stairs, slipping over the makeshift gate, undetected. Continuing my way clockwise around the pyramid, I saw that it would be treacherous to climb up this thing because every step held a steep pile of loose rubble. I even heard some stones skittering down the side of the pyramid as a reminder. Each step was angled up about 50 degrees, making an unassisted ascent nearly impossible. It certainly wouldn't be worth it. There are several interesting structures including the block of stone with to eye ports for the bust of Zozer to look northward to Polaris (North Star) until the gods resurrect him. This would all be fun but my energy level has crashed, I was out of water and the expensive climb up the small pyramid had made my pathetically weak quads sore presumably from a miniscule lunch and not really enough water as I'd only gone once today. My legs and body were reaping the fool's reward. Returned to Ahmed who said I took too long but I eyed him and he said it was no problem, we should make it to Memphis museum with plenty of time. Again, my student ID saved bucks and I spent the last 45 minutes exploring until I was kicked out of Memphis museum. Almost thought my gig was up when I told two guards who wanted to have me pay to take a picture with them (I passed) asked me the value of a Canadian coin given to them. I was playing a Canadian today. I sweated a second and figured I lived there for a week, so I could easily figure it out. It turns out the coin was a Kiddie Land token with Calvin (& Hobbes) on one side of the token and a circus tent on the other. I could have played along with the joke but decided to burn the money grubber and explain that it was only worth $0.25 but only in special places. He thanked me, I headed to see some other stone statues of Ramses II and I heard him toss the token against a stone. It was worth the 15 minute laugh and it gave me a great idea for future baksheesh payment accepting countries. Hahaha! The last stop was at an Egyptian carpet school, though it looked more like indentured servitude and labor to me. Got to see how camel, silk and blended carpets are made, creating 4 inches of fuzz on top and then they're cut with scissors to reveal the patterns beneath. I was willing to pay 100LE for a place mat sized blend and they wouldn't go below 120LE. For an Egyptian, the price would have been 70LE. The would have taken $500US for a 4x6 foot blended carpet. The showed a price of 4995LE and the dude whacked off the 4000LE part for an obvious student (me), reinforcing the divide by 5 principle. Wish I'd asked about the full silk carpets, which are something like 20k-40k LE. Maybe in the future but not right now. Returned to the hotel and paid Ahmed his 250LE without a request for a tip. I'd hoped not to have that fight and it was nice. The legs were torched, I was sun burned and tired so I grabbed a small dinner. My body was hungry but my stomach only accepted a small amount of food rammed into it. Headed to the poll, Jacuzzi, steam room and sauna to work out the leg soreness to no avail - this was bad. Since I was tired, the bed beaconed and my body and mind submitted to the call of slumber. Tuesday, May 30, 2006 Got some breakfast to get going then went down to the concierge to make reservations for the Cleopatra hotel in Aswan, seemingly a good choice. Week 3 gut issues have kicked in so I laid in bed for another hour, to try and feel a little better. By 11am, the intestines stabilized into a state that I could deal with but far from normal. Forced myself to get up and catch a taxi over to the Cairo Museum. These drivers refuse to let me go for anything less than 15LE, quite annoying. Went through the metal detector, weaseled another student ticket with my SDSU ID card, went through the second metal detector and x-ray and discovered no cameras at all are allowed, forcing me to go back out to the garden and drop it in a room with a lady handing out tags. Saw several other expensive cameras in there so I chose that option rather than looping back to the hotel. The museum is large and the seemingly small front fooled me. Wanting to cut to the chase since I didn't know how long I would feel good, I headed upstairs and to the absolute back of the museum to see the King Tutankhamen exhibition. Now I understand the no camera policy - it would have been a miserable experience had everyone been trying to take pictures of things. Ultimately, it was a good choice on their part. The head dress and all the accompanying pieces are beautiful, polished and bright for display. You can look inside the mask, too. The entire Tutankhamen exhibit takes up a significant space of the second floor and to think this was a minor king. A big king's tomb contents must have been incredible. Running painfully low on energy, I plodded back to the museum café for a lunch of a chicken tawook sandwich, blended mango and water. After a while the energy partly came back and I walked through all the halls to at least look at everything. The Old Kingdom stuff was most interesting for its age and size. Fought to use my SDSU ID to get into the mummy room and got the price down from 75LE to 50LE which, no doubt, the ticket taker kept the difference as the door guard checked the student ID. The ticket guy gave me a wink and said, "Welcome to Egypt". Other than seeing Ramses II (most prolific king) and Tutmosis III (greatest warrior king), that expense was a complete disappointment. I've seem more mummies in San Diego and the Louvre than in the Cairo Museum Mummy Room, though neither of those exhibitions are nearly as famous as the one in Cairo. Unless you're a mummy freak, spending $12US to see 9 mummies is a complete waste of money. Could have skipped that altogether and been just as happy if not more so. Not wanting to hassle with taxis, I opted for the ½ mile walk in the mostly shaded sidewalk of the Nile walk back to the hotel in hopes of getting the guts to settle down and smooth over. They didn't. Tried relaxing at the pool and Jacuzzi and that did help a bit. Went and got dinner, trying to pack down what I could, not knowing how the food on the train was. The hotel was nice enough to let me do a late checkout, making it much easier on me. Taxi drivers just don't let it go here. The first wanted 20LE to Ramses II station, I said 10LE and he wouldn't go below 15LE. This ride would cost an Egyptian 4LE. I blew that driver off and tried another driver and ended up with the same result. I capitulated this time. I left an hour before my train time and it was a good thing. It took 20 minutes by taxi, 15 minutes of wandering and asking strangely nice Egyptians happy to help and another 10 minutes walking through the train station until finding the right platform, number 8, directed to by the overnight train office. Was very thankful to have paid the $74US instead of the shared room price of $54 as it was quite cramped and you never know who you'll get, as I felt bad enough that I wanted to be left alone. We departed at 8pm, never stopped at the Giza station like the ticket seller guy said would happen, so it was very good to have gone to Ramses II station instead. At 9pm, dinner was served. The first container had breaded fish which I poked to verify the contents and the immediately put it away. The second dish was beef and rice, more inviting. I took small bites of the feed and rice and they both didn't taste right so I skipped on that, drank some water and bided my time until the dude came back to pick up the tray. When I got on the train, the little porter guy wanted to put my backpack up into storage and I refused. For doing nothing anyway, he held out his hand and hissed "Teeeppsss." I almost blew him off and then though better of it since I was at their mercy and you don't know who know who. Went to sleep and I did pretty well. The driver of this train sucks, he does real hard stops so all the cars bang into each other. Morocco had much smoother trains. At about 11:45pm, I woke up and my stomach felt terrible. Went to the toilet, blew out the backside guts something awful and then went back to bed. After five minutes of feeling bad, my stomach felt even worse. Next page
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